Some of the cheapest housing of any major European city is attracting a wave of foreign buyers to the German capital, promising a new property boom after a false start after the fall of the Berlin Wall nearly 20 years ago.
Buyers from Britain, Scandinavia, Ireland and the US are leading the rush to snap up apartments in the once-divided city, making the 12 months up to last November the busiest on the property market since World War II, estate agents say.
Foreigners were responsible for 70 percent of the transactions, the German federation of estate agents said, with Danes spearheading the march. The interest is so high that Danish estate agents have opened offices in the city.
One Danish agent, Esben Tjalvi, said Danes found the prices too good to resist: "At 1,500 to 2,000 euros [US$2,200 to US$2,950] per square meter, it's up to four times cheaper than in Copenhagen and Stockholm," Tjalvi said.
But private buyers alone do not account for the eye-popping 28 percent rise in turnover in the first half of last year -- that is thanks to the muscular presence of investment funds that are snapping up dozens of apartment blocks.
Cerberus Capital Management and Goldman Sachs' Whitehall fund have invested 2.1 billion euros since 2004.
"In Berlin, the price per square meter is one of the cheapest of any major city in Europe, including those in eastern Europe," said Andrea Magnoni, the Italian cofounder of the Valore fund.
"The return for investors is higher than anywhere else at between 7 and 8 percent compared to 3.5 percent in Milan because even if the rents are moderate the purchase prices are always low enough to guarantee a good rate," he said.
Investors are speculating on rents rising.
The influx of investors to Berlin is having a marked effect on the landscape of the city.
Whole streets are being renovated without the city authorities having to dig into their already massively stretched finances. The decrepit apartments with coal-fired heating and toilets on the landing are disappearing and new shops are opening.
This in turn is creating jobs, not only in the property sector but also in the building trade.
But Berliners fear that the property boom is threatening to change the character of a city that has an alternative feel.
The once rare occurrence of tenants forced to leave so that the owner can raise rents is now becoming more common, some say.
Meanwhile, luxury apartments are mushrooming, with prices well beyond the reach of most residents in a city where 11 percent of the population is unemployed and thousands of students and hard-up artists make their home.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS