Soho Vietnam, a real estate consultancy firm is conducting negotiations with its partners to promote some assignment deals. Soho Vietnam’s President Phan Xuan Can said he has in his hand the list of 10 investors, who have ordered to buy some projects, committing to disburse 30-500 billion dong in cash.

Can has revealed that some of the affairs would be wrapped up right in the second quarter of 2012.

There are three different groups of buyers. The first group includes the long term investors, who previously did business in other fields but now want to jump into the real estate sector when they see the real estate projects’ prices are getting attractive.

The second group of buyers includes the enterprises, which have to lease business premises for their head offices and storehouses, and now want to own land plots of their own.

The third group is the real estate investors, who luckily sold out their products in 2009-2010, at the very beginning of the real estate market crisis, and now return to the market to seek business opportunities when the property prices drop to the deepest low.

According to Can, the real estate assignment market has been very bustling recently. It is estimated that 80 projects are offered for sale, but only 15 percent of the projects can be assigned. Most of the projects are located in the central districts of Hoan Kiem and Ba Dinh, and the suburb district of Tu Liem.

“There are some big affairs worth tens of millions of dollars, on which clients have left a deposit,” Can said.

Phan Thanh Mai, Secretary General of the Vietnam Real Estate Association, also said that the merger and acquisition (M&A) market heated up in the first and early second quarter of the year.

Mai said that he can see the growing tendency of transferring real estate projects nowadays, since real estate developers are now under the a hard pressure. They have to borrow 70-80 percent of the total investment capital needed for projects from banks. Meanwhile, bank loan interest rates have been staying firmly high, thus making the financial costs unbearably high for them.

Especially, the new real estate developers, who joined the real estate market 3-5 years ago, have been facing big difficulties. When they began doing business, the market was very hot, but it later cooled down and got frozen, thus making their products unsalable and unable to recover investment capital.

As for the projects which are still under implementation, but lacking capital to continue, investors would rather sell products at low prices to get money back.

“Once the prices of real estate projects decrease to reasonable levels, there would always be the investors who consider buying the projects,” Can said.

“They would consider if the projects can meet the requirements of the market in short term (2-3 years) or long term (5-7 years). And these would be the golden chance for the new investors to jump into the property market at lower opportunity cost,” he added.

“It is now also the right time for the investors who have poured big money into the projects to finish half-done projects and start a new investment cycle,” he concluded.

However, some analysts have noted that in thoughts of many investors, selling properties now mean admitting failure. Therefore, they do not feel convenient when contacting investment funds or brokers.

source from: vietnamnet

The more optimistic outlook for the residential property market in the UK looked to have run out of steam in April as prices edged lower, according to the latest survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).

Demand from potential buyers was relatively flat during April as 5% more surveyors reported increases rather than decreases in new buyer enquiries.

Meanwhile, new instructions, a good indicator of supply coming onto the housing market, was once again stable as 1% more respondents reported falls rather than rises in new homes coming up for sale. While flat, the level of supply has not seen any significant drops since July last year.

Following the upturn in activity seen towards the expiry of March’s stamp duty holiday, in April transaction levels entered negative territory for the first time since September, as 6% more respondents across the UK reported decreases rather than increases in transaction levels.

Across the UK, London was again the only part of the country to see prices rise, albeit at the slowest rate since the middle of 2011, while the West Midlands and Wales saw the most significant declines with net balance readings of -43 and -39 percent respectively.

Looking ahead, while surveyors’ predictions for future prices saw a notable dip, expectations for transaction levels once again remained positive with a net balance of +15% more respondents expecting sales to rise over the coming three months.

‘With the recent surge in activity brought on by March’s stamp duty holiday coming to an end, it is unsurprising to see that prices across much of the country are continuing to fall,’ said Peter Bolton King, RICS housing spokesman.

‘Renewed concerns over the economy and talk of a double dip recession dominating the headlines in recent weeks may well have served to undermine consumer confidence. What’s more, the continuing lack of affordable mortgage finance is still hindering many first time buyers who cannot afford to get a foot on the property ladder,’ he added.

source from: rol

Leading UK lender, the Halifax has today (Tuesday 08 May) launched the UK’s first smart phone app which is describes as a one stop shop for house hunters.

It said that it is the UK’s first complete property and mortgage finance app that uses state of the art technology to revolutionise the way house hunters find and secure their dream home.

Offering more support to buyers than any other app, the Halifax Home Finder also incorporates the functionality of social media apps.

