The Middle East’s interiors, design & property magazine

®

The Middle East’s interiors, design & property magazine

®

Dubai Technology and Media Free Zone Authority

identity ISSUE 124YEar TwElvEjanUarY 2014a MOTIvaTE PUBlICaTIOn

Welcoming 2014: year of the radiant orchidWinning IS everything: Dubai’s Expo 2020 siteWandering living spaces for the adventurousDesign in motion: global trending in the UAE

DHS 20.00 RO 2.00 BD 2.00 QR 20.00 SR 20.00 KD 1.50

WAKING GIANT

“Chinese to build New York of Africa” and similar headlines may become more common over the coming years. This headline stems from developer Shanghai Zendai Property bidding for a 1,600-hectare site in Johannesburg, South Africa, where it wants to build 35,000 new homes.

Zoom north to Europe and smaller scale investments are being made by wealthy Chinese individuals in Greek property advertised by agencies like Beauchamp Estates. They are attracted by residency permits and free movement to other European Union countries.

According to Savills, investment by Chinese firms in overseas property has grown rapidly over the past three years, from Dhs3.3 billion in 2010 to Dhs20.5 billion in 2012. Investment is expected to have exceeded those levels in 2013 and will grow by at least 20 per cent per year over the next decade, because China is getting wealthier, its firms want to diversify investment overseas and property is their favourite asset, the agency says.

MIAMI NICE

Over the past 10 years, Miami has been undergoing a makeover. The city used to be seen as little more than a beach resort with skyscrapers, but now it is held up as an international centre of design. In addition to hosting large design fairs like Design Miami/, the city is being graced with a growing number of museums and other buildings designed by the world’s top architects, including Herzog & de Meuron and Zaha Hadid.

Designer residential developments appearing in the city include the Ritz-Carlton Residences, Miami Beach, designed by Italian Modernist architect Piero Lissoni. The three-hectare estate on the shores of Surprise Lake will have 111 condominiums, 15 villas and a marina.

“Lissoni’s modern and artistic design will create a development that will change the Miami Beach skyline and how we look at luxury living,” Ophir Sternberg, chief executive of developer Lionheart Capital, says. Condo prices start from Dhs14.6 million.

Winter gardens, farmland, crowdfunding and Miami architecture are all in vogue text: richard warren

CROWDED HOUSE

Crowdfunding, where investors pool their resources to help fund a project, is making its mark in the property market. In exchange for a minimum investment of Dhs6,000, The House Crowd says it will produce a 30 per cent return for investors from purchasing British bricks and mortar. A Hong Kong entrepreneur has launched a crowdfunded scheme called Crowdbaron.com, which will invest in London residential property. In New York, the Prodigy Network will use crowdfunding to finance construction of John 17, a 23-storey extended stay hotel near the World Trade Centre.

British TV presenter and architect Kevin McCloud, of Grand Designs fame, is raising Dhs6 million via crowdfunding website Crowdcube to enable his company Hab Housing to expand in the custom-build house market. Minimum investment, Dhs600. Return, 5 per cent by end of 2016. Financial advisers caution potential investors to tread carefully, because these schemes are new, relatively untested and not always regulated to the same extent as conventional investment schemes.

idProperty | antennae

FERTILE INVESTMENT

English farmland values have hit a record high and will continue rising following a decade of price growth.

According to the Knight Frank Farmland Index, the average price of farmland rose 4 per cent in the third quarter of 2013 to reach Dhs100,000 per hectare, driven up by a combination of limited supply and strong demand from farmers, investors and lifestyle buyers. Land agents say overseas investors are increasing their share of the market, attracted by a trebling in agricultural land prices over the past 10 years.

Knight Frank forecasts prices will rise by 5 per cent per year for the next three years, because land is becoming sought after not only for food production but also energy generation.

“From what I am seeing now, people start to get very interested if there is also the potential for additional income from the likes of renewable energy or a diversified farm business,” Knight Frank’s Tom Raynham says.

THE NEW MEDITERRANEAN

For much of the 20th century, the Adriatic was little more than a backwater of the Mediterranean, but now Croatia, Montenegro and Albania are opening up their economies and housing markets to foreign investors.

At least half-a-dozen residential resort schemes are appearing along their coastlines. The latest to be announced is Portonovi, a Dhs3 billion scheme in Montenegro that is scheduled to open in 2016. In addition to a hotel and villas, the 24-hectare development will include a marina, spa and conference centre.

At other Montenegro schemes, 50 villas are being built at Sea Breeze and a marina is under construction at Lustica Bay, where 100 homes have been sold to date.

In Croatia, Dhs74.6 million in property sales have been completed so far at Sun Gardens in Dubrovnik. At Albania’s Lalzit Bay Resort and Spa community, developers are tempting prospective holiday home buyers with free cars.

WEATHER BEATER

Popular with the European aristocracy in the 19th century, winter gardens have come back into fashion in London, where they are being installed in place of balconies at new apartment schemes.

Bearing in mind London’s weather tends to be cold for much of the year, having a winter garden that can be opened in summer and closed in winter seems a long overdue, sensible idea. They are a great way to make the most of available space, because when closed off they can be integrated into internal living area – much better than looking out onto a wet, windswept balcony in January.

About 12 apartment schemes, including Dollar Bay and the completed NEO Bankside development on the South Bank, have apartments with individual winter gardens. They are also making a return in commercial buildings – at London’s Landmark Hotel an inner courtyard has been transformed into an eight-storey high, glass-roofed atrium with palm trees.

BE PREPARED

Damage caused by Tpyhoon Haiyan, which destroyed towns and villages in the Philippines in November, may cost between Dhs24 billion and Dhs53 billion – but insurers could pay out as little as Dhs1.1 billion because so few people in the Pacific archipelago had insurance.

Insurers may have escaped relatively lightly in the Philippines, but they are concerned about their exposure to the affects of climate change in other countries where people take out insurance more regularly and extreme weather is occurring more often. This includes Australia, where bushfires have wrought extensive damage to property in recent years, and Britain, where flooding is a growing problem – so much so that 500,000 homes on floodplains may become uninsurable without a government-backed plan to cover insurers costs.

Homes that can’t be insured are difficult to sell and become worthless, so architects are designing flood-resistant homes that will not only keep their occupants dry, but have the added benefit of being insurable.

MONEY SAVINGS

Many holiday home buyers in Italy put their purchase plans on hold in 2013 following the introduction of the IMU property tax by the previous Italian government.

With Italians also withdrawing from the home sales market, property prices fell 6 per cent over the year, the National Institute of Statistics reports.

However, the current Government cancelled collection of the quarterly-levied IMU in September and December, and looks certain to abolish it altogether in 2014. The price falls coupled with the likely withdrawal of the property tax makes Italy look attractive again to home buyers, some commentators say.

What’s more, the Government has cut Land Registry Tax from January 1, 2014. For buyers of a Dhs2 million home it will mean savings of Dhs18,000.

For buyers of restored farmhouses at Castello di Casole, a private estate with hotel in Tuscany, an added new incentive is access to Mandarin Oriental hotels around the world at favourable rates.

73January 201472 identity [interior/design/property]

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