Insurers Are Likely to Boost China Property Demand

China is set to see a wave of demand for quality commercial real estate as insurance companies are allowed for the first time to invest in the sector, real-estate consultancy Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. Chief Executive Colin Dyer said Monday.

In August, China’s insurance regulator announced a long-awaited revision to its rules, allowing insurance companies to invest as much as 10% of their assets in commercial real estate and as much as 20% of their assets into the stock market.

Analysts are concerned that restrictions put in place this year on home purchases will become a drag on overall economic growth as construction and investment activity in that sector slows. New demand for commercial real estate from insurers could therefore become an important support for the property sector and the wider Chinese economy.

China’s insurance companies have around 4.6 trillion yuan ($685.15 billion) of assets under management, growing at around 20% per year, Mr. Dyer said in an interview. If they invest their full 10% allotment into commercial real estate, that amounts to 460 billion yuan, or $68.5 billion of potential demand, compared with just $17 billion of total investment last year in commercial real estate, he said.

via Insurers Are Likely to Boost China Property Demand

Condo security: South Florida HOA to use fingerprinting device for access to clubhouse, block access to delinquents

Condo security: South Florida HOA to use fingerprinting device for access to clubhouse, block access to delinquents – South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

Several weeks ago, Lynn Penedo’s condominium association installed an electronic fingerprint-scanning device outside her building’s multimillion-dollar community clubhouse. Now she refuses to use it because she fears identity theft.The association says it’s all about safety and control of who visits the clubhouse, and possibly one day, the entire condo building."I believe that is a violation of my privacy to give a fingerprint to keep on file for entering the clubhouse now, and if ever, my condo building," said Penedo, an owner and resident of International Village of Inverrary in Lauderhill, a community of 832 condo units. She also worries about her own security: "Once someone gets your fingerprint, you can’t change it if they steal your identity."

Housing: FHA may slash upfront costs of some reverse mortgages

Housing: FHA may slash upfront costs of some reverse mortgages

The Federal Housing Administration isn’t talking publicly about it, but the agency may be getting ready to cut the upfront costs of reverse mortgages for some borrowers.

The agency also, however, may be reducing the amount seniors can borrow against their homes.

In a recent conference call with industry participants, FHA officials said they were finalizing plans to offer a home-equity conversion mortgage requiring almost no upfront mortgage insurance premium, according to the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Assn. The FHA also may tinker with the traditional product in a way that increases the overall borrowing costs.

“HUD is looking at options to provide a lower-priced [home-equity conversion mortgage] option," said Lemar Wooley, a spokesman for the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department. "We are still working out the details. Our basic plan is to make the product more attractive, while limiting FHA’s exposure to risk”

Tracking the First Coast’s great condo bust [North Florida]

Tracking the First Coast’s great condo bust [North Florida]

While attention has been focused on shrinking values in Jacksonville’s single-family housing market,something much worse has been happening in the condominium market.

Numbers tell the story: The median sales price for condominiums in Clay, Duval, Nassau and St. Johns counties has sunk by more than 70 percent since a five-year high of $239,200 in April 2007, falling to a low of $64,400 in April of this year, according to the Florida Association of Realtors.

By comparison, the median sales price for single-family homes in the area fell 33 percent from a five-year high median price of $213,500 in June 2006 to $143,400 in July 2010.

In recent years, Jacksonville has spawned dozens of condominium buildings – both new and those converted from former apartment complexes – but when the economy tanked, there were too many for the market and too many owners in financial trouble. The shocking drop in condominium values followed.

Good news, bad news on foreclosures

Good news, bad news on foreclosures

Banks are repossessing distressed homes at an increasingly fast pace, but fewer homes are falling into delinquency, a sign that the region’s foreclosure crisis has entered a new phase.

In August, lenders reclaimed 4,417 homes in South Florida, up 96.7 percent from the same month last year when banks took back 2,246 homes, according to a report released Thursday by RealtyTrac. At the same time, new foreclosure filings dropped 52 percent to 6,899.

As banks reclaim more homes in the final stage of the foreclosure process, they will eventually need to offload them onto the already crowded resale market. In the classic supply-demand equation, additional inventory puts downward pressure on prices and home values, a phenomenon that real estate analysts have predicted recently as local inventory levels have started to rise in the past four months.

Industry watchers discussed a potential double dip in the housing market during a Condo Vultures real estate panel in Miami this week, debating the likelihood of further price declines as well as the possibility that South Florida may have already hit bottom.

Church Guides Harlem Condo

A few doors down from the imposing stone facade of the Abyssinian Baptist Church on West 138th Street, one the most important activist churches in Harlem, a new condominium development is about to go on the market including market-rate penthouses, with open stainless-steel kitchens, granite counters, and terraces, priced up to $970,000.

But rather than railing about the perils of Harlem gentrification, the church is the guiding force behind the development, and its development arm, the Abyssinian Development Corp., is the proud sponsor, showing off a model apartment at an opening party on West 138th Street on Thursday night, beginning at 6.

The condominium development—32 condos in two buildings, including 10 subsidized units—is the first of a new wave of developments by the church that will bring about 200 condominiums to its home neighborhood over the years to come.

The future plans include a residential tower in a mixed-use development to rise above the shell of the Harlem Renaissance Ballroom, a historic cultural center around the corner from the church on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard.

via Church Guides Harlem Condo – WSJ.com.