New Zealand Herald
6 July 2009
Google unveiled its internet tool at today’s launch of a New Zealand real estate mapping service. Real estate agents, franchise groups and other real estate websites are now able to upload house listings directly into Google Maps free of charge. Google product manager Andrew Foster said that many New Zealand home buyers were already using Google Maps to help with house-buying. Foster said that it was “a simple and free way for real estate companies to make their listings even more discoverable”.
Irish Times
6 July 2009
A new body set up to regulate estate agents and auctioneers has received over 90 complaints in a year, though none has resulted in sanctions being imposed on a member of the profession. The National Property Services Regulatory Authority (NPSRA) says that it has issued an unspecified number of informal warnings to auctioneers and estate agents who have breached its code of conduct since it came into force in May 2008. A spokesman admitted that the sanctions in the code were “not very strong” because the legislation to put the NPSRA on a statutory footing had yet to pass into law.
The Australian
7 July 2009
Lend Lease yesterday began construction on the $500m Darling Walk, near Darling Harbour in Sydney. Commonwealth Bank has preleased the 55,000m2, low-rise, campus-style office development. David Hutton, Lend Lease’s chief operating officer for Asia Pacific, said that Darling Walk would offer a “play experience like nothing else [ever] seen in Australia”. He said: “The enhanced public domain will include interactive water features, a nature playground and kiosks within a purpose-designed landscaped park.”
China Daily
7 July 2009
A growing number of Chinese institutional investors and property firms are seeking overseas buying opportunities in the real estate sector, according to Savills. “One or two property deals valued at more than $100m each are expected to be inked in the next six months, and another four to five deals are in the pipeline,” said Jeremy Helsby, CEO of Savills, who visited the firm’s Chinese offices this week. Prior to Helsby’s visit, officials from Savills’ London, New York and Tokyo offices were in the Beijing and Shanghai offices to share their knowledge with their Chinese colleagues.
