Category Archives: Real Estate

New Zealand’s pandemic housing policy has baked in Māori inequality for generations | Iain White

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In Jacinda Ardern’s ‘team of 5 million’, some players have been rewarded very differently to others

The only thing more predictable than rising house prices is the tenor of stories as monthly data from governments or the real estate sector are reported. Record highs in particular places, predictions of trends from economists. Or, the young couple who managed to “get on the housing ladder”, but upon reading you realise it was with financial help from parents.

However, behind these articles a much larger housing story has gradually unfolded. An account of huge and growing inequality. How a government policy designed to respond to the global pandemic and the fear of economic recession has not just created significant wealth, but distributed it in such a concentrated way that it will change the nature of Aotearoa New Zealand for generations to come.

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China property giant Evergrande admits debt crisis as protesters besiege HQ

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Disgruntled investors voice anger at headquarters as company appoints advisers and says firesale of assets won’t cover debts

Property giant China Evergrande Group has said that it cannot sell properties and other assets fast enough to service its massive $300bn debts, and that its cashflow was under “tremendous pressure”.

Only hours after angry investors besieged its Shenzhen headquarters and the company denied it was set for bankruptcy, Evergrande issued a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange saying that a significant drop in sales would continue this month, which was likely to further deteriorate its liquidity and cash flow.

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From 1m trees to a tree graveyard: how Dubai’s conservation plans went awry

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Hundreds of thousands of trees have died after costly real estate projects thwarted attempts to halt desertification

It all began so beautifully, with the ruler of Dubai photographed planting the first tree of his ambitious environmental initiative, as smiling officials applauded around him.

In 2010, the One Million Trees initiative was announced by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Dubai. The aim of the launch was to increase green areas in Dubai through afforestation, while contributing to overall beautification of the city.

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Disinfection robots and thermal body cameras: welcome to the Covid-free office

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A workplace in Bucharest filled with anti-virus innovations could become the new normal in office design, its creators hope

Not so long ago it may have seemed more like a futuristic vision of the workplace – or a hospital.

But the hands-free door handles, self-cleaning surfaces, antimicrobial paint, air-monitoring display tools, UV light disinfection robots, and 135 other measures at an office block in Bucharest are here to stay, say the creators behind what they are touting as one of the world’s most virus-resilient workplaces, which they hope will become the new normal in office design.

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Vatican reveals it owns more than 5,000 properties

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Real estate holdings published for first time show it owns 4,051 properties in Italy, 1,120 abroad

The Vatican has released information on its real estate holdings for the first time, revealing it owns more than 5,000 properties, as part of its most detailed financial disclosures ever.

The information released on Saturday was contained in two documents – a consolidated financial statement for 2020 for the Holy See and the first ever public budget for the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (Apsa).

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Chinese tycoon gets go-ahead to build vast central London ‘palace’

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Westminster council unable to block Cheung Chung-kiu’s grand plans for Knightsbridge property despite ban on “Monopoly board-style” homes

A Chinese billionaire has been granted planning permission to construct an eight-storey, 5,760-sq metre (62,000-sq-ft) private palace overlooking Hyde Park, central London.

Westminster city council granted Cheung Chung-kiu, a Hong Kong-based property tycoon, permission to partly demolish and reconstruct 2-8A Rutland Gate, in Knightsbridge, in order to create his vast new home, which experts said could be worth up to £500m when completed.

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Meals by wheels: UK drive-through booms as brands invest in new sites

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Social distancing is feeding an appetite for a new generation of US-style drive-through restaurants

Drive-through restaurants used to be a US-inspired novelty but a big increase in custom during the pandemic means money is pouring into new UK sites, with even upmarket names looking to serve food through car windows for the first time.

New property research suggests that demand for drive-throughs has increased by 25% post-Covid with restaurant chains looking to open a total of 200 sites a year. The clamour comes as established names such as McDonald’s and Burger King face competition from North American brands such as Tim Hortons, famous for its coffee and doughnuts, and burger chain Wendy’s.

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House asking prices hit record levels across Great Britain

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Rightmove data shows largest June increase since 2015 but economists suggest Covid boom may be fading

House asking prices have hit record levels across every region of Great Britain, according to latest figures, although some experts have questioned whether the pandemic boom is finally starting to wane.

The price of properties coming to market rose by 0.8% month on month in June to a third consecutive record of £336,073, according to data from Rightmove, a property listings website.

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Revealed: the huge British property empire of Sheikh Mohammed

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Holdings of more than 40,000 hectares in London, Scotland and Newmarket make Dubai ruler one of UK’s biggest landowners

The controversial ruler of Dubai has acquired a land and property empire in Britain that appears to exceed 40,000 hectares (100,000 acres), making him one of the country’s largest landowners, according to a Guardian analysis.

The huge property portfolio apparently owned by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum and his close family ranges from mansions, stables and training gallops across Newmarket, to white stucco houses in some of London’s most exclusive addresses and extensive moorland including the 25,000-hectare Inverinate estate in the Scottish Highlands.

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Schitt’s Creek motel for sale – minus the ‘Rosebud’ sign

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First the Rose family’s former mansion hit the real estate lists – now it’s the 10-room motel they called home

The motel home of the Rose family in the Emmy-sweeping Canadian TV series Schitt’s Creek is up for sale for C$2m.

The Hockley Motel in the Canadian town of Mono, Ontario, was a key filming location throughout the six seasons of the hit CBC sitcom.

