It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “Real estate developer Mohamed Hadid’s Bel-Air mega-mansion is on the market for $8.5 million. Once the property sells, the house will be destroyed with proceeds of the sale funding the demolition, which will take about six months. The unfinished 30,000-square-foot mansion was crammed onto a 1.2-acre lot, leaving residents worried it would slide down its hillside perch and crush the homes below. Hadid vowed to never demolish the house a few years ago, telling Town & Country magazine, ‘This house will last forever. Bel-Air will fall before this will.’”
“Money troubles continue to mount for one of Manhattan’s most prominent condo developers, this time at its signature development. HFZ Capital Group has been taken to court by its lender this week for failing to make payments on a loan for its 218-unit Chelsea condominium and hotel development, The XI. The lender, a U.K. hedge fund helmed by Christopher Hohn, provided a $1.2B construction loan on the property in 2016. The foreclosure is one of the latest events in a series of financial and legal woes for the development group. In September, HFZ defaulted on four mezzanine loans.”
“HFZ was embroiled in a legal scandal last year when federal prosecutors said one of its executives, former Managing Director John Simonlacaj, allegedly inflated invoices for construction work done for the company by CWC Contracting, which the prosecution claimed was tied to the Gambino crime family. Even as HFZ’s investments in New York City’s troubled luxury condominium market falter, it has been forced to hand over its stake in a national industrial portfolio.”
“The office-sharing company WeWork has outlined drastic steps to survive the pandemic, after aggressive expansion left it with acres of expensive office space just as demand for communal working dived. Accounts filed at Companies House show that the UK subsidiary, WeWork International, racked up losses of £234m in 2019, after signing a flurry of new leases for buildings. The company was valued at $47bn at one stage before its cancelled listing, but SoftBank said it was worth just $2.9bn last year, with its chief executive, Masayoshi Son, declaring his investment in the company ‘foolish.’”
“For 2021 Toronto is ringing in its long-awaited enforcement of regulations on short-term rental sites such as Airbnb. Suman Sarkar, who operates the property management company Sarkar Suites, shares a number of its apartments with a host identified only as ‘Sam,’ who has 22 listings on Airbnb. At his peak, he listed 96 apartments in three cities on short-term stay sites, before the pandemic wiped out most of his tourist business.”
“If you have been contemplating moving out of the family home into your own rented space, then 2021 might just be the year to make the move, as early forecasts by the Realtors Association of Jamaica are that rental prices could continue to trend below usual market levels. ‘Real estate remained resilient throughout the pandemic, but in the higher end of the market we have seen some adjustments. Rental rates have trended down by 10 to 30 per cent, and Airbnb, which is short-term rental, was seriously affected,’ new RAJ’s president, Donovan Reid told the Financial Gleaner.”
“There aren’t many silver linings to the coronavirus pandemic if you live in Spain, but the shakedown of the country’s overinflated property market could be one of them. Back in August 2020 we wrote about how the dramatic drop in tourists was resulting in more property owners making their short-term rentals in central city locations available to long-term tenants who were previously priced out.”
“By the end of the year, 64 percent of these holiday lets had been turned into long-term rental properties, and according to property portal Fotocasa at least half of these are expected to carry on catering to permanent tenants in 2021. ‘Spain’s main markets have experienced falls in the price of properties due to the significant increase in the available offer, which in some markets has more than doubled’ added Spain’s other big rental site Idealista, ‘as for three months hardly any rental transactions were carried out’ due to the strict lockdown.”
“If the landlord isn’t budging, tell them that you’re leaving and how they’ll struggle to find a better tenant than you. It’s an obvious tip but one to always keep in mind: don’t express immediate interest. And take the attitude that the rent is too high no matter how much it is.”
“South Africa’s flat vacancy rates already in double-digits recorded a 13% increase in the fourth quarter of 2020 from 11% in Q3. Oversupply, weakening demand and tenants under financial pressure are the reasons for rentals being under pressure. ‘The market recorded huge increases in rental stock between 2018 and 2019.’”
“Bengaluru’s rental housing market is facing an unprecedented crisis as the work-from-home culture, job losses and the general economic distress caused by the pandemic have pushed many people out of the city. Unoccupied residential units are a common sight in a city that had a booming residential property market just a few months ago.”
“Sheshadri and his wife, who live in Jayanagar, depend on the rental income from a two-bedroom house but haven’t found a tenant despite four months of search. The previous tenants, a young couple from Davangere, left Bengaluru after their employers allowed them to work from home until December 2021. ‘There have hardly been any enquiries since,’ Sheshadri says.”
“Vasu, a home broker in Padmanabhanagar, said his earnings were first hit by housing rental websites. The pandemic has now dealt a crushing blow to it. ‘The landlords that I still deal with are being forced to reduce the rentals by 25%,’ he said.”
“Harsha’s his newly-built house remains unoccupied. The EMI of Rs 22,000 on his home loan is biting into his savings. For him, the house was an investment as well as an assured source of income to pay off the EMI. ‘It has instead become a liability,’ he says.”
“Homes in housing estates catering to middle-income earners offer the best value for bargain hunters in Hong Kong with prices headed for their first drop in 12 years, industry analysts said. Increasing emigration, coupled with shrinking headcounts at multinational companies in the city, could ensure they continue to remain a buyers’ market. The same factors could also depress rates of higher-priced homes, they added.”
“‘The number of emigrants in the last year has risen, and those who are rushing to sell are more willing to negotiate and offer bigger discounts,’ said Derek Chan, head of research at Ricacorp Properties. Rents will also come under pressure as demand wanes, he added.”
“12 months into the pandemic, the rental market in Shenzhen is seeing an unprecedented oversupply. The pandemic influence and the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year, as well as the annual massive migration from the big city, have contributed to a flood of vacant homes in megacities in recent months. Real estate data indicates that as of mid-December 2020, commercial properties for rent supplied by major real estate agencies in Shenzhen have increased by 40.7% year-on-year.”
“In terms of the rent prices, in the first three quarters of 2020, the average rent of second-hand residential properties in Shenzhen returned to the same level as 2018.”