American property magnate Donald Trump is set to become involved in a major development in Thailand.

Trump is in discussions with Gaysorn Group to invest in a major mixed use project in central Bangkok, it has been confirmed.

The company plans to develop a luxury shopping mall along with 178 serviced apartment units and 30 high-end residence units with 30 year leasehold contracts.

‘We are exploring development opportunities. We believe that Asia provides strong opportunities for growth in the future,’ said a spokesman for the Trump Organisation.

The portfolio of the Trump Organisation, renowned as an international developer of deluxe properties, includes office buildings, hotels, condominiums, casinos, golf courses and country clubs, mainly in major cities in the US.

Housing woes in the U.S. have been a hot topic of late, but two of the world’s most populous countries may be in for a housing crisis worse than what the U.S. is experiencing.

Both China and India are watching real estate prices soar, leading many to question how long the market will last.

China for example, is boasting prices that would be considered absurd in the U.S. Three-bedroom apartments in cities such as Guangzhou or Shanghai are running for upwards of $300,000. These prices are especially high considering that the average salary in China is $160 per month, according to BusinessWeek.

In Shanghai, some one million residences were under construction in 2006, which was just half the amount of new construction in the entire U.S. in 2004, according to the Houston Chronicle. With Shanghai representing almost 20 percent of China’s property value, the bubble is seriously on edge, with many homes remaining empty. Shanghai’s property vacancy rate is roughly 25 percent, well above the international average of 10 percent, according to The New York Times.

Is the bubble already bursting? It would seem that the early signs are already there, as supply seems to be far outweighing demand at current prices. Morgan Stanley Asia-Pacific Chief Economist Andy Xie said he believes that the bursting of China’s housing bubble is inevitable, according to the Epoch Times (China). The Chinese government’s delay in controlling their housing market, coupled with the rise in U.S. interest rates and a decline in personal savings in China, have all but forced the issue.

Another indicator of a serious issue is the difference between investments and purchase. China had a difference of 16.6 percent in 2003, surpassing the alarm level by almost 60 percent, according to the Epoch Times. The warnings that this bubble is serious seem to be in place.

China’s move to both urbanize and modernize, while helpful to the country’s development, is quickly forcing real estate prices out of the realm of the average citizen. As of 2005, prices had already increased some 70 percent in just two years, according to the International Herald Tribune. If property vacancy rates continue to rise in response to high prices, a burst of the bubble will soon follow.

In India the story seems to be the same as it is in China: rising prices, massive construction and a bubble set to burst.

Much like China, India’s housing prices have soared, rising 16 percent a year for the last four years. In Bangalore and Mumbai, prices doubled in both 2005 and 2006, according to the Economist. Apartments in Mumbai now cost an average of three times more than in Shanghai, even with incomes in India much lower than those in China. According to the Economist, the question is not whether the prices will fall–but by how much.

Parker Green International, one of Ireland’s leading property and investment companies, is looking to Malta as a new opportunity as part of its global expansion plans.

As part of the plan it has formed a new International Advisory Board to examine property markets around the world in light of the current economic slump.

The new board will meet various Maltese state agencies in Valletta this week. ‘These meetings are important for Parker Green in two ways. First, we want to continue to expand internationally, and we are looking at all opportunities, including in Malta,’ said company chairman Dr Gerard O’Hare.

‘Second, we currently have a portfolio of investments and developments in Western, Central and Eastern Europe, the United States, the UK, and Ireland, and we felt we needed a new Board to reflect this global approach more fully,’ he added.

‘As we go forward, beginning with discussions in Malta, we want to know we have the expertise to perform in these global markets. The International Advisory Board, which is made up of top business and political leaders, lets us do that.’

The new board comprises senior politicians, including two members of the UK House of Lords, and various property and investment executives.

Buyers nationwide declined over the past year, reflecting the deep U.S. housing slump, a new study released Thursday by the National Association of Realtors said.

The study, which covered the year ending in May, said 26 percent of Realtors surveyed had at least one foreign client, down from nearly one-third of the brokers queried in 2007.

