IPIN Live - Archived News for February 2011

London-based hotel managers are confident that room rates and average revenue per available room will improve during the first quarter of 2011, according to the HotStats Hotel Confidence Monitor.

There has been a turnaround in the fortunes of Canada's commercial real estate market, with it enjoying the strongest performance in three years, the REALpac/IPD Canada Annual Property Index has revealed....

International property investors have bought more than 800 million GBP worth of London real estate sold at exhibitions in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong in 2010, it has been revealed...

Office markets around the world are increasingly reporting an upturn in demand, with investors hoping to take advantage of improving economic situations and rising rental and occupancy rates....

Despite the recent VAT increase and the implementation of various austerity measures expected to stifle consumer spending, hoteliers in the UK remain confident about their performance this year....

Investors are racing against the clock to invest in London's booming hotel market ahead of the 2012 Olympic Games, it has been claimed. TRI Hospitality Consulting has reported that the sector is currently outperforming cities such as Paris, Madrid, Rome, Berlin and Amsterdam ahead of the global sporting event, with demand and building work rising.....

The latest European Fair Value Index (FVI), published by DTZ, has suggested that property markets in the region now offer less attractive returns for investors than they did in the third quarter of 2010....

Over the past three years, investors with agricultural property in their portfolio have found that their assets have topped the investment performance league in the UK....

The London prime property market is attracting more investors than ever, as potential buyers look to snap up real estate in the best locations available....

Property prices and transaction levels in Canada have continued to impress, with activity in the market up a further 4.5 per cent in January reaching the highest level since April last year....

A quarter of property professionals in the Middle East have admitted that their understanding of the real estate sector in Abu Dhabi is "poor", the results of a recent survey have revealed....

The Chinese government has announced that it will be scrapping its much-maligned national property price index for residential and commercial real estate in the country....

Better employment prospects, growing business confidence and an expectation for solid economic growth over the course of 2011 have helped to bolster the commercial real estate market in Russia during the fourth quarter of 2010....

Activity in the Asian property market was up considerably last year compared to 2009, with investors taking advantage of the economic recovery and spending a total of USD 63 billion in transactions. The figures, released by real estate consultancy CB Richard Ellis (CBRE), are a massive 59 per cent up on 2009....

Fresh from being named as the number one European city for property investment by PricewaterhouseCoopers, official data has now revealed that Istanbul has enjoyed a 28.5 per cent increase in visitor numbers during January....

Permits for new residential homes in the US fell by 10.4 per cent during January, figures released by the Commerce Department's US Census Bureau have revealed....

Demand for gold in China has surged as investors turn to the precious metal amid rising concerns surrounding inflation in the country. Gold's bull market stumbled in January, with the price sliding more than seven per cent from its all-time high...

Investment in overseas real estate by Koreans surged by in excess of 170 per cent in 2010 compared to the previous year as a result of the global economic recovery. The Finance Ministry has announced that Korean residents bought overseas real estate valued at USD 611....

Encouraging growth in the UK's residential and commercial property markets should be a primary concern for the coalition government, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has said....

Weak employment prospects, the rising cost of living and pay freezes across the UK are likely to contribute to the real estate market declining slightly over the course of this year, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) claims....

Globally, investor feeling towards commercial real estate purchases is picking up, with Latin American and Asian markets leading the way in terms of opportunities. ...

New York, Kuala Lumpur and London are three destinations that real estate speculators are becoming increasingly confident about, international property investment firm IP Global has claimed....

There are pronounced regional and sector differences present in the UK commercial real estate market, with prime London office space continuing to outperform the rest of the country, the latest index has found....

A strengthening economy, rising consumer confidence and better job prospects are expected to bolster the Canadian real estate market in 2011, with higher than expected growth forecast. The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) has revised its prediction for residential sales this year, with the firm stating that transaction levels will pick up after a slow start....

Property is considered to be a better investment than gold, shares, currency and savings, the results of a new survey have found. The latest research from the Worldwide Property Group has suggested that investor confidence is starting to return, with 69 per cent of the opinion that now is a good time to purchase real estate abroad....

Residential property prices in China climbed by 0.95 per cent in January compared to the previous month, according to private data provider China Real Estate Index System (CREIS). The price increase comes despite a rash of steps to contain property inflation since late 2009, including a trial of a long debated property tax in Shanghai and Chongqing....

An increasing number of Nordic-based investors have begun to reassess their strategies and are being lured back to making real estate purchases, the Financial Times reports. Pension funds in the region had been very active in property markets all around the world in the years leading up to the crisis, but were faced with a backlash as the markets began to tumble....

Buy to let investing in the UK rose by 22 per cent in 2010 compared to the previous year, new figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) have revealed. This increase in lending meant that the country's buy to let market expanded by seven per cent over the timeframe, with the total monetary value handed out by banks to investors standing at GBP 10....