The lenders added that the free to download app allows users to manage the complex home buying process by enabling them to book viewings, rate properties, add comments and images of the property during viewings and subsequently share their thoughts with family and friends via an emailed PDF summary.

Other features of the Halifax home finder app include advanced augmented reality that enables home buyers to view properties currently for sale in the surrounding area, wherever they are, simply by holding up their smart phone.

It has a built in mortgage and repayment estimator so that prospective buyers can work out how much they might be able to borrow and estimate their new monthly mortgage repayments.

It also has access to Land Registry data giving extra information about previous sold prices which supports the crucial buying decision and local area guides highlighting information such as distance from schools and train/tube stations and hints and tips to support buyers through the home buying process.

It decided to develop the app because the way people search for properties over the last decade has changed extensively, with more and more people looking to access information on the move. Recent Halifax online research shows that 62% of people who purchased a property in the last five years undertook their property search online, with 80% of those looking to buy in the next five years likely to search for their next property in the same way.

It also revealed that the percentage of buyers looking to use a smart phone to purchase their next property is expected to rise three fold over the next five years compared to those who used a smart phone in the last five years.

The UK’s fascination with house prices and the desire to know what is happening on their doorstop also remains high, with 31% of respondents regularly searching properties for sale in their local area, with 18% admitting to having no intention of buying them.

‘We know that today’s house hunters want to be able to carry out their searches on a daily basis and when they are on the move. So the Halifax Home Finder app is perfect. It means that you can search properties, book viewings, rate properties and get an indicative mortgage calculation in one place,’ said Stephen Noakes, mortgages director at the Halifax.

‘It’s a fantastic development which gives house hunters all the tools they need using the latest technology available. Using augmented reality means that all a house hunter needs to do is lift their handset to see the properties for sale in the streets around them,’ he explained.

‘Our aim is to provide house hunters with information and guidance to help them make sense of the residential property market and make better-informed property decisions. With this new app, our services will be easily and readily accessible whilst on the move,’ he added.

source from: rol

Vietnam is seeing a high demand for low cost housing but property price rises are one of the biggest obstacles to this fast growing sector, according to analysts.

The government has directed the Ministry of Construction to build more homes and US$173 million is being invested in 37 low cost housing projects covering a total of 750,000 square meters.

A high amount of investment in the Vietnam housing sector has resulted in soaring growth over the past few years especially in cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

According to the report investments from both the public and private sector have increased but price hikes are one of the biggest obstacles as inflationary pressures have already battered the value of income.

It points out that in 2010, around 30.3% of the population was living in urban areas and this proportion is likely to reach nearly 32.3% by 2013. The number of households is also likely to grow at around 3% by 2013.

‘Despite the after impacts of recession, the country has effectively witnessed a significant growth in its housing sector. The demand and supply of housing units has met the expectation of large population, especially in cities,’ the report says.

Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have seen the most significant real estate growth with a rise in the number of estate agents and developers, it adds.

source from: rol

The reduced borrowing rates are part of 12 measures suggested by the HCM City Real Estate Association (HoREA) in a plan that has been submitted to the municipal People’s Committee and the Department of Construction for approval.

The measures are expected to help real estate developers deal at least partly with their current difficulties, survive and develop at a time of prolonged economic slowdown.

The association proposes that local developers should not only be able to access loans at reasonable interest rates, but also have their loans rescheduled and restructured.

It suggests the Government, the Ministry of Finance and the General Taxation Department should reduce corporate income tax to 18 and 20 percent per year from the current 25 percent, and to defer payment of the tax to the end of 2013.

The plan also calls for the Finance Ministry and the tax office to make immediate adjustments to current regulations on the collection of land use fees, including Decrees 69 and 120.

The decrees require real estate developers to compensate for land at market prices and pay land use fees on top of it. This makes property prices very high and puts it beyond the financial capacity of many people, the association has said.

The association also proposed the Ministry of Construction soon submit to the Government a scheme to set up a housing fund using contributions from State employees.

Other proposals made by the association target current regulations believed to be barriers to the development of local real estate enterprises in particular and the local real estate market in general.

According to HoREA, most of real estate enterprises are facing many difficulties including a lack of capital, inability to access bank loans, high lending interest rate (24 or 25 percent per annum), large inventory and a stagnant market. It said the situation has impacted other industries including banks, cement, steel and indoor decoration.

source from: vov

Prices continue shrinking

Since realty fever in 2007, the condo segment for the first time has experienced a free-fall in price in the primary market, said an executive of CB Richard Ellis Vietnam (CBRE) at a recent press briefing relating to real estate in the capital city. Around 53% of newly-launched apartments in the first quarter were priced at below VND21 million per square meter at favorable locations like My Dinh, Dinh Cong and Cau Giay urban area.

