EU Court Rules for Demolition of Northern Cypriot Property

Brace yourself if you've bought a property in Northern Cyprus - a recent ruling by the European Court of Justice means that thousands of property owners may be in danger of losing their homes in the occupied areas of Northern Cyprus, or at least being liable to pay compensation.

The court upheld a previous ruling ordering a U.K. couple, Linda and David Orams, to demolish their house in Northern Cyprus.

It is unlikely that the ruling will be enacted because the land is under Turkish Cypriot control, but it means that the plaintiff, Mr. Apostolides, can now pursue a claim for compensation from the Orams through the UK courts.

Full details of the ruling can be found on the site here. 

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Deutsche Bank Posts Q1 Profit

If you've been scrabbling around looking for good news in the market then the latest Q1 report from Deutsche Bank will fill your heart with joy. Who'd have thought just a couple of years ago that it would be so unusual to report a bank that has actually made a profit, but there you go, it's a sign of the times in which we now live.

Anyway, Deutsche Bank has managed it. The iconic Frankfurt based banking behemoth has reported a first quarter net profit of €1.2 bn for January to March 2009. You wouldn't believe how much relief and rejoicing this has initiated (well you probably would actually). This is a considerable improvement on the bank's previous quarter which involved a loss of €141 m. 

I won't go into all the gory details here, if you want them they are available on the bank's site here. Suffice to say, it is a chink of light in the Eurozone in what has been, to say the least, a turbulent and very dark year to date. 

This news, allied to some good banking news from the US lately, may help to lift the whole doom and gloom scenario somewhat, and that can't be bad. 

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Funds See UK Opportunities

In the face of the current financial discomfort being experienced by most citizens, it is interesting to see how current events in the market are viewed by others, particular those in funds that have been set up specifically to invest in so called 'toxic assets'.

Take a look at this recent piece on the site courtesy of OPP. It essentially outlines how investment funds are hunting distressed property assets across Europe and the US at the moment - at a time when the average investor is doing exactly the opposite. It gives a significant insight into the mind of an investor looking for an opportunity to buy into the market when the 'populist opinion' is that you should be getting out. 

The reason these funds are looking for these assets: "It’s cheap and no one else wants it but there’s always an asset behind the debt.” Remember that last part of the sentence in years to come - "there's always an asset behind the debt." This is also a topic that will be addressed in the Editorial section of our site in the not too distant future. 

 

The UK is a particular target for investors because of the dramatic fall in prices and the weak Pound. According to Andrew Simcock, director of Global Property Investments: “We’re looking particularly at London and other UK centres, which are likely to be some of the first markets to come out of the downturn and where fundamentals remain strong.”  

Well if you didn't know before, the secret to contrarian investment - buy when others are selling, sell when others are buying. 

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Could Spain be Moving in the Right Direction?

Mark Stucklin reports over at Spanish Property Insight that there may actually be some light at then end of the tunnel for the the misfortunate Spanish property industry. 

Of course we're at a period when there may be a lot of straw grasping done, so I wouldn't be inclined to hold my breath, but it is, nonetheless, better than the constant barrage of negative indicators this market has thrown up over the past half decade.

An article in ‘El Mundo’, one of Spain’s leading news papers, suggests there may be signs of recovery in the Spanish property market, in one of the first positive articles on the outlook for the market since the crisis began.

The newspaper has described this as potentially; "the beginning of the end of the worst period for property sales since the crisis began."

The article has pointed out that real estate markets may have bottomed out in the US, the UK, and France, which isn't really a given, and then goes on to suggest that Spain may also be part of this trend - not really a given either unfortunately - but worth a shot I guess. 

The optimism comes from a report by Gonzalo Bernardos, a property market expert and professor of economics at the University of Barcelona, who suggests that the Spanish property market may come back to life this year, following a dismal 2008.

Thee five key reasons he gives are that; “Interest rates are lower; house prices have fallen back to their 2003 levels; banks are lending more; investors are coming back; and many people who were thinking of renting have decided to buy.”

Let's hope the new found optimism isn't ill-founded.

You can read the full piece here. 

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Distressed Property Owner? - This May Help

Distressed property - it seems to be the topic of the day - which is all well and good, unless you actually own one. Those who have never purchased an asset to find that it is not - as they had intended - a wonderful investment, will simply never understand the horrible anguish experienced by those who have made a purchase that turns out to be less than exemplerary.  

