Salient to Investors: Europe’s biggest real estate managers are making their first investments in southern Europe since the financial crisis as low prices and diminishing risk make commercial properties more attractive. Anne Kavanagh at Axa Real Estate Investment Managers said we are at or near the bottom and starting to see
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Rightmove said UK home prices will climb 4 percent in 2013 as sellers raised asking prices for a seventh month to a record in July. Miles Shipside at Rightmove said a combination of apparent economic stability internationally and some signs of an economic upturn nationally mean more home movers are willing and able to increase
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Acadametrics and LSL Property Services said prime property buyers are pouring money into London, helping increase UK house prices 2.5 percent from a year earlier to another record in June. Prices have increased for 10 consecutive months, driven by buoyant international demand for London homes and loosening mortgage availability. Acadametrics said house-price inflation in
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman Real Estate said the median price of Brooklyn condominiums, co-ops and 1- to 3-family homes that sold in Q2 was $550,000, up 15 percent from a year earlier and the highest in more than a decade of record keeping. Jonathan Miller at Miller Samuel said the inventory of
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Foreclosure auctions surged last month, signaling lenders are preparing to sell a backlog of distressed properties amid rising home prices. RealtyTrac said total US foreclosure filings are the lowest since December 2006. S&P/Case-Shiller report prices for single-family homes in the Miami metro area climbed 13 percent in April from a year earlier,
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Hamilton “Tony” James of Blackstone Group said stocks were a fool’s game compared with alternative investments. and investing in alternatives makes sense even when they underperform. James said the return from these idiosyncratic investments are very uncorrelated to the broader markets, so portfolio volatility falls. Hedge funds have been
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Banks are offering jumbo mortgages – too big for government programs – at rates at or below taxpayer-backed loans, while the extra cost of 30-yr fixed jumbo loans averaged a 6-year low of 0.16 percent in June. Paul Miller at FBR Capital Markets said bigger loans are becoming relatively cheaper
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicate that California is losing ground in the number of business establishments – 5.2 percent fewer at the end of 2012 than in the previous year or 73,000 fewer versus second-place Massachusetts which lost 5,200 businesses. Nebraska added businesses at 11.9 percent, the fastest rate.
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Michael Hsu at Ipsos says the share of Canadian households with debts greater than or equal to 250 percent of gross income reached a record 13.5 percent in 2012 then dropped to 11.4 percent in Q1 2013, though most of the debt is going into real estate
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The share of yet-to-be-built dwellings was 36 percent in May versus 26 percent a year ago and versus 14 percent in September 2008. Neil Dutta at Renaissance Macro Research said there is clearly more housing starts activity in the pipeline, while the economic outlook is improving and there
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