Meanwhile, prices of housing products in the secondary market have still continued on a  downtrend, at around 11% year-on-year. The presence of a meager 1,100 flats as new products on the market this quarter proved that not only homebuyers but also enterprises and developers are sticking to a ‘wait-and-see’ attitude, noted CBRE executive director Richard Leech.

Notably, several project owners are tending to prolong or even halt construction progress in spite of good business with other projects.

Statistics by Savills Vietnam also recorded the deepest price plunge of the medium-cost apartment segment this quarter, at 9%, compared to the last quarter in 2011. The fact showed that prices of all segments in the secondary market were falling in most districts on average. The leading property services provider attributed the price fall to low liquidity of the market since the middle of last year.

Poor liquidity

A lot of experts predicted 2012 would be the year of the middle-priced apartment sector. However, data collected by Savills Vietnam in the first quarter indicated the consumption ratio of grade-B flats, or middle-priced products, stayed at 3%, down nine percentage points from the previous quarter. Similarly, grade-A condos, or high-class apartments, saw transactions reach 2% during the first three months, thus no change from the preceding three quarters.

The combined consumption ratio of the whole market stood at 7%, sliding by five percentage points against the fourth quarter in 2011.

According to Savills Vietnam, the local market will see a new supply of roughly 45,000 flats from 52 projects in the next three years. This will put much greater pressure on the sluggish realty market, especially as the number of unsold housing products by Hanoi’s investors is fairly large, at about 16,500, as reported by CBRE.

Most specialists shared the view that the current stagnant market had resulted from increasingly-rising misconducts of developers and investors in terms of construction progress and legal procedures, seriously dampening confidence among consumers. Due to financial constraints, the absence of speculators accounting for up to 60-70% of the total demand was also cited as the reason behind the weak liquidity of the market.

A series of disputes between developers and homebuyers in recent times have also discouraged local buyers from looking for apartments developed by project owners.

The market has showed some signs of improvement with a slight recovery after being frozen for a long time, reckoned Pham Trung Ha, director of property company Hoa Phat.

The ceiling deposit rate was revised down to 12% a year but high lending rates plus concerns over dull outlooks and the maximum credit growth rate of 17% annually at banks as required by the central bank have led to a poor appetite for property loans among lenders. Therefore, project owners and those wanting to buy homes to live in have found it hard to access bank loans.

Not right time for secondary investors

Regarding the ample housing supply in Hanoi, Leech of CBRE said this was a good time for those in dire need of housing, not for either secondary investors or speculators, but to buy homes to live in.

Borrowers taking out bank loans are still charged with unaffordable lending rates, so the lowered deposit rate cap is aimed at reviving the psychology of house buyers only.

To increase liquidity for the real estate market, experts advised local firms to pay attention to the total area of every condo, prices as well as quality and flexible payment methods in line with clients’ demands.

Local industry insiders have difficulty identifying consumers’ demands, so they are unable to match supply and demand at home as expected, Tran Nhu Trung of Savills Vietnam added.

source from: vietnamnet

 

Phan Xuan Can, President of Soho Vietnam, a real estate consultancy firm, said that a client of his wishes to buy Daewoo Hanoi now, one month after the news about the Daewoo transfer deal appeared on local newspapers.

The new buyer reportedly has hundreds of millions of dollars in hand and got ready to buy back the five star hotel.

Can said that he has taken first steps to contact involving parties. However, the formalities of the deal in which Vietnamese Hanel bought Daewoo from the South Korean investor have not been completed yet. Therefore, consultancy firms still cannot take necessary steps to negotiate about a new deal.

The information that Hanel, an electronics and telecommunication group in Hanoi, bought the 70 percent of stakes held by the South Korean investor, leaked out in late 2011 already. However, the deal only caught the special attention of the public in early 2012, when more details of the deal were discovered.

While insiders keep secretive, opinions from well informed circle said that the value of the affair is about 100 million dollars. Hanel, the Vietnamese partner in the joint venture that ran Daewoo hotel, came forward and represented a group of investors, successfully acquired the hotel. PetroVietnam Finance Corporation (PVFC) is believed to be one of the investors.

When hearing that Daewoo wants to sell its stakes in the project, a lot of investors, especially South Korean ones, have expressed their will to become the new owner of the project. Meanwhile, Hanel was not an impressive name, even if comparing with domestic investors.

