In addition to its white sand beaches and laidback lifestyle, Australia’s remarkably robust property market has long been a draw card for international buyers.
And the good news for United States citizens is that entering the market is relatively easy, and has many advantages beyond simply diversifying your investment portfolio.
Why Australia?
Stability Legislation and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) ensure that banks lend responsibly, reducing the likelihood of real estate bubbles. Australia’s population growth is outstripping the construction of new homes, creating a lack of supply and supporting prices.
Ease There is no need to set up a company in order to purchase Australian property. Obtaining government approval to purchase newly built dwellings is relatively cheap and easy. The National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 provides robust safeguards.
Choice There is significant apartment construction taking place in most major cities. U.S. citizens can also purchase commercial property, including farms.
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U.S. home prices surged higher in December, just months after hitting a high last seen at the height of the housing bubble a decade ago.
The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city index rose 5.6% in the three-month period ending in December compared to a year ago, up from a 5.2% annual gain in November.
The broader national index rose 5.8% for the year in the December period, the strongest gain in 30 months. Economists had forecast a 5.4% increase in the 20-city index, which attracts more attention than the national measure. In December, the hottest markets were again in the West. Seattle prices rose 10.8% compared to a year ago, Portland prices were up 10.0%, and Denver saw increases of 8.9%. Twelve cities had bigger annual price gains in December than November.
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A former University of Miami director of finance pleaded guilty to tax evasion charges related to her failure to report $2.3 million she embezzled from the university, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida announced Wednesday.Kimberly Jean Miller pleaded guilty to four counts of tax evasion Tuesday, according to a court record. Her attorney could not be reached for comment.The University of Miami said in an email that it "does not comment on personnel matters."Miller was the director of finance at UM’s Virginia Key-based Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science between 2002 until 2012, according to a court document. In her former role, she used her position to embezzle $2.3 million from the university by falsifying invoices from vendor International Assets, according to a court document.The scheme centered on International Asset invoices. Miller altered the name on the invoices so checks would be written to “Inter, Inc.” and then be returned to RSMAS. Miller would then deposit the checks into a business bank account she opened in 1993 for Intercontinental Oceans Inc., according to a court document.Miller failed to report the funds from the embezzlement scheme to the Internal Revenue Service, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. An internal RSMAS audit revealed that Miller had embezzled about $2.3 million over the course of a decade.Her sentencing is scheduled for August. Miller was charged by information, which normally precedes a plea agreement, in March.
The EB-5 visa program, which is enormously popular with developers but criticized by some lawmakers as an unfair express route to U.S. citizenship for the wealthy, just got a five-day reprieve.
Renewal of the program – which awards a U.S. green card to foreigners who invest $500,000 into the U.S. economy – was part of a short-term spending bill approved by the House of Representatives Friday. The bill, approved by the Senate on Thursday, will keep the government running through Dec. 16 while lawmakers negotiate the $1.15 trillion budget, of which EB-5 is a small component.
The EB-5 program, which offers 10,000 U.S. visas annually and has been dominated by Chinese investors in recent years, was initially up for renewal in September, when lawmakers passed a stopgap measure to keep the government operating through Dec. 11.
In recent months, lawmakers have been considering various changes to the program, such as raising the minimum investment amount. Currently, investors are required to invest $1 million or a discounted amount of $500,000 in “targeted employment areas,” or zones designated as having high unemployment. Other changes could place restrictions on TEA designation.
The EB-5 legislation currently contains 40 pages of changes, according to Ron Klasko, a managing partner at Klasko Immigration Law Partners.
For New York developers, proposed changes to TEAs are particularly worrisome since many of them have taken advantage of the discounted investment amount by creating special districts linking their projects to low-income neighborhoods.
“From the point of view of New York developers, almost all of them have, in the past, qualified for the $500,000 reduced investment amount of the TEAs,” Klasko said. “Many of them will not qualify for that under this new law, meaning investors would have to invest $1 million. That’s an issue.”
The legislation would also allot a certain number of visas to different investment categories, such as 2,000 visas for projects in rural areas and 2,000 visas for people who invest $1 million.
“There have been long waiting lists for investors in China when they were competing for 10,000 visas,” Klasko said. “Now many of them for the New York projects will be competing for 4,000 visas.”
