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.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
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.
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.
Monday, February 18, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, February 15, 2008
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.
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.
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