For those that are in such a position be aware that there is hope - however slim it may be in some cases. Diarmaid Condon has written a very enlightening piece on the website about the options open to those who have assets which, for one reason or another, are not performing as they had hoped. 

It is good to find someone who will give positive and constructive advice to those who are in trouble at a time when newspapers and magazines are still full of promotional material for new developments in exotic locations. This is despite the very obvious fact that there is an absolute deluge of overseas property owners experiencing extreme distress with their overseas purchases at the moment.   

You'll find the full article here. 

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It's an Ill Wind That Doesn't Blow a Vulture Some Good

Feeling a bit despondant? No hope of a recovery? Everything going down the toilet? Well, if you're looking for a positive outlook on the current property market you might well take a look at what property funds are doing. What are they doing, you might well ask? Well, they're salivating quite a lot and making movie type evil laugh noises to be honest. They see rich pickings in the property market and they're falling over themselves to pay very little for them. 

A recent Reuters report says it all in its headline 'Debt buyers eye bombed out market'. According to reporters Tom Freke and Daryl Loo: 'Real estate funds are spying rich pickings from carnage in commercial real estate, stockpiling cash to buy discounted loans that may cost banks billions of pounds in the coming years.'

Admittedly it's not great news if you're working in the banking industry, although the chances are that any 'nationally vital' bank will be bailed out by ... well, us really. Isn't it nice to know that all these 'vulture funds' will make lots of money while we get saddled with the black hole of irresponsible bank debt? No? Have you no sense of humour? I guess not. 

Well, the fund managers are happy anyway, at least the ones that didn't buy any property in the last few years are. According to Reuters: "Mortgages supporting high-profile office or shopping mall deals are in dire need of refinancing after a record crash in prices in 2008 that has hit commercial property markets much harder than its residential counterpart."

These mortgages, known as commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS) are, according to Barclays Capital, responsible for about €77 billion (millions are no good these days, it has to be billions if you want to have any effect). Barclays estimates that some €35 billion of this debt is due for refinancing by 2012, but banks, whether they like it or not, have to reduce their exposure to the property market.

The report claims that average UK commercial real estate prices have fallen by 40 percent since a market peak in mid-2007, this means that many CMBS deals have now breached covenants linked to the value of the property.

The recession is biting hard and payment defaults are now beginning in UK, Spain and France, according to Close Brothers. There are, apparently, not too many in Germany yet, but they are expecting some in the not too distant future. 

So if you think there is no future in the property market you should probably ask yourself why eleven funds are seeking to raise about $6.5 billion to invest in Europe with a staggering $72 billion being sought for the North American market.  

It's all they can do to stop the saliva slobbering from their mouths as they make these statements. 

Another positive is to be found in an article entitled 'House Prices Post First Rise Since 2007'. According to the Nationwide Building Society, UK house prices this March rose for the first time since October 2007. The lender did, however, caution against jumping to conclusions about a housing market rebound. Apparently house prices rose 0.9% in March after a 1.9% drop in February, taking the average price of a house up to £150,946.

So there you go - it's not all doom and gloom out there. 

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UK Mortgage Lending Increases

Those with an interest in the UK market will be interested to read that things may be, even if only incrementally, moving forward. Information from the Bank of England says that the increase in net lending secured on dwellings (£1.5 billion) was higher than the January increase and the previous six-month average. Having said that the twelve-month growth rate continued to fall, down by 0.5 percentage points to 2.4%. The three-month annualised growth rate rose by 0.2 percentage points to 1.5%. The number of loans approved for house purchase (37,937) was higher than in January and the previous six-month average.

As you would expect in a time of borrowing restrictions, approvals for remortgaging (32,633) and for other purposes (31,372) were lower than in January and the previous six-month averages.

According to Sunday's Mail "the figures echo reports from estate agents of a flood of new buyers coming through their doors in recent weeks."

I was actually in the UK last week looking at commercial opportunities for clients. The impression I got was that there was definitely signs of a turn in the market, I'm not so sure I'd term it a 'flood of buyers' however, from what I was hearing on the ground.

The Mail's article did, however, come "with a health warning that rising unemployment could yet see the market suffer further reverses." It goes on to say that: "The total number of buyers is still relatively low in historic terms - 44 per cent below February last year - and is not considered enough to prevent further price falls."

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