Salient to Investors: Even the wealthiest property investors are fleeing London’s best districts due to higher sales taxes of up to 12% on the amount above £1.5 million. Camilla Dell at Black Brick Property Solutions said clients are spending an average of £2 million less on each transaction this year and are
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Harry Dent writes: All the signs point to the end of the global bubble. The greatest trigger will be the bursting of the massive, unprecedented China bubble. China’s stock market loss of 35% in less than 30 days signals its stock bubble has peaked: a drop of 30% to 40%
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Cash transactions accounted for 24% versus 33% a year ago. Investors, 63% of whom paid cash, were 14% of the market last month versus 19% in September 2013. Foreclosures and short sales were 10% of the total. First-time buyers accounted for 29% versus the historical average of 40%. The average
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: DJ Busch at Green Street Advisors said the Washington Prime/Glimcher Realty Trust deal may spark further consolidation among owners of “B” malls as there are many benefits to scale. Jerry Bruni at J.V. Bruni said lower-tier malls are a better bargain than pricey luxury properties, and owning the
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The lost medieval city of Angkor in Cambodia once covered 1,000 sq km – only equalled by London some 700 years later – and contained nearly a million people and the world’s biggest religious complex covering area 4 times larger than Vatican City. The end of the
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Centaline said a wait-and-see attitude is still prevalent among homebuyers Donald Yu at Guotai Junan Securities said there is still room for prices to go down further as the policy easing only increased the number of people qualified to buy, not the number of those able to as mortgages remain
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Tony James at Blackstone said hedge funds are a way to play the stock market with lower volatility and lower returns – shoot-the-lights-out returns are best left to private equity and real estate. Neil Chriss at Hutchin Hill Capital said Calpers’ hedge-fund allocation was not big enough to
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Naoki Kamiyama and David Cui at Merrill Lynch said: China is weaker than it appears, resembles Japan in 1992, and may enter an asset-deflation phase. China’s imbalanced growth, government stimulus, overcapacity, overwrought housing market, and severely under-capitalized financial system may be a more serious problem than Japan’s was in the
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Since 2011, online investors since 2011 have helped drive a 50-fold increase in financing through peer-to-peer websites, and are turning to property as falling home prices prompt China to ease curbs aimed at stamping out speculation. China is trying to revive local-government revenues at the risk of
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reports the share of Americans 65 and older with mortgage debt rose to 30% in 2011 with a median debt adjusted for inflation of $79,000, from 22% in 2001 with a median debt of $43,400. The increase in mortgage debt makes these households more susceptible
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