Jones Lang LaSalle has appointed Thierry Delvaux as a Managing Director with the firm’s International Desk. Delvaux is relocating from Budapest, Hungary to set up the new International Desk hub in Washington, D.C. The firm’s International Desk leverages Jones Lang LaSalle’s global platform, relationships and market knowledge to link clients with transaction specialists and solutions across the globe.
“Our International Desk expertise is a crucial driver for our occupier and investor clients who need help expanding into emerging global markets. Thierry is a proven leader with an impressive track record of connecting clients to opportunities throughout Eastern Europe. His experience, and ability to speak five languages fluently, will be invaluable to our domestic client base,” said Greg O’Brien, CEO, Brokerage, Americas.
Based in Washington D.C., Delvaux joins other members of the International Desk team – Giles Wrench, Managing Director who is based in New York and Samit Chopra, Managing Director sited in Palo Alto, California. In his new role, Delvaux will target and accelerate the growth of inter-regional business, particularly from current and prospective U.S.-based multinational clients, while also advising on individual transactions. Prior to this role, Delvaux was the Country Manager for Jones Lang LaSalle in Hungary and Romania.
“The Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate recently ranked Washington, D.C. as the top U.S. city for foreign investment, so this is the ideal domicile for our domestic International Desk operations. Thierry’s international experience and commitment to excellence are major assets to our team as we continue helping clients capitalize on opportunities in the global marketplace,” said Mike Ellis, Mid-Atlantic Director Jones Lang LaSalle.
“Jones Lang LaSalle’s International Desk is an exceptional service that can leverage the firm’s global platform to support the real estate needs of our clients across the world,” said Delvaux. “I am honored to be joining the United States team and look forward serving clients as a bridge across regions and nations.”
“London Luxury-Home Prices Increase Most Since 2008,” says Bloomberg. Which, on the surface is good news, but the underlying sales volumes are still extremely weak. Typical monthly sales volumes are around 12-14,000 units and sales are at around 7,000 units – 50% less than usual. They are admittedly up from the 2008 lows. In fact – the Land Registry just announced an “86% increase in the number of properties sold in London over £1 million,” compared to 2008.
Once again I wonder at the point of headlines such as this which set out to deliberately mislead. Things are confusing enough as it is. The entire UK is sitting and awaiting the next general election to see which way the hammer will fall regarding bank bonus payouts and taxes thereon.
Sales volumes are extremely depressed across the entire country, and it is extremely dangerous to base statistics on such a small sample. We do not appear to be out of the woods in the UK just yet and an average home price in excess of £160,000 still puts home prices well above the statistical norm of 3.5 times average salaries. Around double actually.
Artificially delaying the repossessions coming to market by persuading the banks to give a 6 month extension to householders in arrears is merely delaying the inevitable. RBS and a number of other big banks have agreed not to repossess or foreclose on houses until owners are behind by at least six months, and I suspect that teh incoming government (almost certainly the Tories) will have a rash of repossessions on their hands in the first few month of office.
Personally – I would like to see this dealt with ASAP and see a genuine correction in the housing market rather than dragging this out for years as seems to be the intention.
London Home Sales Volumes:
Birch Hall, a mansion on Nunthorpe’s “millionaire’s row, on Teesside, burned to the ground over the weekend. Despite the efforts of at least 45 firefighters, who ere unable to prevent the collapse of the roof. Ten fire engines, including a special hydraulic platform responded to the emergency call within minutes of the fire being spotted by a neighbor, but to no avail.
The fire started early on Monday morning and the crews spent all night fighting the blaze. The mansion is on the border of rural Cleveland and North Yorkshire, and was purchased for £1.6 million back in 2004. The propery has undergone extensive renovations recently and – as usual – the insurance company will be taking a close look at the financial situation of the owners.
The property boasted 7 bedrooms and a 2 bedroom annexe, with over 18 acres of land. No one was in the building at the time and the owner has not yet been traced. A special relay was needed to get enough water to contain the blaze, and once “damping down,” has been completed by the fire brigade, the building will be turned over to police.But as things stand – around 75% of the building has gone and it appears what is left will need to be demolished.
Birch Hall all but destroyed
photo credit
A Fan Buys A Piece Of Michal Jackson History for $3.1 Million
Las Vegas Mega Agents Zar Zanganeh and Lee Medick sold the home Michael Jackson rented in Las Vegas at 2785 S. Monte Cristo Way for $3.1 Million today. The 15,461 square foot, seven bedrooms, ten bath mansion includes a tennis court, basketball court, twenty-seat theater and extensive security features on a one acre lot. The sale also represents the largest home sold in Las Vegas in almost one year.
Jackson’s Las Vegas home was sold to a doctor-lawyer couple with luxury property holdings in California and Asia who paid in cash. At 15,461 square feet, it is the largest house sold in Las Vegas in almost a year. The home became the focal point for Las Vegas fans who gathered at the mansions gated entrance to place flowers and memorabilia following Jackson’s untimely death.
