Real Estate

  Bloomberg Singapore’s property market may be closer to a bottom than Hong Kong, according to LaSalle Investment Management, which oversees more than $58bn in real estate funds. Governments in Asia’s two most expensive residential markets have imposed curbs in recent years to tame prices and improve affordability. As demand has dropped amid a slowdown in the region’s economies, home ...

  Bloomberg Blackstone Group LP, the world’s biggest private-equity property investor, plans to sell hotel buildings in London, Dublin and Amsterdam for about 980 million euros ($1.1 billion), according to people with knowledge of the matter. The hotels are all operated under Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc.’s DoubleTree brand, said the people, who asked not to be named because the information ...

  Bloomberg New York real estate developer Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp. offered to buy a controlling stake in Clal Insurance Enterprises Holdings Ltd., a unit of distressed IDB Development Ltd., according to two people familiar with the matter. IDBD said it received a non-binding offer that values the insurer at $743 million, without identifying the bidder. Michael Alpert, the president of ...

  Washington / AP Long-term U.S. mortgage rates rose this week but remained at low levels that could entice purchasers amid the current home buying season. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said that the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage increased to 3.64 percent from 3.58 percent last week. It’s far below its level a year ago of 3.87%. The average rate on 15-year ...

  Bloomberg Donald Trump criticized the wind-power industry this week for killing birds. A far bigger threat is real estate developers and their tall buildings. About 599 million birds are killed annually in the U.S. when they fly into windows, trailing only loss of habitat and cats as the top causes of bird deaths, according to the National Audubon Society. ...

  Washington / AP Americans signed more contracts to buy homes in April for the third straight month, driving pending home sales to the highest level in more than a decade. The National Association of Realtors said that its seasonally adjusted pending home sales index surged 5.1 percent last month to 116.3, the highest since 117.4 in February 2006. The April ...

  AP Real estate agents are flummoxed by a housing market that’s still trying to recover a decade after its historic collapse. Agents are getting higher commissions as home prices rise, but have fewer houses to list because homeowners are reluctant to sell. Many owners don’t want to put their homes on the market until they have more equity to ...

  Bloomberg Taiwan’s home prices, which have fallen in the past year ending a decade-long bull run, are poised to extend declines as the economy contracts and a new presidential administration focuses on equitable wealth distribution. Home values in Taiwan dropped 1.2 percent and transactions declined 15.5 percent since the first quarter of 2015, according to data from the Interior ...

  Bloomberg After World War II, the economic center of gravity in the U.S. began shifting from the cities to the suburbs — and that shift continued for more than a half-century. In the past few years, though, there’s been lots of talk about the trend reversing. What does the evidence show? Well, it can be a little confusing. Here, ...

  Bloomberg City Developments Ltd., Singapore’s second-largest developer, may seek to buy offices this year as rising interest rates makes such assets cheaper worldwide. “We are coming into a very good time for acquisitions,” Grant Kelley, CEO of City Developments, said in an interview in Singapore. “The long-term trend line for assets for the next 12 to 24 months could ...