Business Times: UK mortgage approvals fall to lowest since 1999

(LONDON) UK mortgage approvals fell for a 12th month to the lowest since at least 1999 in July as financial institutions curbed lending and the property slump deepened.
Banks granted 33,000 loans for house purchase, compared with 35,000 in June and the fewest since comparable data began nine years ago, the Bank of England (BOE) said [...]

Business Times: ING Real Estate has new chief of global investment

(LONDON) ING Real Estate, one of the world’s biggest property investors, said yesterday that it has appointed Robert Houston as chairman and chief executive of its global investment management business.
Mr Houston – the head of ING Real Estate’s UK operations – replaces David Blight, who resigned earlier this year to return to Australia for family [...]

Straits Times Forum: Self-regulation in estate agency industry

I REFER to the letters (Aug 22), ‘Test ensures housing agents are more qualified’ by Mr David Ong and ‘Two-tier test system raises standards of estate agency industry’ by the Singapore Association of Estate Agents (SAEA).
The Common Examination for House Agents (CEHA) was introduced in 1996 to raise professional standards. In 2005, an accreditation scheme [...]

Business Times: Spain’s Colonial posts H1 loss of 2.38b euros

(MADRID) Spanish property group Colonial, struggling under huge debts, announced losses of 2.38 billion euros (S$4.9 billion) for the first half of 2008 which it blamed on asset depreciation.
Colonial said in an announcement late Sunday that it had reached an agreement in principle to reschedule its debt of nearly nine billion euros this month.
The firm [...]

Business Times: UK house prices see their steepest fall since 2001

End to property slump still some way off: research firm Hometrack
(LONDON) UK house prices fell by the most since at least 2001 in August as economic growth stagnated, and an end to the property slump is ’still some way off’, according to Hometrack Ltd.
The average cost of a residential property in England and Wales slipped [...]

Business Times: Alpha to put US$1.2b in Asian properties

ALPHA Investment Partners, the fund management unit of Singapore’s No 3 developer Keppel Land, said its new fund will invest US$1.2 billion into Asian retail, residential and hospitality property by 2011 despite a global slowdown.
The group, which closed the Asia Macro Trends fund in July, now has five Asia-focused funds with S$3.9 billion in property [...]

Straits Times: Govt waived part of lease extension levy

Building premium waiver will boost upkeep of ageing property
By Joyce Teo, Property Correspondent
A LEVY that property owners had to pay the Government when they extended a lease on state land has been axed.
The so-called ‘building premium’ is being waived with immediate effect, said the Law Ministry yesterday.
The move gets rid of a potential hindrance [...]

Business Times: Now, deferred payments with a twist

Credit-worthy buyers offered loans with no interest and instalment payment until TOP
By SIOW LI SEN
(SINGAPORE) The deferred payment scheme may have been banned, but something strikingly similar is doing the rounds to help developers sell their properties.
The interest absorption scheme (IAS) and the zero instalment scheme allow the buyer to make a 20 per [...]

Straits Times: Developers starting to preview projects

With Hungry Ghost month over, condo projects being launched to test market
By Fiona Chan, Property Reporter
NOW that Hungry Ghost month is over, property developers are starting to line up project previews and launches to test the market.
Keppel Land released a new high-rise tower block at its Reflections at Keppel Bay on the weekend, putting up [...]

Business Times: Some 70% of space let out at City Square Mall

It has also secured nine anchor tenants and will open in Q4 of next year
By UMA SHANKARI
SINGAPORE’S first eco- friendly mall – City Developments’ City Square Mall – is close to 70 per cent let and has secured nine anchor tenants.
The mall will open in the fourth quarter of 2009.
The developer yesterday disclosed the anchor [...]

Business Times: Is estate duty truly resting in peace?

Millionaires who die sans estate planning pose a challenge to rationale for its abolition
By IVAN PNG
THE government introduced a Bill in Parliament last week to abolish estate duty with effect from Feb 15, 2008. Estate duty presents a nice counterpoint between two branches of economics – public finance and the nascent discipline of behavioural economics.
Estate [...]

Straits Times: Credit crisis: US$503b written off, more losses to come

GENEVA: The credit crisis has forced financial firms to write down US$503 billion (S$716 billion) worth of assets, but more losses could yet come in months ahead, the top world central banking body has warned.
The notion that rapidly growing emerging markets were less reliant on developed markets has also been put to the test in [...]