China to apply VAT to some residential property sales - finance ministry

China will apply value-added tax to residential properties sold less than two years after their purchase, the country's finance ministry said on Thursday.

The government will introduce a 5 percent value-added tax (VAT) on the sale of all residential property held for less than two years.

In Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen - cities which have seen some of China's fastest property price increases - capital gains on the sales of larger homes held for at least two years will be subject to a 5 percent VAT levy.
Sales of smaller homes in the four cities will not be subject to the VAT levy, according to the statement.

For the rest of the country, sales of properties held for at least two years will be exempt from VAT.

Resource: http://www.reuters.com

Why Prague residential real estate is on the rise

A potential tax change in the Czech Republic could help further boost the country’s strengthening real estate market, sector experts believe.

Much of international investor interest in Czech real estate is centred on the capital, Prague, with prime property values expected to grow until at least 2018, report the Tranio international property website.

If the Senate of the Czech Republic approves the bill submitted by the country’s Ministry of Finance, buyers will soon have to pay the real estate purchase tax that was previously the responsibility of sellers, which is likely to activate the country’s already growing market.

Last year, buyers and investors injected €2.7billion into the property market, 43% of which went into commercial property says, the Getberg Czech real estate agency.

In 2015, there was high demand for Czech residential property thanks to good economic news, with high tax revenue and European Union transfers, which has led to an all-time record budget surplus of CZK 44billion in the first three months of 2016, and all-time low interest rates on mortgages.

Last year, more than 7,000 new homes were sold (18% higher than in 2014), led by apartments and detached houses and residential sales are expected to carry on growing in 2016, says Getberg.

Affordable flats (under €1,200/square metre) have almost completely disappeared from the existing property market, mostly due to foreign investors who bought a significant number of such flats during the global financial crisis.

Russians are among leading international buyers, Anna Kurianovich, Tranio Commercial Investment Expert for overseas property broker, tells OPP.Today.

“Retail property in the Czech Republic is traditionally popular with buyers from Russia and other CIS countries. However, more recently we have seen them switch their attention to buy-to-let residential, especially flats for short-term (e.g., holiday) rentals. In 2016, we expect these buyers to reconnect with residential property in the centre of Prague for three main reasons: low market entry threshold, modest interest rates and cap rate potential.″

Ekaterina Chipera, Sales Manager at Getberg, adds, “Residential property in the capital’s centre was particularly popular with Russian and CIS buyers but now fewer of them are trying to find residential property for their own use. Most of them buy properties that they can rent out, both flats and homes alike. The average budget of clients from Russia and other CIS buying flats in Prague ranges from €100,000 to €300,000. The budget for homes starts at €350,000 and can reach €1.5million or more for prime property.”

The average price for a flat in Prague is about €2,000 per square metre and the average price for listed apartments rose by 7% year-on-year in 2015, says Sergey Akinfiev, of Tranio. One-bedroom flats made up about 40% of the total sales.

The main residential districts targeted by Prague property buyers are Prague 5 (Městská čast Praha 5), Prague 9 (Městská čast Praha 9) and Prague 10 (Městská čast Praha 10).

With demand for prime apartments exceeding supply, price are set to continue to grow consistently up to 2018 and eventually exceed the current levels by 12–15%, say analysts.

But the fact that small flats in the centre of Prague within walking distance of the main streets and big shopping centres are popular with medium budget buyers, has not been lost on developers.

This year, 6,700 new flats are due to be commissioned in Prague, a 34% rise on 2015 (5,000 units) and the highest figure since 2009, says Blanka Vačkova, Head of Research at JLL in Prague.

Resource: http://www.opp.today/

Indian residential property to attract over Rs 6,600 crore investment

Residential property in India is expected to receive $1 billion (Rs ​6652.75 crore) investment this year, given its attractive rate of returns averaging at a high of 20-22% per annum, an industry expert said on Tuesday.

"Private Equity funds in Indian real estate sector has already raised $420 million in the first two months of this year, compared to $520 million for the whole of last year," said Rubi Arya, executive vice chairman of the Mumbai-based Milestone Capital Advisors Ltd.
Mid-segment housing and affordable housing can take returns to as high as 20-22% per annum through hybrid investing, that is capital security plus equity upside, she said.

"We feel that with the Real Estate Bill mandate, availability of deals for Private Equity firms will certainly go up," she said, adding that the reforms in the real estate sector will also help further accelerate fund raising and investment opportunities both for residential and commercial sectors.