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Battle for Brixton’s soul as billionaire Texan DJ plans 20-storey tower block

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Residents vow to stop Taylor McWilliams’s scheme to develop a site that looms over the famous Electric Avenue street market

The outcome of the fight may help shape London’s future skyline. In one corner is a Texan millionaire DJ and property developer who has put forward plans for a 20-storey office block in Brixton, next to a conservation area and the district’s famous Electric Avenue.

Taylor McWilliams’s property company Hondo, which owns most of Brixton market, claims the proposal will “deliver” 2,000 jobs in the area and generate £2.8m every year for the local economy.

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‘There’s nobody here’: Covid turns Wall Street into a ghost town

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Exodus that started after 9/11 has accelerated — and many fear New York’s financial district will not recover

“They used to stand at the bar three deep,” says John Moran, surveying the long, empty counter at Killarney Rose, a Wall Street bar that would, in another era, have been stuffed with early-shift construction workers and, at lunch and late into the evening, suited bankers.

The world’s pre-eminent financial thoroughfare – at least throughout the 20th century – is a ghost of what it once was. The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq are still located here, but dozens of financial institutions have emptied out from New York’s financial district in an exodus that started in the wake of 9/11 and has been hastened by Covid.

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Super-rich buying up ‘Downton Abbey estates’ to escape pandemic

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Sales of £15m-plus English country homes breaking records as wealthy families ‘recalibrate their priorities’

The world’s super-rich are seeking to escape from coronavirus lockdowns in cities by buying multimillion-pound English country estates to create Downton Abbey lifestyles, complete with butlers, cooks, housekeepers and armies of gardeners.

Estate agents are reporting a surge in sales of vast country estates and former castle properties, which until Covid-19 struck had become increasingly hard to shift as the richest of the rich instead opted to live in luxurious skyscraper penthouses, on tropical islands or superyachts.

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Revealed: Sheikh Khalifa’s £5bn London property empire

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Documents reveal UAE president owns multibillion-pound property portfolio spanning London’s most expensive neighbourhoods

The row of 1960s-built houses with untidy gardens on a quiet cul-de-sac near Richmond upon Thames appears to have little in common with Ecuador’s red-brick embassy in Knightsbridge, where Julian Assange spent seven years in hiding, just across the road from Harrods.

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Office pods may be the answer to working safely post-Covid-19

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Entrepreneur Xu Weiping is risking a fortune to build 2,000 3-metre square workspaces in east London

Welcome to cube city. Xu Weiping, a Chinese multimillionaire, has a vision for the future of office work in the post-Covid-19 pandemic world: thousands of office pods where each person works in their own self-contained 3m x 3m cube.

Xu reckons the coronavirus pandemic will have such a fundamental impact on the way people work that he is converting 20 newly constructed office buildings in east London into 2,000 of the individual cube offices.

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House for sale in London, good location, overlooks park, a bargain at £185m

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Developer seeks to cash out of investment in John Nash-designed terrace with views of Regent’s Park

Developers have stuck an asking price of £185m on a house overlooking Regent’s Park in central London in what would be the UK’s second most-expensive home purchase.

The property firm Zenprop is targeting foreign billionaires as potential buyers of 1-18 York Terrace East as it seeks to cash out of a 2016 investment.

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Chateau Marmont in Hollywood to become members-only hotel

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Celebrity hangout will allow select group to own shares in ‘world’s best real estate’

The Chateau Marmont, a Hollywood hotspot and hangout for nearly a century, will be converted into a members-only hotel over the next year.

The owner, André Balazs, confirmed his plans to turn the 91-year-old building into a hotel at which a select group of members could buy into “a piece of a portfolio of the best real estate in the world”, the Los Angeles Times reported.

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Australia’s landlords and tenants: what support is available in the coronavirus crisis?

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With a six-month eviction moratorium agreed nationally, we look at what else is on offer from states and territories

Although the national cabinet has agreed to a six-month moratorium on evictions, it has abandoned attempts to achieve a nationally consistent approach to financial support for residential landlords and tenants through the Covid-19 crisis.

Since Scott Morrison announced residential tenancies would be a matter for the states and territories on 7 April, many have offered land tax cuts in a bid to incentivise rent reductions.

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Lachlan Murdoch’s $150m Beverly Hillbillies mansion buy breaks record

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Son of Rupert Murdoch purchases house seen in credits of the TV show, setting new highest home price ever in California

A Los Angeles mansion built in the 1930s and seen in the credits for the TV show The Beverly Hillbillies has been sold for about $150m, the highest home price ever in California.

The buyer of the Chartwell estate is Lachlan Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch and co-chairman of publishing company News Corp, the Los Angeles Times reported on Wednesday.

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No Hollywood ending: Los Angeles property listed for $1bn sells at $100,000

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The 157-acre lot in the Hollywood Hills has been the subject of complex litigation over who actually owns the property

A billion dollars for an empty tract of land always sounded like a Hollywood fairytale. This week reality came crashing down on the investors, real estate agents and feuding litigants who – all too briefly – became embroiled in the greatest property story on earth.

The land in question is a 157-acre parcel perched high in the Hollywood Hills that overlooks the mansion-studded hills of Bel-Air and Los Angeles. Down the years, it has interested an eclectic mix of would-be buyers including the sister of the Shah of Iran, Merv Griffin, Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise.

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