Commercial-property values in the UK fell at the slowest annual pace last month since February last year, Investment Property Databank Ltd (IPD) said, as rents almost stopped declining.
Prices for office buildings, stores and warehouses dropped 14 percent from a year earlier, an index posted on the London-based research firm’s Web site yesterday showed. Property values climbed 2.4 percent on a monthly basis, the biggest gain in 15 years.
“This time last year, the monthly index showed we were on the brink of surpassing the worst annual return since 1990,” said Malcolm Hunt, head of UK client services at IPD. “At that time, such a rapid reversal of fortunes would have been considered far-fetched.”
Investment in commercial properties is starting to recover after the market’s two-year decline, which ended in July, knocked 44 percent off values. The biggest buyers are cash-rich UK and overseas pension funds and insurers, along with property companies that raised billions of pounds in share sales.
After taking rental income into account, investors have lost 1.4 percent so far this year, IPD said. The recovery has achieved enough momentum to make a positive return possible this year, Hunt said.
Property values fell 5.8 percent in December last year, the biggest monthly decline since IPD started its index in 1987. Prices for shops and malls rose 2.8 percent last month from the prior month, the second-biggest gain recorded by IPD.
Taiwan’s Lee Chia-hao (李佳豪) on Sunday won a silver medal at the All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham, England, a career best. Lee, 25, took silver in the final of the men’s singles against world No. 1 Shi Yuqi (石宇奇) of China, who won 21-17, 21-19 in a tough match that lasted 51 minutes. After the match, the Taiwanese player, who ranks No. 22 in the world, said it felt unreal to be challenging an opponent of Shi’s caliber. “I had to be in peak form, and constantly switch my rhythm and tactics in order to score points effectively,” he said. Lee got
‘CROWN JEWEL’: Washington ‘can delay and deter’ Chinese President Xi Jinping’s plans for Taiwan, but it is ‘a very delicate situation there,’ the secretary of state said US President Donald Trump is opposed to any change to Taiwan’s “status quo” by force or extortion and would maintain that policy, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Hugh Hewitt Show host on Wednesday. The US’ policy is to maintain Taiwan’s “status quo” and to oppose any changes in the situation by force or extortion, Rubio said. Hewitt asked Rubio about the significance of Trump earlier this month speaking with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) at the White House, a meeting that Hewitt described as a “big deal.” Asked whether the meeting was an indication of the
‘RELATIVELY STRONG LANGUAGE’: An expert said the state department has not softened its language on China and was ‘probably a little more Taiwan supportive’ China’s latest drills near Taiwan on Monday were “brazen and irresponsible threats,” a US Department of State spokesperson said on Tuesday, while reiterating Washington’s decades-long support of Taipei. “China cannot credibly claim to be a ‘force for stability in a turbulent world’ while issuing brazen and irresponsible threats toward Taiwan,” the unnamed spokesperson said in an e-mailed response to media queries. Washington’s enduring commitment to Taiwan will continue as it has for 45 years and the US “will continue to support Taiwan in the face of China’s military, economic, informational and diplomatic pressure campaign,” the e-mail said. “Alongside our international partners, we firmly
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday said it has lodged a protest with Pretoria after the name of the Taipei Liaison Office in South Africa was changed to the “Taipei Commercial Office” on the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation’s (DIRCO) Web site. In October last year, the South African government asked Taiwan to relocate the Taipei Liaison Office, the nation’s de facto embassy, out of Pretoria. It later agreed to continue negotiating through official channels, but in January asked that the office be relocated by the end of this month. As of the middle of last month, DIRCO’s Web
RSS