Real Estate

  AFP Nancy Kidwell is a modern-day pioneer of the American desert, a rough-riding frontierswoman who built an entire town amid the lonely Yucca trees and sturdy sagebrush, where nothing existed before. A half-century ago, Kidwell and first husband Slim turned a triangle-shaped gravel airstrip abandoned by the US military into a thriving community that featured a casino, store, camper ...

  Bloomberg Increasing infrastructure investment is the best way to boost economic growth in China and doing so doesn’t undermine efforts to overhaul the economy, according to former central bank adviser Yu Yongding. “If China does not increase infrastructure investment now, it may miss a historical opportunity,” Yu said on Saturday at an economics conference in Beijing. “In order to ...

  Bloomberg New York luxury-condo builder Extell Development Co. says it’s taking longer than expected to obtain construction financing for its One Manhattan Square project as lenders pull back from the market. Extell had anticipated getting a construction loan for the downtown project by the beginning of June, as a condition of closing a separate financing deal with RXR Realty ...

  Bloomberg When interior designer Timothy Corrigan bought Château du Grand-Lucé, an 18th century neoclassical mansion in France’s Loire Valley, for €2.2 million ($2.46 million) in 2005, “I figured I’d be there at least one weekend a month,” he said. “Last year, I was there a total of six days. This year, I haven’t been there once.” Now he’s putting ...

  Bloomberg The Ibovespa extended a weekly drop as mining company Vale SA tumbled and real-estate companies slumped after a report that the government may cut the number of units to be built under its housing program. Vale was among the biggest contributors to the index’s slide on Friday amid lower metal prices. The BM&FBovespa Real Estate Index of 14 ...

  Bloomberg Expat housing packages are so 2012. Long the golden privilege of the Hong Kong-based finance and banking crowd in Asia, the days of guaranteed housing allowances fat enough to rent a 4,000-square-foot harbor-view home on the Peak or a townhouse in exclusive Repulse Bay for HK$300,000 ($38,650) a month are gone. That perk is being slashed or eliminated, ...

  Bloomberg The Kuwait Investment Authority, which describes itself as the world’s oldest sovereign wealth fund, is targeting global infrastructure projects after taking part in a consortium that bought the London City Airport this year, Chairman Anas Al-Saleh said. The fund has shied away from purchasing trophy assets, focusing on deals that “give us our targeted returns,” Al-Saleh, the country’s ...

  Bloomberg Brigitte Blackman, a real estate agent in inner Sydney, says her property listings have slumped 20 percent from a September peak, and the phones at her Potts Point office are no longer ringing off the hook. As Australia barrels toward elections on July 2, political uncertainty is weighing on the nation’s A$6.4 trillion ($4.7 trillion) housing market. With ...

  Bloomberg New York’s financial regulator has issued subpoenas to two companies with ties to Apollo Global Management LLC as part of an inquiry into housing transactions for low-income buyers. The New York State Department of Financial Services subpoenaed ARM Manager LLC, an indirect Apollo subsidiary, and the real estate investment trust it manages, Apollo Residential Mortgage Inc., asking for ...

AP Builders ramped up construction of new homes in April, suggesting that the market remains solid despite sluggish economic growth at the beginning of the year. Housing starts climbed 6.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.17 million units, the Commerce Department said. The increase makes up for much of March’s 9.4 percent drop in starts, a decline ...