LONDON | The retail property market in the UK continues to struggle, as demand for retail premises stuttered again in the first three months of 2012. This lack of interest in the sector combined with growing availability resulted in a further drop in rental expectations, the latest RICS UK Commercial Market Survey showed on Tuesday. Interest from potential tenants of retail space continued to fall in the first quarter of the…
LONDON | Asset manager company AXA Real Estate said Monday it signed 68 leases on behalf of its clients representing a total of 113,350 sqm of space across its Spanish portfolio in 2011. This marks an increase of around 90% compared to 2010, when 60,855 sqm of space was let across 42 leases. Of the 68 lettings, 23 representing 10,707 sqm, were new leases, while the remaining 45, accounting for 102,643 sq m of space, comprised lease…
LONDON | Real house prices in the euro area have risen by an average of 23% since 2001, less than half UK’s growth of 50%. Five of the European Monetary Union country members saw a better house performance than the euro zone average: France saw the largest increase (82%), followed by Belgium (69%), Finland (61%), Spain (46%) and Italy (31%). In contrast, there were real price declines in Ireland (-23%), Germany…
MADRID | Morgan Stanley published a report that analyses the implications of the banking deleveraging process for the commercial real estate sector in Europe. The bottom line is that it will generate a gap in financing estimated in €400 to €700 billion during the coming years and that this is a structural trend. “We believe that the winners may be the venture capitalists. In our view, Blackstone and Partners Group are well positioned to step in that section of business once banks leave. Financing activity in commercial real estate has an…
LONDON | The British Property Federation issued a warning Thursday to Chancellor George Osborne ahead of possible Treasury action to close a stamp duty loophole through with foreign fortunes would be avoiding tax. The bill, according to official calculations, amounts to £1 billion, but UK’s property sector said that Osborne “must tread carefully with ‘super-rich’ stamp duty reform” and “tread lightly with any anti-avoidance intervention.” The BPF admitted there is a the…
LONDON | AXA Real Estate confirmed Monday that transaction volumes across the full risk spectrum of opportunistic to core have substantially increased in Europe. The real estate portfolio and asset fund was during 2011 a net buyer on behalf of its clients, with acquisitions totalling €2.6 billion, which included €900 million of committed development expenditure, compared to sales amounting to €2.1 billion. The financial management firm was active throughout Europe, in the economically stronger euro…
[UPDATE] By Juan Pedro Marín Arrese, in Spain | The Spanish government will disclose on Friday its plans for a massive clean-up in mortgage-backed bad loans from banking balance sheets. This move is indeed highly welcome so long this overhaul doesn’t push too far eating all resources at hand. Once a €50 billion adjustment has been announced, markets will only settle for a substantially higher figure. In many cases, meeting such…
Although the first signs of uncertainty have begun to emerge on the Asian continent with listed real estate companies trading at discounts, real estate fundamentals remain largely trusted. From the macro-economic perspective, Asian giants, China and India, continue to enjoy GDP growth rates of 9.1% and 7.7% respectively in Q3 2011, while other significant markets such as Singapore and Hong Kong also witnessed GDP growth of 6.1% and 4.3% respectively…
