Flats 90210

Affordability problems in the UK could be providing a boost to the overseas property market, an expert has suggested.

Since many young people could not afford to buy a property in Britain, some were opting to invest in flats abroad instead.

People were continuing to live in rented accommodation in the UK, while saving the money generated from rental income.

The total gained from tenants, holidaymakers and the capital appreciation of the building could then be used to make up the shortfall in Britain and allow them to buy a home.

While land and housing prices in the U.K. have soared astronomically in the past decade, the world real estate market is a far different story.

The average property in the UK now costs about £187,100, making it more expensive than countries such as Spain.

See ya!

The credit crunch is biting bank stocks, property outlooks remain uncertain and a stronger dollar is failing to deliver, but there are some positives.

You can say these are difficult times all right.

But what the heck? High interest rates and a strong dollar aren’t all bad.

After all if they were round the other way - which is to say low rates and a weak dollar - we’d be in a recession. But let’s take one thing at a time.

Happily there’s no sign of a let-up in booming commodity prices that have as much to do with a supply shortage (as in the case of iron ore and gold) and getting protection against a falling US dollar (such as oil) as increasing global demand.

Which brings me to what looks like the parallel universe of the sharemarket and the complicated world of flats.
With the sharemarket on the skids perhaps property will be the next cab off the rank.

Or perhaps not. There are just two problems.

One is that property prices - except in outer Sydney, outer Melbourne and more recently Perth where the boom has just peaked - had been careering ahead alongside the sharemarket, putting paid to the notion that they take it in turns to boom.

Rather it takes two to boom so to speak, and there’s no reason they can’t both fall together, as they did in the early ’80s.

As the credit crunch takes its toll on high flyers in the sharemarket, not to mention executives in the finance industry who can expect to lose their bonuses, it’s possible the top end of the property market, which has so far laughed off successive rate rises, will start to suffer.

It’s one of Sydney’s liveliest locations: close to the city, Hyde Park, many of the best eateries and it has a predominantly young and creative population. So why is Oxford Street such a grim and dreary place?

Today, for instance, it looks like a back street in a ghost town, with only the odd passer-by for the beggars to grab, a scattering of empty shopfronts and a busker strumming an out-of-tune guitar in front of a greasy takeaway joint.

“Its heyday was probably in the 1920s, between the wars,” says City of Sydney historian Shirley Fitzgerald. “Back then, when few people had cars, people wanted to live close to the city and Oxford Street was very, very busy, with good shops, a couple of department stores, cheap eating places and smart restaurants.”

And now? “Tawdry, I think is the word that describes it,” says Marcus Bourget, the man in charge of the one event of the year when Oxford Street looks good: the Mardi Gras parade.

“It’s a shame. Oxford Street is such a special place for the gay and lesbian community and has such huge potential but today it does require sustained investment for some urban flats regeneration and to make sure it reaches that potential.”

Despite its position, it has been allowed to languish, with apartments clustered around the strip no longer highly prized or even sought after. However, with plans by the City of Sydney Council for a major overhaul, hopes are high that Oxford Street might grab back its long-lost glory and glamour and, once again, become a lifestyle, cafe, apartment and investment mecca.

Real Estate TV (RETV), a round the clock channel dedicated to infrastructure and realty said on Wednesday that it has appointed Prem Kumar Menon as its CEO.

Menon brings with him 27 years of rich media and marketing experience and before joining Real Estate TV, he was working as COO of a media group in Chennai, the channel said in a release.

Besides Menon, Anil Nair has also joined the group as its News Head. Prior to this appointment Anil Nair was working as business journalist in the Indian Express Group.

Real Estate TV is the first channel in the country extensively engaged in tracking developments in real estate, flats and infrastructure.

Keep it going guys! Do not give up!

Spain has won the Eurocup against Germany playing reaaly good football.

I´m 23, I´ve never seen playing my team well, they´ve have played all these years really bad.

But, in this tournament they have exploded as the good dynamite.

I´m really proud.

España forever.

Cheers