The profile of international home buying activity said that ‘foreign buyers — like U.S. buyers — may be waiting for home prices to continue to decline in order to purchase a property at a lower price.’

Canadians, aided by a strong Canadian dollar, were the No. 1 group of international buyers, accounting for nearly a quarter of all foreign buyers in the year ended May 2008. That was nearly twice the share the Canadians represented a year earlier.

Florida was the choice for 33 percent of all Canadian purchases in the United States.

Mexicans, who were the No. 1 group of international buyers last year, dropped to third place, behind the British and Canadians. Forty-two percent of all British buyers chose Florida.

Rounding out the top six were: China, India, and Germany. Buyers from China favored California, which captured 25 percent of their U.S. purchases, but Florida was No. 2 with 11 percent. Fifty-four percent of German buyers picked the Sunshine State.

After Florida, other top states for foreign buyers are California, Arizona and Texas.

Despite the current downturn, 35.5 percent of Florida Realtors surveyed said their international business has grown in the past five years, the report said. Some 52.6 percent in Florida reported their foreign business remained about the same, and only 11.8 percent indicated foreign business had decreased.

Thirty-eight percent of the Realtors thought the weak dollar was having a significant impact on foreign buyers looking in the United States, the study said.

But there were also some factors putting the brakes on U.S. purchases. ‘While U.S. real estate is still considered a ’safe haven’ for foreign funds, there are some perceived impediments to foreign purchases including cost of property, immigration laws, and property taxes,’ the report said.

Egypt and Morocco are leading the world’s tourism market by enjoying consistent growth for the last 10 years. This growth is expected to continue to drive the property markets in Africa and the Middle East.

Already considered one of the world’s leading tourist destinations, Egypt is beginning to experience a boom in the tourism market as well as the property rental markets.

In 2007 the Middle East was up 46 million tourists over 2006. UNWTO has previously stated that while areas in the Middle East are still considered developing, these figures prove that there is a growing desire to visit the region. Markets with a more mature tourist market are seeing increases as well, but the growth doesn’t compare to the Middle East. This emerging market is led in part by Egypt and Saudi Arabia. There is no worry that this growth is fleeting. Since the year 2000, Africa is averaging a 7% growth each year. These numbers are expected to continue up as South Africa gears up for the FIFA Soccer World Cup in 2010.

Families are beginning to get more adventurous in choosing their holiday destinations. Despite the global sub prime credit crunch, the number of tourists this year is expected to increase worldwide, but especially in the Middle East. Surveys have found that many families will cut back on home improvements or purchasing newer vehicles in order to take an exotic holiday. Another factor that may be encouraging more to travel is global climate change. UK residents stated that the the countries wet climate has led them to look for more temperate locales.

Destinations in the Middle East like Egypt and Morocco are beginning to embrace package deals which is making travel plans to the country that much easier. Property investors in Egypt and Morocco are expecting low vacancy for rentals in prime locations. With the number of visitors expected to rise steadily for the next three years, the property market has proved successful for many owners.

STANBUL: For years buying property in Turkey was perceived as risky by many Westerners. The impression was changing until recent increases in interest rates in the United States and Europe diverted investments from emerging markets, including Turkey, and the lira lost 18 percent of its value in less than eight weeks.But some analysts say that the economic turmoil is temporary and offers opportunities for those ready to face uncertainty.

“We have not seen any sharp drops yet” in housing prices, said Vehbi Cemil Hariri, director of valuation and investment at the Istanbul offices of the global real estate firm CB Richard Ellis. “We could see some, but if you are buying in dollars you could buy cheaper.”

And investors, like Jonty and Alise Crossick, an English couple who established Ready2invest, a corporation based in Brighton, England, still are expecting great things in Istanbul.

Until recent weeks, indicators had been generally favorable for Turkey. CB Richard Ellis said foreign investment in the country had increased 92 percent in the first two months of 2006 compared with the same period in 2005, pushing the total foreign presence to $3.12 billion. While that is a small amount compared with foreign investment in Western countries, analysts said it was a good base for growth.