Lee Medick - Las Vegas Fine Estates
Zanganeh leased the home to Jackson and his family for $1 Million for six months in late 2006 to 2007 after Jackson returned from a self-exile overseas. “It’s serendipity that we sold the home that we had also rented to Michael Jackson. The estate became famous and generated tremendous interest because of the MJ connection, in fact, the buyer is a big Michael Jackson fan,” said Zanganeh. His partner Lee Medick currently has Michael Jackson’s Las Vegas Wonderland Estate at 7000 Tomiyasu Lane listed for sale for $16.5 Million. ”We are seeing significant residential real estate buyers starting to come back into Las Vegas,” said Lee Medick Michael Jackson’s connection to both these properties brought worldwide media attention and put Las Vegas luxury property back on the radar. Medick continued, “Las Vegas residents enjoy significant tax advantages and people that buy luxury properties are savvy business people, they understand the value that being a resident of Nevada brings and the luxury lifestyle that Las Vegas provides. Plus homes such as this deliver Star-Power to the incredible architecture.
According to their press release, “Vegas Fine Estates is the #1 Las Vegas residential real estate team representing Vegas’ finest homes and catering to celebrity and luxury clientele throughout the world. Having sold more than $1 billion in premier properties, the team specializes in listing, marketing and selling luxury & buying value properties throughout Las Vegas. Vegas Fine Estates provides its clients with best-in-industry service, sales strategy, state-of-the-art real estate marketing, seasoned internet, database marketing, advertising, copywriting, photography and public relations—all of which work together to ensure every property represented by Vegas Fine Estates garners the attention—and sales price—it deserves. For more information about Vegas Fine Estates and their luxury home private collection, please visit www.VegasFineEstates.com
Obviously the big news this week is the biggest foreclosure in history – the $5 billion collapse of the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper village developments from rent-controlled, war-vet apartments into luxury condos.
The investors in the deal are slowly coming to light and the New York Times has some of them listed here:
In the beginning, investors and lenders could not get enough of the record-breaking $5.4 billion deal to buy the largest apartment complexes in Manhattan: Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. Now, three years later, they cannot get away from it fast enough. NY Times
The list sadly includes a number of pension funds who should have known better and – the Church of England. Whilst the Archbishop of Canterbury lectures on “Ethical economics,” the church’ money lenders are busy investing in morally-questionable deals.
Ouch! It appears the church of England is – once again – better at preaching morals than actually practicing them. A £40 million investment in a decidedly-dodgy Manhattan luxury real estate deal has just gone up to heaven to be with Jesus. Church of England investment in Manhattan
Nicholas Cage managed to offload – if that is the right term for a foreclosure – one of his mansions for a tidy $5 million in Las Vegas. Whether this will be enough to extract him from teh clutches of the IRS remains to be seen.
A real estate broker says a Las Vegas mansion that belonged to Nicolas Cage before it was foreclosed on sold for nearly $5 million its first day on the market. Records show Cage owes millions of dollars to the IRS in unpaid taxes. The Oscar-winning actor has said he’s had to sell numerous assets because of his finances. ABC news
A recent luxury real estate leadership forum kicked off this week.
Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty (DGSIR) recently participated in the 5th Annual Sotheby’s International Realty® Leadership Forum. This dynamic, three-day event provided a unique opportunity for a number of Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty’s key executives, department heads and managers to network and share best practices with the top brokers, owners and managers of other firms affiliated with Sotheby’s International Realty. Luxury real estate conference
The Huffington Post is proud to report that Donald Trump has managed to sell his Palm Beach mansion for the princely sum of $100 million, which then turns out to be only $95 million.
Much of the country’s real estate market may be languishing, but not apparently in Palm Beach, where Donald Trump earned a return of more than 130% after his luxury beachfront mansion sold for a record $95 million. The 60,000 square-foot property, which Trump bought in 2004 for $41 million, was purchased by Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev. Huffington Post
Seeing as we reported the sale back in May 2008 I am not sure what to make of that. A slow news day?
Well – the biggest foreclose in the history of foreclosures in not being called a foreclosure because the debtors have decided to hand the property over to the creditors without any legal battles. Wisely, I think. The Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village in Manhattan, which includes 110 buildings, 11,000 apartments and over 25,000 tenants was purchased in 2006 for the then-staggering sum of $5.4 billion by Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty with the intention of evicting the rent-regulated tenants, turning the empty apartments into luxury developments and make a substantial fortune in the process.
Enter one credit crisis stage left, combine this with several lawsuits, including a class action suit against the original owners, Metlife by the sitting tenants and voila! – the biggest foreclosure in the history of foreclosures. Entertainingly – three of the biggest creditors include the Florida State Board of Administration, which had invested $250 million; and the 2 largest California government pension funds – the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and the California State Teachers Retirement System, with $600 million invested between them.
One has to question the ethics of three government-owned institutions being allowed to gamble money on the ability to evict legal tenants from a property and I would have to say in this case – it serves them right.
Exactly how much money they will lose is hard to say – for all I know, the Fed will just print another $5 billion and hand it over in paper sacks, but it is estimated that the complex is now worth less than $2 billion.
