DECEMBER 2011 |
www.opp.org.uk
NEWS Tax reshuffl e to hurt France By Geoff Hadwick
The buoyant French holiday home market could face “a slow-down” in the New Year if “vendors take their stock off the market” as the government doubles the scope of its capital gains tax (CGT) regime. The new rules double the time
period owners will have to wait before being able to sell without falling liable for a French capital gainst tax payment to 30 years. Speaking exclusively to OPP,
Graham Rowan, director of French international home specialists, the Leaseback Team, said “the French government is desperate to raise more tax revenues, and they are approaching the (overseas property) market on the simple basis that the sooner you sell, the more tax you pay. There may very well be a slow-down in the buoyant French market if vendors take their properties
INDUSTRY | 11
NEWS IN BRIEF Cuba buying ban lifted
Double trouble | Increasing the CGT-exemption could see vendors delist stock
off the market.” At present, any non- resident property owner in France has to pay a 15% tax if they sell within the fi rst 5 years of purchase. “Then”, says Rowan, “there is a
10% reduction every year for the next 10 years meaning no tax is due after 15 years.” “The new system, which will come
into force from February 2012 onwards, is no reduction in CGT for fi rst 5 years – as now – and then a 2% reduction per year until you’ve owned the property for 15 years, then a 4% reduction per year from year 16 to year 25, followed by an 8% reduction per year from year 26 to 30. All of which means no CGT is payable after 30 years.”
Buy an apartment and get a BMW
More evidence of the slow-down in China’s property market has emerged with the news that a developer in Wenzhou - where prices have crashed in line with the government’s tightening measures - has decided to throw in the keys to a BMW for every one of the fi rst 150 apartments it sells at its new Central Mansions residential complex. Rather than slash prices, developers
in many of mainland China’s biggest cities are now offering all sorts of sales incentives from additional garden plots, Louis Vuitton handbags, cruise vacations and now … luxury cars. The Central Mansions project in Wenzhou comprises 868 apartments
SINGAPORE SOARS
The city-state of Singapore continues to attract growing numbers of overseas property investors as buyers from abroad drove up the city’s Q2 transactions statistics, local developer Selangor Dredging Bhd (SDB) told OPP this month.
and is located in one of the weakest housing markets in the country. Prices there dropped by 1.4% in September month on month. The BMWs on offer for early bird buyers equate to a 10%, or RMB300,000, discount it has been reported. The outlook remains tough nationally.
The number of Chinese housing transactions in October fell 25% on September and the overall value of homes sold last month, right across the country, dropped to 372.3 billion yuan ($58.7 billion) from 493.9 billion yuan in September, based on data from the statistics bureau. “The government’s property policies are working,” Johnson Hu,
RIVIERA SALES UP
Sales volumes on The French Riviera rose by 9% as vendors lowered prices to get a quick sale. Luxury properties are being bought as “vendors realise they need to adjust their prices to sell,” The
EstateNetFrance.com Research Luxury Property Index told OPP.
a Hong Kong-based property analyst of CIMB-GK Securities Research, told OPP. “Even in the so-called peak season
of October, sales are coming down. But for the near term, it’s unlikely the government will relax the policies and the data throughout the year will remain quite volatile.”
Cuba’s housing economy has been liberalised further as president Raul Castro ended the socialist state’s fi ve-decade ban on buying and selling property ... with the prospect of investment from ex-pats and foreign tourists also on the cards now. The new law, which came into eff ect on Thursday November 10 2011, allows Cubans to sell property to other Cubans without government approval. Only Cuban citizens living in the country or foreigners with permanent Cuban visa residencies can participate in the process. Estimates suggest that Cuban ex-pats, predominantly in the United States, invest some $1 billion into the island.
Banks forced to ditch
Europe’s banks are going to be forced into selling more distressed property loans in the coming year as borrowers default, a major Bloomberg real estate summit in New York was told this week. European lenders have €151.4 billion (US $204.8 billion) of commercial real estate loans in default, compared with US $121 billion at U.S. banks, according to New York- based data provider Trepp LLC, and the hotel and resort sector is a major risk.
South Florida buoyant Will | the off er drive property sales? UK IS SAFE HAVEN
The UK international property market is “looking like a safe harbour” as “Greece becomes basically bankrupt and Italy enters an unsustainable phase,” Andrew Montlake, the communications director at Coreco told OPP last month
A “tide of international property buyers” is lifting the South Florida real estate market, delegates were told at the recent three-day Miami International Real Estate Congress. Investors from South America are increasingly active the conference heard, and the Miami Association of Realtors revealed that the top 5 international buyer markets for Florida now are Venezuela (15%), Brazil (12%), Argentina (11%), Canada (10%) and Colombia (8%).
IFAS PAYMENT HIT
The UK’s upcoming Retail Distribution Review (RDR), which will ban sales commission payments for IFAs and impose a scale of consultancy fees, may hurt the industry according to the Federation of European Independent Financial Advisors. (FEIFA).
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