Foreign buyers pounce on freshly independent Montenegro
The southeastern European nation of Montenegro, independent since June, has been drawing foreign buyers and investors eager to capitalize on the Connecticut-sized republic’s cheaper real estate.
These fresh buyers in Europe’s youngest country are mostly coming from the United Kingdom, Russia and nearby Italy, and are keenest on buying property along Montenegro’s 175-mile Adriatic Sea coastline, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal. Prices there have increased nearly threefold in the past 12 months, and the young country’s government is moving to enforce laws regulating development to prevent what the Montenegrin foreign minister calls “the transforming of the whole coast into a giant piece of concrete.”
While this demand continues to fuel property price increases, Montenegro’s coastal prices remain cheaper than other areas along the Adriatic. In the small town of Kotor, for instance, home prices average $3,839 a square meter (or $356 a square foot), according to the Journal. In Cannes, France, that average is $6,712 ($623 a square foot), and, in Thessaloniki, on the Greek coast, the average is $11,515 a meter ($1,069 a square foot).
Big retail chains eye India
The world’s biggest retail chains, including Wal-Mart, are maneuvering to enter what’s being called the final frontier of international retail — India. These maneuvers come despite a government ban on foreign direct investment in the Indian retail market, the International Herald-Tribune reported.
But the subcontinent may be too juicy a retail target for the chains to pass up. More than half of India’s 1.1 billion citizens are under the age of 25, the Herald-Tribune reported, and their disposable incomes are increasing in a country where the economy averages an 8 percent growth rate annually.
Wal-Mart recently started negotiations with DLF Universal, India’s largest real estate developer. And Europe’s largest retailer, Carrefour, is talking with the Landmark Group, a Dubai-based developer, about building in India. To get around the government’s restrictions on foreign direct investment in retail, the international chains are trying to partner with Indian companies.
The restrictions stem from what’s probably a debate familiar to Westerners: With most retail in India almost all family-run operations, Indian politicians often argue that foreign chains will put these smaller mom-and-pop stores out of business.
Gap, Banana Republic stores to flood Malaysia, Singapore
Facing competition and pricier retail rents elsewhere, the Gap Inc. plans to make major inroads into Asia during the end of 2006. The clothing giant will open its first stores in Asia outside of Japan beginning in October.
The first three of these Gaps will open in Singapore and another four will open in Malaysia by December. These include a 9,000-square-foot flagship store at Wisma Atria mall on Singapore’s Orchard Road. The other 3,000 Gap stores are located in North America, France, Great Britain and Japan.
Following these Gap openings, Gap Inc. also plans to open Banana Republic stores in Singapore and Malaysia starting in 2007. As many as 30 Gap and Banana Republic stores could open, in fact, in the two countries by the end of this decade, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal.
Financial services drive London office leasing
Financial services firms are driving London’s already tight and expensive office market in 2006 to historically low availability rates. Banks and financial services firms accounted for 39 percent of all office leasing in the British capital during the first six months of 2006, according to brokerage Cushman & Wakefield. That’s up from 26 percent during the same period in 2005, and from 22 percent during 2004’s first half.
In the first six months of 2006, businesses leased 4.7 million square feet of London office space, up 40 percent during the same period in 2005.
This brisk leasing has contributed to some of the lowest availability rates in London’s office submarkets in years. In the West End — the world’s most expensive office market, according to Cushman & Wakefield — the availability rate at the beginning of July stood at 5.7 percent, the lowest since 2001. In the City and Docklands, the availability rate was 8.3 percent, the lowest in four years.