Real estate purchases by foreigners had increased by 83 percent since 2003, and a recent report on the sector by the Raymond James investment advisory firm said the value of real estate transactions had increased to $25 billion in 2005, 40 percent above the 2003 level.

Turkish real estate circles also were energized by the expectation of changes in laws governing the country’s mortgage system.

Those changes, now on hold until late autumn at the earliest, would clear the way for banks to grant long-term property loans to individual citizens, opening vast new opportunities for sales. The revisions also would give banks the ability to reclaim properties after loan defaults, eliminating the need for lengthy legal efforts.

Lacking access to loans, many buyers have to use cash, setting up scenes that look like something out of an action movie.

As one Western diplomat described it: “You go to the bank, take out a suitcase full of $100 bills in lira, then get bodyguards to protect youwhile you give the money to the owner.”

While the central bank’s recent efforts to stabilize the currency and to control inflation drew praise from the International Monetary Fund on June 29, more repercussions from the recent turmoil are expected.

Kerem Tezcan, an equities analyst at the Raymond James office in Istanbul, said banks would stop making property loans until the financial situation stabilized. “We are going to see a lot of decline in domestic demand forproperty,” he said. “Banks are on hold now.”

Tezcan predicted that the real estate market would return to normal by mid-2007, barring additional problems. He said that “the turbulence” in the markets set the mortgage plan back by 18 months.

The Turkish real estate market is accustomed to crisis. Onder Akpinar, assistant director of CB Richard Ellis in Istanbul, in a brief overviewof the real estate market in Istanbul in recent years, said that the buying of property, for both commercial and residential projects, stopped in 2003 over concerns about the economy. The country had been rocked by a severe earth-

quake in 1999 and a financial crisis in 2001.

Turkey covers 770,000 square kilometers, or 297,000 square miles. But 45 percent of the residential real estate market is in Istanbul, a cityof little more than 250 square kilometers. And in a report on the second quarter of 2006, Akpinar of CB Richard Ellis wrote that high-end properties in Istanbul and Ankara were selling for as much as $3,500 per square meter, or $327 per square foot.

“You’ve got a thriving city of 14 million people without mortgages,” Alise Crossick of Ready2invest said. “You’ve got a market that is about to take off.”

Like other Europeans interviewed about the real estate in Turkey, the Crossicks said that they once were skeptical about investing in Turkey. But after Alise Crossick visited Istanbul early this year, she became enamored.

During an interview, she dismissed the common financial classification of Turkey as an emerging market. “It’s not like they’re emerging,” she said. “They’ve been here. It’s like we’re the ones that haven’t found out about it.”

Historically, Istanbul was considered the gateway to the East. Its position on the Bosporus, the link between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea, kept it at the center of commerce and trade, and gave it aparticular influence inthe region.

Many people have compared the country’s real estate potential with that of Spain 15 to 20 years ago, when large numbers of Britons began buying on the Costa del Sol. But Tezcan said geography gives Turkey a greater advantage.

Large property deal in Dubai…
Having reached 158 floors and still growing, the world’s tallest skyscraper, Burj Dubai has sold 11000 sq ft of office space on the 94th floor to a European buyer for a whopping 12 million dollars in an online deal.  Not only will you find deals like this going on in Dubai all the time but look for more of them.

As the US market is uncertain you can find property in Dubai that will hold its value and possibly gain by an estimated 1.2% in the next 5 years at the minimum price.

Start looking for more office space to be bought up for companies around the world start to move to Dubai.  Not only are major US companies moving to UAE but other companies around the world are look to the UAE market to buy Offices and Residential property.  UAE (Dubai) will become the most sought after property in the world.

Just look at some of the residents that have homes there now.  David Beckham, Richard Branson, Vijay Singh, Michael Schumacher, and Tommy Lee just to name a few people that have bought property in Dubai.

The next top selling item in Dubai will be the World Islands.  It would be interesting to know who will buy all those islands.