"With such positive developments, the India story is growing by leaps and bounds and it is just a matter of time when this sector begins its upward journey once again, albeit after a prolonged period of gloom," she added.

Costs on real estate construction are seeing stability with fuel prices down, which leaves developers with overall margins for positive growth. "Investors can look forward to far higher transparency and ease of doing business with developers with the recently passed real estate bill. This has led to a lot of warming up of Non Resident Indians (NRIs) and Foreign Direct Investments towards Indian real estate," she noted.

The availability of foreign capital will naturally increase with the government permitting NRI investments into domestic Alternate Investment Funds. The Real Estate Investment Trusts will soon see listings by developers and thus lifting the commercial reality market to a highly profitable investment climate, according to Arya.

Milestone manages $800 million or 25 million sq ft residential, warehousing, commercial and office spaces since it began operating as PE funding concern in 2008.

Resource: http://www.dnaindia.com

Residential property prices rise by 8% in the year to February

Residential property prices rose by 8% in February, according to new figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

This is compared to the same month last year.

The growth compares to year-on-year increases of 7.6% in January and 6.6% in December.

Outside of Dublin, prices rose by 11.5% - the strongest growth rate since May 2007.

In the capital, there was a 4% rise in the 12 months, although residential property prices decreased by 0.01% in February from January.

Property prices nationally showed no change in February from the previous month, according to the figures.

House prices are now just over 35% lower than they were at peak times in 2007.

Resource: http://www.newstalk.com

Challenging Wisconsin's Residential Property Tax Assessments

May is the time to challenge property tax assessments, and April is the time to gather market data, predict tax savings from a realistic reduction, and decide whether and how far to challenge a property tax assessment.

Each tax district in Wisconsin has a Board of Review or Board of Assessors that first meets in May to hear assessment objections. Meeting dates vary by tax district, but in 2016 can be held as early as May 9 or as late as June 8. Homeowners must allow the assessor to inspect their property and must file a written objection, propose a lower assessment, and submit supporting market data 48 hours before a board’s first meeting in order to challenge an assessment.

Homeowners have a statutory right to a Board of Review hearing.1 At a hearing, a homeowner must present evidence supporting a lower assessment and will be able to question the assessor’s representative on the assessed value. The assessor can also present evidence supporting the assessed value and question the homeowner’s witnesses and evidence. The Board of Review may approve or lower the assessment.

Before any formal board process, homeowners can and should informally request a lower assessment from their assessor. Assessors expect these informal requests and many have authority to lower an assessment before a formal board meeting or can be persuaded to suggest a lower assessment to the board.

Market data is crucial for both formal and informal challenges. Assessors strive to assess property at or near fair market value and must use a hierarchy of information to value property, including: (1) recent arm’s length sales of the assessed property; (2) recent arm’s length sales of comparable property in the municipality; and, if these sources are not available, only then (3) an appraisal of the property. See State ex rel. Markarian v. City of Cudahy, 45 Wis. 2d 683, 686 (1970). Many tax districts admittedly do not have the resources to evaluate every property every year, so the goal in any formal or informal challenge is to convince the decision-maker that market data supports a lower assessment.

Homeowners should obtain either a broker opinion from a realtor or an appraisal. Appraisals are sometimes difficult to obtain due to high demand, but if the property has not undergone a substantial renovation over the previous tax year, a taxpayer can save time and money and mount a successful challenge with a broker opinion alone.

Homeowners will likely have to decide to challenge without knowing their assessment for the year. Homeowners may receive notice in mid-April to early May that their assessment has changed from the previous year, but tax districts do not have to give notice when an assessment does not change. Because the May deadline to file a formal challenge varies by district, homeowners should not wait for a notice that may never come. Instead, homeowners and their attorneys should compare market data to the previous year’s assessment in April to gauge whether to challenge their assessment by their board’s May deadline.

If the assessor and the board do not lower the assessment, homeowners have two options for review in state court, Certiorari review or de novoreview. In certiorari review, there is no trial and the court only examines the record evidence from the board hearing and defers to the board’s determination unless the assessment was unreasonable or the board acted arbitrarily. In a de novo proceeding, homeowners must pay the tax on the assessed value and ask the court to declare the assessment excessive. In ade novo proceeding, the homeowner and the assessor can submit new evidence and the court is not required to defer to the board’s decision.

