Real Estate

  Bloomberg The U.S. consumer might be the engine of global growth — just not the roaring V12 it used to be. From the fourth quarter of 2003 through 2006, amid the real estate bubble, personal consumption expenditures grew at an average annual clip of 3.5 percent. Since the S&P/Case-Shiller Composite 20-City Home Price Index bottomed out in March 2012, ...

  Bloomberg It’s a good time to be a tenant in Singapore. Rentals across the city-state’s home, office and retail properties dropped in the quarter ended March as an oversupply and weak demand dragged down prices sought by landlords. Singapore’s home rental index dropped 1.3 percent in the three months ended March 31 from the previous quarter, data from the ...

  Bloomberg Home sales in New York’s Hamptons fell to the lowest level in three years as would-be buyers of beachside mansions stayed on the sidelines during a turbulent first quarter on Wall Street. Purchases in the Long Island resort towns, a second-home market popular with financiers and celebrities, totaled 437 in the three months through March, down 19 percent ...

  Bloomberg Blackstone Group LP, with real estate assets that have surpassed $100 billion, is considering tapping individual investors as it expands its push into owning high-quality buildings with steady income streams. “The prospects for growth in that business are huge,” Chairman and CEO Steve Schwarzman said on the company’s first-quarter earnings conference call. “At some point as we move ...

  Bloomberg The Australian state of Victoria will more than double a property tax for foreign buyers in a move that may undermine surging home prices in the nation’s second-largest city. The stamp duty surcharge will increase to 7 percent from 3 percent and will apply to contracts signed on or after July 1, according to a statement from state ...

Bloomberg Denys Laroche has been trying to sell his 18th century one-bedroom apartment just off the Champs-Elysees for six months. If the €3.75 million Paris home doesn’t attract a buyer soon, he may decide to wait for a new president next year. “We have a socialist president who’s increased taxes,” said Laroche, a business owner who’s about to retire and ...

  Bloomberg Purchases of previously owned U.S. homes rose more than projected in March, indicating resilience in demand heading into the spring selling season. Contract closings climbed 5.1 percent to a 5.33 million annualized rate from February’s 5.07 million, figures from the National Association of Realtors showed Wednesday in Washington. The median forecast of 75 economists in a Bloomberg survey ...

  Bloomberg A Chinese-led group agreed to buy Australia’s most iconic cattle company in a deal valued at more than A$370 million ($288 million) after partnering with local investors. The venture, headed by a company controlled by Shanghai Pengxin Group, will purchase 80 percent of S. Kidman & Co., according to a statement to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Australian Rural ...

  Bloomberg Blackstone Group LP, the world’s largest manager of alternative assets, said first-quarter profit fell 77 percent as rocky markets curbed asset sales and new buyouts. Its real estate operation struck two massive deals: a $6.5 billion sale of Strategic Hotels & Resorts Inc. to China’s Anbang Insurance Group Co., which is expected to close later this year, and ...

  Bloomberg Workers have almost completed mounting the copper paneling on the American Copper Buildings (née 626 First Avenue), the new tilting, two-towered development on Manhattan’s East Side, but their most striking feature—a three-story, 100-foot-long skybridge—is still open to the elements. A Bloomberg photographer (and a laughably heights-averse reporter) had the chance to take the construction elevator up to the ...