Real Estate

  Bloomberg Merlin Properties Socimi SA and Metrovacesa SA agreed to combine their commercial and residential property businesses, creating Spain’s largest real estate investment trust. Merlin shares rose the most in five months. Merlin will pay €1.7 billion ($1.9 billion) in stock to the banks that own Metrovacesa and get a controlling stake in the combined firms’ commercial-property portfolio, issuing ...

  Bloomberg A popular narrative of the U.S. housing market has been that big city prices are locking out young buyers, feeding a cycle in which a growing number of people are forced to rent at ever higher rates as demand overwhelms supply. Throw in the fact that wages haven’t kept pace, and you have a world where a wide ...

  Bloomberg London home builders are counting on a weaker pound to tempt buyers back into the city’s beleaguered luxury-homes market if the U.K. votes to leave the European Union. “We have seen a lot of overseas interest and they are waiting until the result,” said Rob Perrins, chief executive officer of Berkeley Group Holdings Plc. “When you have got ...

  Bloomberg Lennar Corp., the second-largest U.S. homebuilder, reported fiscal second-quarter earnings that beat analysts’ estimates as the improving job market helped boost sales. Net income for the three months through May was $218.5 million, or 95 cents a share, compared with $183 million, or 79 cents, a year earlier, the Miami-based company said in a statement on Tuesday. The ...

  Bloomberg The Federal Reserve warned that prices in the commercial real-estate market may have run up too far too fast. Valuations in commercial real estate “appear increasingly vulnerable to negative shocks, as CRE prices have continued to outpace rental income,” the Fed said in its semiannual Monetary Policy Report to Congress. The Fed noted that prices exceed their pre-crisis ...

  Bloomberg It’s getting hot in the Amsterdam property market. The Netherlands, the nation of tulipmania almost 400 years ago, saw prices in its capital city surge almost 21 percent in the first quarter. While the blame partly falls on a simple supply-and-demand imbalance, the signs are pointing to a potential squeeze. In London, by comparison, government data show prices ...

  Bloomberg U.S. commercial real estate prices may fall as much as 5 percent in the next 12 months amid tightened regulations, a wall of debt maturities and property sales by publicly traded landlords, Pacific Investment Management Co. said in a report on Monday. A global surge in demand for U.S. property investments that pushed real estate values to records ...

  Bloomberg The recovery in China’s housing market that helped underpin the economy in the first half is showing signs of tapering off. New-home prices excluding government-subsidized housing climbed in 60 cities in May, down from 65 in April, among the 70 tracked, the National Bureau of Statistics said. With less of a boost from a recovering property market likely ...

  Bloomberg U.K. house prices continued to climb in June, with only the capital experiencing a decline ahead of this week’s referendum on European Union membership. Asking prices increased 0.8 percent to an average 310,471 pounds ($443,600), property website operator Rightmove said in report published on Monday. In London, they fell by 0.2 percent, hit by the effects of a ...

  Bloomberg The Playboy Mansion is under contract for more than $100 million. The buyer: a 32-year-old son of a billionaire who already owns the property next door. Daren Metropoulos, principal at investment firm Metropoulos & Co. and co-owner of Hostess Brands, has agreed to buy the Holmby Hills, California, estate where Playboy founder Hugh Hefner will continue to live, ...