Homeowners outside Milwaukee can ask the Wisconsin Department of Revenue to lower the assessment if their property is not assessed over $1,000,000. The department will confer with the assessor and the homeowner to determine whether the assessment is out of proportion with the general level of assessment of all other property in the taxation district, i.e., the property was not assessed within 10 percent of all property within the taxing district. The department can revalue the property and the homeowner will pay taxes on that value.

Whether to challenge an assessment and how far to pursue the challenge depends on market data and expected tax relief. Taxpayers should look at their assessment, the available market data, and past tax bills to predict how much tax relief to expect from a realistic reduction. The amount of relief should dictate whether and how far to challenge an assessment.

1In the city of Milwaukee, the Board of Assessors is the first formal review stage.  Hearings may be held at this stage at the discretion of the Board of Assessors, but homeowners will be able to further pursue a hearing before the Board of Review if the Board of Assessors does not lower an assessment.

Resource: http://www.natlawreview.com

Strong house prices a problem for residential property investors

The soaring house prices in recent years have also driven rental yields in both Sydney and Melbourne to record lows. And according to Moody's Investor Services, this can become a problem for investors, as "the net costs involved in servicing a housing investment have increased relative to household incomes, making investment properties less affordable."

This eventually increases the risk for Australian residential property investors and residential mortgage-backed securities. It has also increased the level of cash flow losses suffered by residential property investors over the past three years as it made investors dependent on house appreciation to cover their investment losses.

"Investors in Sydney houses require 39.6 per cent of net household income to service their investment properties, while Melbourne house investors require 26.5 per cent, both record highs," Moody's said. This leads to an increase in risks and default probability for residential property investors.

This is the reason why the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) clamped down the growth of investment lending in 2015. The concentration of the Australian big four banks on housing loans was troubling the banking regulator.

"It is a significant issue of concern to us that close to two-thirds of [the big four banks'] balance sheets are exposed to property, mainly housing loans," said Charles Littrell, APRA's executive general manager of supervision and support.

According to Moody's, investment loans lent during the height of the lending boom in 2015 and 2015 are going to perform relatively poorly compared to those issued in other years. It might also mean that the performance of investment loans across the entire banking sector is bound to deteriorate in 2016 and 2017.

With interest rates at their lowest for more than 50 years, there are some great rates available. The best thing to do is to compare rates from all the lenders.

Resource: http://www.yourmortgage.com.au

Manara to showcase residential, logistics projects

Bahrain-based Manara Developments Company is set to launch a unique range of its properties at the Gulf Property Show 2016, the boutique showcase for real estate and property developments which opens this month in Bahrain.

The event is being organised by Hilal Conferences and Exhibitions (HCE) under the patronage of HRH Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, the Prime Minister of Bahrain, from April 26 to 28 at the Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Centre.

On the upcoming show, managing director Dr Hasan Al Bastaki said: "Manara's participation as a strategic partner in this real estate event, portrays its commitment to the real estate sector, as this exhibition, which achieved a growth of up to 70 per cent from 2013, is an annual opportunity for industry players, as well as prospective owners to meet and address the industry’s latest developments and trends."

Dr Al Bastaki said Manara will exhibit three major residential projects one of which is a mixed-use development “Hasabi” project offering breathtaking seafront views. 

Also at the expo, Manara aims to introduce a new sales phase of its Investment Gateway – Bahrain project that offers opportunities for ownership for Bahraini as well as non-Bahraini companies and individuals, a feature that makes the project, and the kingdom an ideal base for a wide array of light industry and logistical support on both the local and regional level.

Launched two years back, Investment Gateway – Bahrain is a major initiative by the company to encourage and support investments in the kingdom, with a particular focus on foreign investments.

In addition, amongst the projects that will be showcased at the exhibition, include Kenaz Al Bahrain featuring 64 residential units spread over eight four-floor apartment buildings, in addition to Wahati, a subproject of Wahat Al Muharraq that was initially introduced over three phases since 2011, offering a total of 227 villas of various sizes and designs and targeted at middle-income earners.

According to him, the project offers apartments that were specifically designed to meet the requirements of modern Bahraini families while maintaining the common trend towards vertical expansion to address the scarcity of land and thus serving a greater population within the available space and yet meeting the needs and requirements of young Bahraini families.

Dr Al Bastaki said Manara was amongst the first companies to join the partnership with the Ministry of Housing more than two years ago in line with the leadership’s directives towards the national social housing strategy.

Through this partnership, Manara extended its support towards the efforts of the Ministry of Housing in providing appropriately priced housing to suit the modern family’s needs and achieve social stability.-TradeArabia News Service

Resource: http://tradearabia.com