A growing number of Indian buyers are snapping up property in Singapore, despite the country introducing a series of cooling measures designed to stifle the real estate market. Savills Research and Consultancy senior manager Christine Sun explains that there has been a marked increase in the number of Indian buyers active in the country since 2008, Asia One has reported....

Property in central London is expected to be more resilient to further price falls than the rest of the UK market, research from Capital Economics has forecast. In total, the organisation believes that home values in the region will fall by around ten per cent when compared to the market peak, about half the expected decline the body predicts will be seen for the UK as a whole....

Demand for office space in Australia has increased over the past few months as investors become more confident about the country's economic growth fundamentals, a new report has claimed....

Chinese property investors are being increasingly drawn to the London real estate market to take advantage of the favourable exchange rates which are currently on offer, a leading consultancy has claimed....

The Economist magazine has identified a new wave of high-growth emerging countries which are expected to post strong economic performance over the coming years. Named the CIVETS, Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa have been singled out by the influential business publication thanks to their large and young populations, diversified economies ....

Foreign buyers, particularly Europeans, have been driving the demand for prime central London property and contributing to annual price growth of over ten per cent in the last 12 months, the latest index from Knight Frank has found....

The central London property market will enjoy rapid growth over the next five years, with strong demand and a lack of supply helping to push prices up, the latest report from property consultants Cluttons has forecast....

Home values in the US will continue their decline until the middle of 2011 before starting on the road to recovery in the final six months of the year, a new poll conducted by Reuters has suggested. Canvassing the opinion of 26 of the leading US-based economists, over half said that they believe that the market would hit bottom this year in either the second or third-quarter....

Confidence is slowly beginning to return to the real estate market in Florida, according to the results of a recent survey. The University of Florida has claimed that the outlook for new single family homes, offices, retail units, land investment and capital availability continued to improve during the fourth quarter of 2010....

The recovery seen in the UK construction sector during 2010 appears to have "run out of steam", the latest report from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has claimed....

A recent survey of real estate professionals has highlighted the growing importance of sustainability for tenants choosing office space. The Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2011 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the Urban Land Institute has found that environmental concerns...

Improvements in the availability of real estate equity in Europe are expected to help bolster the region's real estate market this year, the latest report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute has forecast....

The commercial real estate market in Japan is in desperate need of an increase in the number of transactions, it has been suggested. Investment in office and retail property has fallen by over 20 per cent over the two and a half years to the end of the third-quarter of 2010, figures have shown....

A growing number of investors are using cash to buy property in central London as mortgages become more difficult to get hold of, a local consultancy has claimed....

A lack of funding for residential development in England is causing price increases to slow rapidly, it has been suggested. According to Knight Frank, urban land values fell by one per cent and in Greater London the fall was higher at 2....

The European real estate industry will be forced to adapt to tougher regulations, harsh spending cuts from governments and a tight lending environment, the latest report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has claimed....

According to a survey of real estate professionals, Istanbul is considered the best place in Europe to develop property, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has said. The firm explained that strong economic growth in the country, twinned with the poor performance of surrounding nations is helping to drive interest in investment in the region....

For the first time since August 2010, all three of the UK construction sub-sectors enjoyed an increase in activity during January, according to the Markit/CIPS UK Construction PMI. The figures show that the index climbed to 53....

Office markets around the world are expected to enjoy the best trading and performance since 2007 in the coming 11 months, Jones Lang LaSalle has forecast. The property consultant has revealed that the worldwide market is currently at its strongest for two years....

The second half of 2010 followed the same pattern as the first in the Northern Emirates property market with little demand for new residential or office properties, according to a new report. CB Richard Ellis said that rents and prices in the region are continuing their downward spiral as a result of the lack of interest....

A number of long-term property investors are returning to the UK residential market as a result of a rise in average rents over the past 12 months, the latest Savills Spotlight on Residential Investment report has found....

Real estate investors are finding that there is a lack of clear and defined guidelines relating to sustainable commercial property in Europe. This is the finding of a recent study by Union Investment Real Estate, which highlighted the need to introduce criteria to evaluate a buildings' ecological stability....

The property market in Kenya was "exceptional" last year in global terms, with home values surging forward, one consultancy agency has claimed. Real estate values in Kenya increased by 5.8 per cent over the course of 2010, HassConsult Ltd has said....

Despite falling flat in the final quarter of 2010, English farmland values ended the year 13 per cent higher than 2009, new figures released by Knight Frank have revealed. According to the firm's Farmland Index....

Interest from investors in property in Hungary is growing, the latest market report from Colliers International has found. According to the property consultant, the total investment volume in the Hungarian real estate market over the course of 2010 was around EUR 185 million....

Foreign interest in the Ukrainian commercial property market is expected to exceed demand from domestic buyers, CB Richard Ellis has predicted....

UK property buyers will be hoping to cash in on the weakened residential market over the course of the coming year, new figures have suggested. City AM reported that specialist bank and asset manager Investec has found housing to be the most attractive buy for property investors during 2011....