Terrace houses in Malta outperform other properties

Some Bulgarian property prices fall by -60-70%

Volume of new office developments fall by -30%

US home prices see an improvement

A 206.8% increase in Singapore’s annual sales volumes

Growing confidence in the Middle East’s property market

Terrace houses in Malta outperform other properties

The Maltese central bank’s quarterly residential property price index dropped -9.9% on a year earlier with almost half of this fall, some 4.4%, occurring in the first quarter.

At the end of March it was around 11% below the peak levels reached in the middle of 2007. The bank said lower asking prices were observed in seven of the eight property categories surveyed by its property price index which is based on advertised residential property prices in newspapers sampled each month.

Apartments in shell form and houses of character saw the steepest decline with prices plummeting by -20.4% and -16.2% respectively. Finished flats, the most popular property for sale in Malta, saw prices fall -10.8% while townhouse dropped -11.8%, maisonettes in shell form were down -5% and maisonettes in finished form fell -4.4%. The one category that saw an improvement was terraced houses where prices increased by +4.1%.

Some Bulgarian property prices fall by -60-70%

Valeri Vassilev of Imoti Bulgaria OOD told a news conference that prices of real estate on the front rank of Bulgaria’s Black Sea coastline have fallen by -15-30%, while prices of properties further inland around the coastal area have decreased by as much as 60-70%.
 
Prices of real estate on Bulgaria’s Black Sea had decreased by an average of -40% in the first eight months of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008, according to the International Real Estate Federation FIABCI - Bulgaria.
 
But, Vassilev said, no matter how prices for property further in from the shoreline fell, some would remain unsold for years. In most cases, builders were selling part of their built projects at lower prices to secure working capital, Dnevnik reported Vassilev as saying.

Russians and Ukrainians were the major investors in the Black Sea property market. Major problems facing the market were the complicated procedures for Russians to get Bulgarian visas and that there were no direct flights from Moscow to Bulgaria’s Black Sea cities of Varna and Bourgas outside the summer season.

Volume of new office developments fall by -30%

The volume of new office developments in the Netherlands fell -30% in 2008 compared to 2007 while the number of building permits for new offices plunged by almost half, according to an annual survey of the Dutch developers association Neprom in conjunction with PropertyNL.

The supply of new office space totalled nearly 900,000sqm in 2008. However, at the beginning of January 2009, a total of 2m sqm of office space was under development, most of which will come onto the market this year and next. From 2011, new production will shrink significantly, according to the survey.

US home prices see an improvement

The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index and 10-city home price index both rose 1.4% in June, more than double the rate of increase seen in May.

The 20-city composite now stands at 141.86, down -15.4% over the year, although this was lower than the -16.5% annual decline economists were expecting, and the 10-city index fell by -15.1% over the year to 153.20.

Yearly price declines were seen all of the 20 cities surveyed, but 18 metro areas saw improvement in their annual return compared to May. And over the second quarter of 2009 compared to Q2 2008, prices recorded a -14.9% decline, an improvement over the record -19.1% decline recorded in the first quarter of the year.

A 206.8% increase in Singapore’s annual sales volumes

According to Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority, there were 2,767 residential units sold in July this year, the highest monthly sales volume since records began in 2007 and this followed another record month in June when 1,825 units were sold.

This means that property sales rose by +51.6% from June to July and it also represents a year-on-year increase of +206.8% in sales volumes. Analysts said that the astonishing improvement in the country’s property market is due to developers not being greedy and property investors recognising that the middle and luxury markets are competitively prices.

Over 54% of property transactions in July were outside the country’s central region, indicating that the property improvement is countrywide. And high end developments are proving popular. Property consultants CB Richard Ellis is now forecasting record sales for the year. It expects new property sales to exceed the market peak of 14,811 sold in 2007

Growing confidence in the Middle East’s property market

Almost 17,000 new villas in 23 locations are set to be built in Abu Dhabi in the next five years, according to Khamis Sultan al Suwaidi, the director general of a body established by the Urban Planning Council, and the Abu Dhabi Centre for Housing and Service Facilities Development will oversee the building of new homes.

The news is regarded as a sign of growing confidence in the property market in the Middle East with developers being prepared to invest in the future after months of announcements about cancelled and delayed projects.

The developments are aimed at providing property for local people and it is being hailed as a significant move away from the kind of off-plan developments that created rampant speculation in places like Dubai and is thought to be partly to blame for the severe downturn in the emirate's real estate market. The centre will also monitor the development of 10,500 villas South of Shamkha and a smaller 168 villa project at Al Falah.

Abu Dhabi based property developer Aldar Properties has also announced it will build 5,000 villas at Al Falah which is a master planned community for UAE nationals as part of the Plan Abu Dhabi 2030 directive.