However, a provision of the investment license stipulates that in case one of the parties in the joint ventures wants to transfer stakes, the other partners get the priority to take over the stakes.

Analysts have said that they can see a new wave of investment in high grade real estate projects in Vietnam, saying that there are many investors and groups of investors, who have big amounts of cash in hands, are considering injecting their money in the real estate sector through merger and acquisition deals. Especially, the investors do not have any problems in capital, because they can buy real estate projects with their own money, no need to borrow from banks.

Some investors reportedly have the cash worth up to 500 billion dong. Meanwhile, many others have 100-150 billion dong.

The “big guys” are believed to be the owners of businesses, general corporations, private conglomerates or Vietnamese overseas businessmen. Most of them did not have the opportunities to jump into the real estate market in the past, because they focused on their core business fields. However, nowadays, as the market conditions turn favorable, they decide to start business in new fields.

Besides, the investors could be professional real estate investors, who withdrew from the market in 2010, when the market turned frozen, now want to invest in special projects.

The main characteristic of the “big sharks” is that they do not make investment by following the crowd. They tend to target the projects with large land areas to develop schools, hospitals and hotels. They are also eyeing the office, shopping mall and house markets.

source from: vietnamnet

Property experts have claimed real estate investment trusts could help draw in huge foreign direct investment inflows for Vietnam. VREIT Management chief Hoang Nguyen said there was still plenty of idle investment capital beyond Vietnam’s borders and setting up real estate investment trusts (REITs) would be a great way to attract capital into the country.

Nguyen Manh Ha, director of the Ministry of Construction’s Housing and Real Estate Market Management Agency, said the Vietnamese market suffered from a serious shortage of investment capital and developers needed to look beyond bankers to source new cash.

He said REITs were a good solution to mobilise capital. REITs are investment vehicles that invest in a diversified pool of professionally managed real estate assets. The REIT label is a tax designation for any corporate entity investing in real estate. The purpose of this designation is to reduce or eliminate corporate tax.  In return, REITs are required to distribute 90 per cent of their taxable income into the hands of investors.

“The REIT model is popular for real estate investment in the US. The trust is based on the reputation and experience of businesses and the legal framework protects investors buying REIT certificates,” Ha said. A new capital source also derived from the issuance of real estate bonds and shares, which could benefit firms, said Ha.

“To raise capital from issuing bonds and shares, businesses need to have at least one year of operation [under their belt] and be profitable. In addition, according to experts, businesses need to study different capital mobilisation forms that have been applied successfully around the world,” he added.

However, Vietnam still lacks a legal framework for setting up such trusts. “This [investment capital] from international funds is a good opportunity which Vietnam has so far failed to utilise,” Nguyen said. He added a pilot REIT model needed to be set up to give the real estate market another avenue to create capital resources.

Properties invested by REITs could be reserved for lease or sale to workers or professionals.
Nguyen said REITs had grown exponentially in Asia since they were first introduced in 2001.

However, apart from the lack of legal framework, there are other barriers for REITs in Vietnam. These include the high levels of volatility and poor levels of transparency in the securities market.

source from: vir

The outlook for city residential property markets in Australia is mixed with Sydney likely to see stability continuing but it could be affected by the eurozone crisis, experts believe. 

The New South Wales housing market continues to attract reasonable levels of buyer activity compared to other capital cities, according to a new study by property consultants CBRE.

Its latest Residential MarketView report indicates that while the overall sentiment in Sydney remains weighted towards it being a buyers’ market, capital values have remained relatively stable in comparison to the remainder of the Australian residential market.

CBRE global research and consulting manager Sam Reilly said this stability was linked to the undersupply of housing in the Sydney market, which was translating to in low vacancy rates and strong rental growth.

According to CBRE’s report, Sydney’s vacancy rates have now been the lowest nationally since the middle of 2006, with the current vacancy rate at 1.4% well below the generally accepted market equilibrium of 3%.

On the sales front, entry level price brackets are showing stable levels of buyer activity, with eastern suburbs sales around the $500,000 mark increasing towards the end of 2011. The $500,000 to $1 million range has been a highly traded price bracket in this area, with values stable and selling periods generally being up to three months.

CBRE’s report indicates the lower north shore has continued to be a very price conscious market. According to director for residential mortgage valuations, Peter Fallon, well presented homes are still attracting good levels of interest and selling within reasonable time frames.

‘Buyers are maintaining a bullish approach to advertised property which is placing downward pressure on property prices, particularly those with poor locations or that require further work to complete renovations,’ he explained.

