Straits Times Forum: HDB flats: No new valuation method

WE REFER to Ms Christina Heng’s letter, ‘Queries on HDB valuation scheme’ (Aug 12).
The methods adopted by the valuation profession are applicable to all properties, be it HDB flats or private properties. There is no new valuation method used.
To refresh our earlier reply on June 28 in response to Mr Patrick Tan’s query on ‘What [...]

Straits Times Forum: Flat valuations not done by HDB

I REFER to the letter, ‘Queries on HDB Valuation Scheme’ published on Aug 12.
The writer attributed the increase in resale prices of HDB flats to a new method of valuation implemented by the HDB that incorporates the cash-over-valuation (COV) amount. This is not correct, as there has been no change in the method of valuation [...]

Business Times: Economic tough times divide Sydney

(SYDNEY) This is a tale of two cities.
There’s the beachside Sydney, washed by white foamy waves, dotted by cafes and high class restaurants and multi-million dollar houses and apartments – it’s boomtown Sydney.
Then there’s the other Sydney. The one not in the tourist brochures, that stretches west and is home to the bulk of the [...]

Business Times: Centro’s US mall manager posts US$299m loss

Writedown in value of business behind Centro NP’s net loss in Q2
(MELBOURNE) Centro Properties Group, the Australian owner of more than 650 US malls, said the unit that manages US assets acquired last year for US$5.2 billion chalked up a second-quarter loss after writing down the value of the business.
Centro NP had a net loss [...]

Business Times: Dubai’s new law on mortgage

(DUBAI) Dubai newspapers are reporting that the local government has issued a mortgage law aimed at regulating the city-state’s booming property market.
Yesterday’s reports in the Khaleej Times and the Gulf News say that the law requires that mortgages be insured, sold by approved banks, registered with local authorities and that they specify the property value [...]

Business Times: San Francisco Bay Area home sales up

7,586, or 2% more, units sold in July, recording first sales gain since Jan 2005
(SAN FRANCISCO) San Francisco Bay Area home sales rose in July for the first time since 2005 and the median price fell to the lowest in more than three years as buyers bought discounted properties in foreclosure.
Sales increased 2.2 per cent [...]

Business Times: Lobbies in New York shedding their greenery

(NEW YORK) For decades, it has been practically an unwritten rule of office building design that a high-end building should have lushly landscaped lobbies or atriums. The forest’s worth of magnolia, pear and eucalyptus placed inside the Ford Foundation building in 1967 perhaps kicked off the trend, which culminated in the late 1980s when the [...]

Business Times: Key Japan real estate sector seen tripling

Logistics property market investments may grow 3-fold in a few years: LaSalle
(TOKYO) Japan’s market for investment in logistics real estate – such as warehouses, distribution centres and ports – is seen growing threefold within a few years as more players enter a sector considered stable even in an economic slowdown, an executive of LaSalle Investment [...]

Business Times: CIMB bags job for CDL sukuk issue

(KUALA LUMPUR) CIMB Group has won the mandate to arrange a $1 billion Islamic bond issue for Singapore-listed property developer City Developments Ltd (CDL), according to a report in Malaysia’s Business Times.
It will be Singapore’s first sukuk-Ijarah unsecured financing arrangement by a company, the paper pointed out.
A signing ceremony between CIMB Group unit CIMB-GK Securities [...]

Business Times: CapitaLand going ahead with 2nd Malaysian Reit

Latest offering will comprise 3 malls worth RM2b: chief investment officer
By PAULINE NG IN KUALA LUMPUR
CAPITALAND will list its second Malaysian real estate investment trust (Reit) this year, barring unfavourable market conditions, the company’s chief investment officer Kee Teck Koon said yesterday.
The Reit will initially comprise three shopping malls worth RM2 billion (S$849 million), [...]