Articles
Real-estate funds only for those willing to await market recovery
The deteriorating condition of property markets worldwide has caused many investors to cut a wide swath around real estate mutual funds in the past year. News of the Reichmanns' financial troubles coupled with the suspension of redemptions at troubled Central Guaranty Trust Co.'s real-estate estate fund confirmed people's fears about the decline in property values and corresponding slide in fund performance. ...
New ways to hedge real estate
Investments based on real estate price indexes will be traded in the United States beginning in the first quarter of next year, opening up the multitrillion-dollar real estate markets to institutional investors and large corporations like never before. The new derivatives will not only give investors the ability to invest in real estate without having to buy bricks and mortar, they will also give finance executives new opportunities to hedge their corporate real estate assets. ...
Prospects soar for investing in real estate in Europe
As the real estate investing market in the U.S. shows signs of topping off, countries in the throes of restructuring, such as Germany, Italy and Spain, are drawing new interest from real estate investors, mostly private equity funds associated with major U.S. investment banks. New opportunities are also cropping up abroad in the securitization of international real estate assets, as U.S. commercial mortgage-backed issuance slid a steep 20% in the year's first half. ...
Vancouver, St. John's brighten gloomy outlook for development
Optimism is slowly returning to the Canadian economy, but real estate developers must still temper theirs with some caution. Most residential and commercial real estate markets remain soft, and few are likely to show much improvement for at least three years. This is especially true in commercial real estate. ''There are very few markets where we see development potential in the next three years,'' says Kevin Benson, president and chief executive of Trizec Corp. in Calgary. ''The reason is that most are overbuilt between 15% and 20% in total.'' ...
CAREER DEVELOPING PROPERTY
Pradip Chopra feels there is a lot of scope for the real estate professional in this era of property boom FIFTY-TWO per cent of Indias population is below 25 years of age. It therefore does not require an economist to predict that there will be an increased demand of houses shortly. The population at present faces an acute shortage of housing. The Ninth Five-Year Plan estimates the urban housing shortage at 16.75 million and the rural housing shortage at16.25 million. ...
Welcome attack on price-fixing
Of the many species of professionals operating in the economy, the residential real estate agent stands out as least likely to receive the adulation of the masses. Real estate agents are those warm and friendly six-per-centers whose warmth and friendliness usually disappear the moment the sales agreement has been signed and the 6% more or less secured. ...
