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Global Condo Round-up
Hong Kong Penthouse Listed for $38.7M; 48-Story Hotel-Condo Project Planned in Los Angeles; Utah Bottom-Fisher Buys $7M Condo Loan; Phoenix Condo and Single-Family Home Sales Down; Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony Buy at Jorge Perez's Icon Brickell in Miami
(KOWLOON, HONG KONG) -- Hong Kong luxury condo and apartment market prices are from Mars.
Two 4,000-square-foot penthouse homes at the 93-story, 885-foot tall Cullinan tower are each listed for $38.7 million (300 million HK). ($1 U.S. equals $7.75015 HK)
At the nearby Masterpiece condos, a local merchant paid $3.2 million (HK$24.5 million) for a tiny, one-bedroom, 590-square-foot unit. The Cullinan and the Masterpiece are both located in the once grimy Western Kowloon district of Hong Kong.
Single-family and condo prices are up 30 percent this year. Record low mortgage rates and available capital for loans are fueling the market, according to CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, a Hong Kong real estate brokerage firm.
The Cullinan is being developed by Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd., which is also building one of the world's tallest office towers, the 118-story, 1,590-foot tall International Commerce Center. The Center's near-future tenants are Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley.
The Wall Street Journal reports Mainland Chinese are drawn to Hong Kong in part by favorable exchange rates that have seen the U.S.-dollar-pegged Hong Kong currency weaken against the Chinese yuan.
"Hong Kong immigration policy also allows Chinese nationals with residency outside mainland China to win Hong Kong residency by investing about US$840,000 in the city's real estate or financial markets," the newspaper reports.
(LOS ANGELES, CA) -- The Related Cos. of New York and Miami are still waiting for a $700 million construction loan to start their $3 billion, mixed-use Grand Avenue project.
Preliminary drawings call for the $1 billion, 1.3-million-square-foot, 48-story Mandarin Oriental Hotel & Residences to house 295 hotel rooms and 266 condominiums. The Mandarin would also have a 19-story tower with 126 market-rate apartments, 98 affordable residences and a 250,000 square foot retail pavilion.
Bill Witte, West Coast president of Related Cos., says the project's entitlements are in place until February 2011. By that time, the current Recession and the frozen lending markets may have subsided, Witte says.
(MIAMI, FL) -- Local celebrity-oriented publications report Actress Jennifer Lopez and singer Marc Anthony have purchased a three-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath, 2,050-square-foot condominium at developer Jorge M. Perez's largely unsold 1,646-unit Icon Brickell in Miami's financial district.
The price was undisclosed but local industry sources in a position to know say the deal was for at least $1 million. That would place the 2,050-square-foot home at about $500 per square foot, probably half of its original construction cost.
The celebrity sheets also report a two-bedroom, two-bath, 1,450-square-foot condo, next door to the Lopez-Anthony unit, is being sold to Miami Dolphins as a corporate guest suite. Lopez-Anthony are reported to be minority shareholders in the NFL Dolphins.
As if that speculation isn't enough, the celebrity publications additional note that global tennis star sisters Venus and Serena Williams are also shopping for "a deeply discounted" Miami condo. Stay tuned.
(SALT LAKE CITY, UT) -- SilverLeaf Financial has acquired a $7 million, face-valued loan on an 83-unit condo complex in Jacksonville, FL.
The property originally was built as an apartment complex, then converted to 219 residential condos. All but 83 condos were sold. Of the 83 units kept as rentals, all are rented except two.
Silverleaf did the deal because Silverleaf CEO Shane Baldwin "...liked the underlying cash flow, the leases that were in place and the rents that were coming in."
(PHOENIX, AZ) -- Sales of condominium and single-family homes in August in the combined Maricopa-Pinal Counties were down 15.5 percent from July, but up 20.2 percent from August 2008, according to MDA DataQuick.
Total condo and single-family home sales have increased on a year-over-year basis for eight consecutive months. Last month's sales were at the highest level for an August since 2006.
MDA DataQuick notes that in August, 57.2 percent of the Phoenix-area single-family and condo homes that re-sold had been foreclosed on in the prior 12 months. That figure was down from 57.8 percent in July. The August number was also the lowest since such foreclosure re-sales were 54.7 percent of all re-sales in October 2008.
(MIAMI, FL) -- The Bithell--Stalmach Team of RE/MAX Executive Realty reports sales of condos, co-ops, townhouses and villas in Miami in August totaled 364 versus 268 in August 2008.
New listings, however, were down 25.1 percent - 1,111 compared to 1,492 in August 2008. The average sales price also was down 6.1 percent -- $236,063 vs. $251,352. The year-to-date average price, too, was down 41.8 percent -- $173,697 versus $298,188 a year ago at this time.
The RE/MAX team took their numbers from the Realtor Association of Miami-Dade County.
(OTTAWA, CANADA) -- The RE/MAX Bricks and Mortar Report notes single-family, multifamily and condo prices are rising, an indication the worst is over in the Canadian residential housing market.
For example, the RE/MAX Report shows sales in Vancouver, one of Canada's most expensive housing markets, rose 14 percent from January to August. In neighboring, Victoria, sales were up 7.4 percent; in Edmonton, 6.2 percent; in Regina, 5 percent; and in Ottawa, the country's capital, 2.4 percent.
The Report doesn't breakout the sales numbers by individual categories, such as condominiums, single-family homes, townhouses and villas.
Nationally, the average price of a home is about $312,585, up 0.5 percent from January to August. There was a much larger jump St. John's, Newfoundland, on the far east coast of Canada, where the average price rose 18.1 percent to $203,584.
Large price increases were also noted in Regina, 6.4 percent; Halifax-Dartmouth, 3.5 percent; Winnipeg, 3.5 percent; and Ottawa, 3.3 percent.
"The bounce-back that began in early spring (2009) has made this recession one of the shortest on record for real estate" in Canada, the Report claims.
"The strength of the residential housing sector cross-country has taken many economists and housing analysts by surprise, once again," notes Elton Ash, regional executive vice president, RE/MAX of Western Canada.
Please see related posting:
("CONDO ROUNDUP: CityCenter Condo Prices in Las Vegas Could be Cut; Reno's Montage Seeks Buyer; Boston Market Weak; Tempe, AZ Towers Ready to Liquidate, Sept.21, 2009.")
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