AP U.S. home prices scaled new heights in April, with seven cities — Boston, Charlotte, Dallas, Denver, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, Oregon — setting highs. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index rose 5.4 percent in April compared with a year earlier, just below the 5.5 percent year-over-year gain posted in March. Home values are now just ...
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$15mn can buy you a small piece of Hamptons history
Bloomberg In 1910, an attorney named Albert Barnes Boardman bought close to 10 acres in downtown Southampton, N.Y., and spent $250,000 (approximately $30 million today) to build a 24-room, four-story mansion modeled after the Villa Medici in Rome. There were formal gardens, fountains, sprawling lawns, a tennis court, and a gatehouse. Boardman owned it until 1927, after which the ...
Read More »London’s loss is Asia’s gain as realty funds seek safe havens
Bloomberg London may have just shed its safe-haven property market tag with the U.K.’s vote to break away from the European Union. That’s good news for real estate markets in Asia that offer stability. Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia, which face headwinds including oversupply and high prices, may see money flowing into property as investors flee to safer assets ...
Read More »Crown Estate’s UK property rises almost 10% to $15.8 billion
Bloomberg The Crown Estate, the property company that generates income for Queen Elizabeth II, said the value of its real estate rose 9.7 percent to a record 12 billion pounds ($15.8 billion). Total return, comprising of rental income and value increases, from its properties, wind farms and other assets was about 17 percent over the past year, the London-based ...
Read More »Cohen’s Point72 plans move to skyscraper in NYC’s Hudson Yards
Bloomberg Billionaire Steven A. Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management agreed to move its New York offices to 55 Hudson Yards, the third skyscraper planned for Related Cos.’s $25 billion development on Manhattan’s far west side. Point72, the $11 billion firm that oversees Cohen’s wealth, plans to lease more than 175,000 square feet across six floors in the tower, according to ...
Read More »QIA mulls abandoning Credit Suisse office sale
AP The Qatar Investment Authority is considering abandoning the sale of 1 Cabot Square, an office building in London’s Canary Wharf financial district leased to Credit Suisse Group AG, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. QIA was reviewing the sale plan even before the U.K. voted to leave the European Union, the people said, asking not ...
Read More »Silicon Valley’s latest startup offering is a whole city
Bloomberg Y Combinator, the startup accelerator and investment firm that helped produce Airbnb, Dropbox, and Instacart, is embarking on a creation project arguably more ambitious than any company. “We want to build cities,” wrote Y Combinator partner Adora Cheung and President Sam Altman in an announcement slated for release Monday. YC Research, Y Combinator’s nonprofit arm, plans to solicit ...
Read More »Singapore realty gets a prop with a whiff of Brexit
Bloomberg For all the damage it’s doing to a fragile global economy, Brexit might have some unintended positive consequences. Among them, perhaps, a soft landing for Singapore’s wobbly property market. With hindsight, the seemingly excessive S$3.4 billion ($2.5 billion) that Qatar Investment Authority paid BlackRock this month to buy an office tower amid a glut of commercial space could ...
Read More »Brexit unlikely to curtail Gulf appetite for UK property
DUBAI / AFP Harrods, the Savoy, the Shard — London property has long been a magnet for Gulf investors and Britain’s vote to leave the European Union is unlikely to dampen their interest, analysts say. In fact, the Brexit vote could even see a surge in activity as wealthy Gulf buyers look to take advantage of the dramatic fall in ...
Read More »EU exit to prolong London’s housing woes, says Foxtons
Bloomberg Foxtons Group Plc forecast lower 2016 revenue and profit as the U.K.’s decision to leave the European Union prolongs uncertainty in London’s residential property market. The shares fell to the lowest since the company’s stock-market debut. Earnings will fall significantly from a year earlier as “challenging conditions†hurt sales volumes, the London-based property broker said in a statement ...
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