Fewer mainland bidders could mean lower prices for Hong Kong sites at auction
China’s development giants are joining Hong Kong’s local heavyweights in staying away from land auctions in the SAR, CSCEC is moving forward with another US project, and mainland home buyers are favoring North America and Australia in the wake of Brexit. Read on for all these stories and more.
Mainland Developers Back Away From HK Amid Slump
Chinese buyers slowed the pace of their Hong Kong land purchases in the first half of 2016, joining the city’s biggest developers on the sidelines and setting the stage for further price declines.
Mainland developers, who outbid Hong Kong developers in several government residential land sales in recent years, participated in only two out of eight tenders this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That compares with Chinese developers including China Vanke Co. Ltd and Poly Property Group Co. bidding in all but one of the nine tenders in the previous six months, the data show. Read more>>
CSCEC Wins Approval for Jersey City Project
Another Newport project has been green-lit by Jersey City’s Planning Board. This one at 2 Shore Lane, on a parcel owned by Strategic Capital, the investment division of China State Construction Engineering Corp, the same firm behind the recently approved 75 Park Lane South.
Strategic Capital purchased the property, along with 75 Park Lane South, in July 2015. Poskanzer Skott Architects designed the project for the property’s previous owner. It’s unclear if these are the final designs or not. A request for comment was not returned. Poskanzer Skott Architects also designed nearby Laguna and Aquablue. Read more>>
Mainland Buyers Turn to Americas and Australia Post-Brexit
Realtors in Canada, Australia and the US are pitching their countries as relative safe havens for property investors, as growing numbers of Chinese buyers start to view Britain a riskier prospect in the wake of the recent Brexit vote.
“We have seen more enquiries from people looking into US properties, as they believe the country has a more stable political environment and is on course of an economic rebound,”said Mandy Wong, head of international residential property services at JLL. Read more>>
Mainland Designer Ma Builds a World Stage
Ma Yansong remembers the exact moment that – subconsciously, at least – he decided to become a designer.
He was with his mother, an environmental engineer, at her lab in Beijing, examining a cup of polluted water. “My mother put something in the cup, and the water immediately changed colour and became clear. I’m not sure if you could drink it, but it showed me magic, that nature is important and that humans can change it. Read more>>
Will Investors Replace Developers in China?
When little-known mainland developer Cinda Real Estate snapped up a plot of land in suburban Shanghai in June for four times the starting bid price, it highlighted a new normal in the real-estate business — state-owned enterprises using their financial muscle to amass land as an asset, rather for its development potential.
The growing number of examples is now causing serious concern among traditional developers, who fear they will continue to lose out to deeper-pocketed state rivals who have access to cheap funding, and who do not necessarily need to show a quick return on their investment. Read more>>
CapitaMall Qingdao Project Set to Open This Month
Laguarda.Low Architects, an internationally acclaimed architecture design and planning firm, has designed a new six-story retail center for CapitaLand located in Qingdao, China. Laguarda.Low, based in New York City, is well known their mastery of mixed-use and commercial projects throughout the world including OCT Happy Harbor in Shenzhen, a 3.2 million-square-foot shopping and entertainment destination overlooking Shenzhen Bay; El Centre Splau in Barcelona; and the Houston Pavilions in Houston, TX.
The project, known as CapitaMall Xinduxin, officially opened to the public on Tuesday, June 28th. The highly anticipated retail center is comprised of a 6 level above-ground retail center, 2 levels of below-ground retail, and 2 levels of underground parking. Laguarda.Low Architects is the design architect for both the exterior and interior of the new 1.7 million square foot project. Read more>>
Tune in again tomorrow for more news, and be sure to follow @Mingtiandi on Twitter for headlines as they happen.
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