Building Boom Gives Way to Fears of London Vacant Office Space

Developers started the building boom several years ago as banks, law firms and other companies expanded quickly. In many cases, property firms knocked down buildings from the 1930s, 1950s and 1980s to make way for towering structures of glass and steel. The City's mix of centuries-old architecture and cheap post-World War II construction didn't appeal to big banks, in particular, which wanted large, open trading floors and modern facades.

But as the new buildings rise next to London's most historic sites, from St. Paul's Cathedral to the medieval Guildhall, some critics are balking. In a speech last month, Prince Charles, an outspoken architecture critic, called many of the new buildings "carbuncles" that will leave London with a "pockmarked" skyline. "For some unaccountable reason we seem to be determined to vandalize these few remaining sites which retain the kind of human scale and timeless character that so attract people to them and which increase in value as time goes by," he said.

Invista Real Estate FY pretax profit doubles

Invista Real Estate Investment Management Holdings PLC saw its full-year pretax profits double and said it looks forward to 2008 with 'cautious confidence'.

Profit increased, boosted by higher performance fees, additional transaction and termination fees, higher average assets under management during the year and the impact of interest on cash balances, together with good cost control, the real estate fund manager said.

UK 08 home sales seen 19 pct below trend

LONDON (Reuters) - UK home sales are likely to remain about a quarter of a million below trend in 2008 after a 20 percent drop in the second half of 2007, Britain's biggest estate agent said on Tuesday.

Grenville Turner, group chief executive of Countrywide PLC, told the Reuters Housing Summit that up to 1.1 million transactions were likely this year compared with a long-term average of 1.35 million.

London's 'billionaire's avenue'

Even as Britain's property market shows signs of struggling, one north London street is defying the gloom-mongers: houses on "billionaire's avenue" are still selling for record prices.

Like an oasis of wealth in an increasingly parched real estate desert, The Bishops Avenue in Hampstead remains a booming property hotspot -- despite, for some, little in the way of elegance or discretion.

"Among the wealthiest in the world, The Bishops Avenue is better known than Buckingham Palace," Trevor Abrahamson of estate agents Glentree International told AFP with a hint of pride, having sold most of the 66 houses in the street.

The party's over for UK real estate ?

"We believe that ongoing concerns in the financing markets and current balance sheet positions mean that our real estate companies are likely to face headwinds, not storms, in terms of the availability of additional debt and borrowing costs," Goldman analyst Julian Livingston-Booth told clients in a research note.

While headline debt ratios across the sector appear weak for this stage in the cycle, but there are enough mitigating factors to suggest limited risk of covenant breaches even if economies suffer a hard landing, he argued. Instead, the Goldman analyst was concerned that real estate companies lack the firepower to take advantage of any potential opportunities to buy at distressed prices, and instead will face years of borrowing costs edging higher.

Realcomm Announces Inaugural Conference in UK for Real Estate Technology

Realcomm Conference Group, LLC, a global leader in providing education, information and networking opportunities to the Commercial Real Estate industry, launches its inaugural conference, Realcomm Europe 2008 on 18-19 February, 2008 at the Renaissance Chancery Court London. This two-day event will bring together the real estate technology industry and the European business community to discuss global best practices and the use of technology in the industry.

UK property sector consolidation expected

A banker with knowledge of the real estate industry said that, having fallen hard, many UK property companies now looked good value and were attracting a great deal of interest. “There are people running serious numbers on serious players,” he said, predicting strategic deals motivated by the correction in underlying physical real estate values. A second banker agreed that suitors were likely actively considering property deals because of the seemingly cheap stock.

London the world's most expensive city for prime real estate

London's most expensive new-built home was sold for 50 million pounds last month to Hourieh Peramaa, a 75-year-old real estate entrepreneur from Kazakhstan, the Sunday Times reported on Jan. 27.

The house on Bishops Avenue in Hampstead, northwest London, has nine main bedrooms, 16 bathrooms and five reception rooms and was acquired from Turkish businessman Halis Toprak. Peramaa plans to spend another 30 million pounds extending and redecorating the property, the newspaper said.

Qatari Diar buys key London site

A consortium led by state-owned Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment has purchased the Chelsea Barracks in London for $1.91 billion, the consortium announced n Thursday. Britain's Defense Ministry closed the sale of Chelsea Barracks, former home of the Public Duties and State Ceremonial personnel and a prime development property in Westminster.

Qatari Diar holds a majority in the consortium with its partner Christian Candy. Qatari Diar is owned by the Qatar Investment Authority.