The north west sector has experienced strong demand for the lower and middle price brackets, with interest rate falls in late 2011 and stamp duty concessions driving this activity.

Across Sydney, sales in the prestige bracket have continued to be affected by generally subdued levels of buyer interest with volatility in global financial markets remaining the major factor in restricting confidence for residential property purchases.

According to Reilly, property priced above $2 million has suffered value declines of between 10% to 20% with very little interest in the renovation and resell market. Extended settlement periods have been common in this market with finance generally being difficult to obtain.

Looking ahead, the outlook for 2012 is for a higher risk environment with the crucial finance sector in Sydney under threat from possible reductions in credit due to the current Eurozone crisis.

source from: rol

The first green shoots of recovery have been seen in some prime residential markets beyond London which recorded their first quarterly price rise in a year, according to the latest Savills prime regional index.

The index, which measures properties averaging just over £1 million, also shows that key commuter hotspots close to London had particularly strong quarterly growth of over 5%.

Average values in the UK index increased by a marginal 0.6% in the first three months of this year. This growth was mainly confined to the South East where values rose by 1.5% driven by the equity rich sellers of London homes who started to make the move to the country.

‘There was a noticeable increase in buyer numbers from London in the Home Counties this quarter with 43% of buyers coming from the capital in January to March, compared with 36% in the final quarter of 2011,’ said Yolande Barnes, head of Savills residential research.

‘This is a clear sign that the £18 billion of foreign private equity that has flowed into prime central since 2007 is now beginning to trigger a migration of equity out to prime markets in the regions. Over the course of the property cycle, its impact will be felt everywhere as it moves out from London and increasingly impacts on cheaper properties,’ she added.

Crucially, prime regional prices are still on average 17.1% below their former 2007 peak and represent extraordinary value for those seeking to leave London, Barnes believes. Even in the South East, prices are still 11.7% cheaper than they were in 2007.

Ultra prime country properties over £2 million had been recovering more in line with London prices, although still stand nearly 10% below their former peak. It would appear though that the 7% stamp duty rate has now created a threshold in the market in which properties priced between £2 million and £2.5million could see some chipping of values or buyers pausing for thought.

‘There are clear signs that the falls we have seen in prime markets, even those close to London, are now slowing and that those regions which are traditionally the first to recover after the capital have bottomed out, and are even starting to recover,’ explained Barnes.

‘In January, we said that 2012 would present unprecedented opportunities for buyers selling in London and buying in the country and some of them now appear to be taking that opportunity. The price differential between London and the country has opened to its widest ever and this has triggered interest from Londoners priced out of larger homes in the capital,’ she added.

Annual growth across the prime UK market, like the mainstream market, remains in negative territory at -2.8% year on year, and values are still more than 17% below peak in contrast to prime central London where they are now some 20% above their former peak. After the budget, many more Londoners may well wish to avoid the £2 million pricing point so a trade out to a larger £1 million country house may prove an increasingly attractive option to them.

The Savills market strength indicator for prime property in the Home Counties has just started to tick up and reveals positive prospects for country house values further afield as time goes on.

Average values across the South East have all but flat lined, with annual falls of just 0.8% on the back of the quarterly rise, while the Eastern region is just 2.2% down year on year, but marginally positive, up 0.3% in the first three months of the year.

Some key commuter hotspots have shown sharp first quarter growth on the back of renewed interested from London equity buyers, Henley has grown by 5.2%, Guildford by4%, Harpenden by 4.5% and Esher by 3.9%. Savills believes that this is the first clear signal of a ripple of wealth out of the capital, which traditionally indicates that the prime markets further afield should be beginning to bottom out.

The steepest falls are still being seen in the Cornish second home hotspots. These have had an adverse impact on the index because the ‘late cycle players’ such as cash rich bonus recipients who drove prices to unsustainably high values in the 2006/2007 boom have now withdrawn from that market.

Prices are now re-calibrating to those affordable by local prime buyers rather than national holiday home buyers. The prime Cornish market fell 2.3% in the first quarter and is down 18.7% year on year, remaining some 28% below peak.

‘Values in Cornwall have struggled to correct, with sellers remaining stubbornly attached to unrealistically high asking prices. There are signs from the market that buyer and seller expectations of value are becoming more aligned, but realistic pricing will be key to achieving a sale,’ said Barnes.

By contrast, the more accessible prime Devon market is flat year on the year after adding 2.3% in the first quarter.

source from: rol