REAL ESTATE

US fund manager Franklin Templeton plans to invest heavily across the Asia-Pacific region aims to launch a new Asian property fund of funds. It also intends raising about $300 million from institutional investors in Europe and Australia, a Reuters report said.

NYC's biggest 'affordable' housing project in 35 years attracts numerous real estate powerhouses, who will participate in the first phase of the bidding process, a recent Reuters report said.

Australian real estate analysts said increasing home loan applications are suggestive of a positive outlook for the residential property market.

The Government of Singapore Investment Corp's (GIC) real-estate arm warns India will be flooded with luxury hotels and malls. However, it remained optimistic about the country's longer-term prospects.

Not now, say experts. Because there are more unsold homes in the market because of what the banks and speculators have done.

Jefferson County in Louisville, Kentucky has always prided to be the home for million dollar houses in the U.S.

New Orleans, which was hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, has lost more than 75,000 homes, nearly 13% of the total housing units in the district. At the same time, the monthly cost of housing rose 33% to $882 due to shortage of these houses making it expensive to live.

Some elderly borrowers may benefit from a Federal government decision to reduce upfront costs of reverse mortgages in the US.

In the Big island of Hawaii, more people are buying Condominium and single family homes compared to last year, as home prices are still going cheap.

In the first of this year, more than $132 billion worth of real estate deals were signed globally, up 74% over $76 billion deals signed during the same period last year.

In contrast to the rest of Asia, South Korea's real estate sector is in the midst of a crisis with residential property in Greater Seoul area being marked 10 percent below recent levels and down twice that figure in the other regions of the country.

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Henderson Global Investors has launched a new $1.1 billion fund targeting the U.S. apartment market, saying it was the best-placed property sector for rent growth and occupancy over the next five years.

According to a recent realty report by Reuters, an unbelievable number of US homeowners lost their homes to banks. RealtyTrac, a real estate data company sees a record 1.2 million repossessions this year, up from just fewer than 1 million last year, with more than 3.2 million US homes in some stage of foreclosure.

Manhattan apartment vacancy on all-time high

In surge of properties up for sale, GSE's economists forecast that home prices may fall an additional 1 to 1.5 per cent in the third quarter, and might later stabilize during the first half of 2011 and begin to rise during the balance of the year.

Lloyds Banking Group has put up to £100 million worth of luxury rental property across the U.K. up for sale in a move to speed up the disposal of assets inherited from the Bank of Scotland.

Despite stagnancy in the realty sector in Mumbai, realtors haven't lost the passion to acquire land in India's financial capital. Last week, leading developers made bid for a 105 acre land in Thane situated in the outskirts of the city.

A record number of homeowners lost houses to their banks in August as lenders worked through the backlog of distressed mortgages, real estate data company RealtyTrac said on Thursday.

Mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could cost the government $53 billion through 2020 or save the government as much as $44 billion, depending on the accounting principles used.

A boutique investment bank and a building developer plan to offer tenants of Manhattan's largest privately owned apartment complex the chance to become owners.

Mortgage applications for home loan refinancing fell for a second straight week, dropping to its lowest level since early August, as rock-bottom interest rates failed to boost demand.

Beazer Homes USA Inc cut its full-year outlook for new home orders after the expiration of a federal homebuyer tax credit, saying potential buyers remain cautious amid high unemployment and continued foreclosures.

More U.S. homeowners slashed their asking prices for a third straight month in August to lure buyers into a market hindered by high unemployment, a study showed on Wednesday.

Mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will not exist in their current form after a revamp of the U.S. housing finance system, a top Obama administration official said on Tuesday.

Morgan Stanley on Friday said Jay Mantz would be vice chairman of its real estate investing group.

Fifty percent of Harbor Shores's available real estate inventory has been sold. In numbers, Harbor Shores in Benton Harbor, Mich., sold 28 of 56 home sites.

Michael Barr, assistant treasury secretary for financial institutions, and Edward DeMarco, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency will testify on Capitol Hill next week on the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

A key U.S. banking regulator raised concern on Wednesday about the risk of exposure the government is taking on in the mortgage market and urged more stringent standards for underwriting mortgages.