There’s little chance the bill will not pass, he said, since it’s part of the government’s omnibus bill. Meanwhile, developers and investors are sitting tight. “Until we have the final law,” said Klasko, “There won’t be a lot of activity.”
I am a Christian of Arab descent. I grew up in Jerusalem together with my Muslim neighbors and friends. It infuriates me to witness the bigotry of a large number of politicians, particularly Republicans, toward Islam, the Syrian refugees, and the Sharia law.
The leading Republican presidential candidate has gone mad. Donald Trump has called for surveillance of U.S. mosques, the creation of a database of Syrian refugees and would not rule out creating a registry for all American Muslims. Trump also called for deporting the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in America and building a large wall along the border with Mexico.
Dr. Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon, presumably a smart man, who trails only slightly Trump among Republicans, insisted in a CNN interview that for a Muslim to become a U.S. president he or she has “to reject the tenets of Islam.” He also said he “would not advocate putting a Muslim in charge of this nation.”
On Nov. 19, the U.S. House passed a bill, with 289 members supporting it, including Democrats, that seeks to enforce unreasonable security demands on the U.S. admission of Syrian refugees – people who are fleeing a war-torn country and a brutal, inhuman and a savage terrorist group – ISIS. These refugees are part of the largest wave of refugees since World War II.
To add insult to injury, some 32 mostly-Republican governors signed off on orders saying that they would refuse to cooperate with federal efforts to resettle Syrian refugees fleeing the barbaric Islamic State group, known as ISIS.
Sadly, America has done this before, and we have not learned from our mistakes. During last century’s two World Wars, we did it to the Italians, the Germans and the Japanese. And, in peacetime, we persecuted Blacks (take note Dr. Carson), Jews, Asians and Latinos.
The First Amendment’s fundamental religious freedom guarantee and Article VI of the Constitution forbid religious tests for any government office.
This past week, the Democratic National Committee fired back. The DNC launched an ad titled “Inciting fear isn’t presidential.” The ad shows clips of an unlikely figure, President George W. Bush, saying, “We do not fight against Islam. We fight against terrorism. That’s not what Islam is about. Islam is peace.”
Between 1989 and 2006, the United States welcomed with open arms, as it should have, 325,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union countries. Are Jews human beings while Muslims are savages and terrorists?
All of us, except Native Indians, are immigrants to this country. The parents of Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are first generation immigrants and look at what their sons have achieved. They are members of the U.S. Senate. Why are then these two self-righteous bigots opposed to legalizing the status of illegal immigrants in this country (who are mostly Latinos) and not welcoming refugees from Syria?
Americans of Arab heritage have contributed greatly to this country. Apple founder Steve Jobs’ father was a Syrian immigrant. Professor Elias Corey won the 1990 Nobel Prize for chemistry. George Mitchell was the Senate Majority Leader. Candace Lightner founded MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving); and Danny Thomas founded St. Jude’s Research Hospital.
ISIS does not represent Islam, nor are they practicing Muslims. They are a bunch of thugs, murderers and rapists who commit their crimes in the name of Islam. The Quran only permits fighting in self-defense or to protect “churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques.” Any wars committed in the name of Islam have nothing to do with Islam. They are politically motivated.
Bishara A. Bahbah is a Scottsdale resident. He taught at Harvard University and serves on the national board of directors of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
With year-to-date U.S. office sales volume reaching its highest level since before the recession, domestic and offshore investors alike are extending their search for income-yielding properties into secondary markets and supply constrained inner suburbs.
Markets such as Seattle, Chicago and Atlanta are the new star locations this year, with a select list of the top six highest-dollar office transactions of the third quarter showing a slight shift in trading activity away from San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C., which have each seen 20% or more of their total inventory change hands over the last 18 months.
"The office sales market is extremely strong," noted CoStar Managing Director Hans Nordby during the recent Third-quarter 2015 Office Market Review and Outlook. "Investors are finally investing in the country’s office and the industrial sectors -- the business-oriented areas -- which is different from three or four years ago, when trading activity was all apartments, all of the time."
With Atlanta, Philadelphia and Orange County leading the way, deal activity in secondary markets has increased by more than 83% in the first three quarters of 2015 from the same period last year, according to a recent market report from JLL.
As usual, the technology sector is leading U.S. job growth, but increasingly, the financial, professional and business services segments are expanding as firms follow the migration of millennial talent into urban markets, said Julia Georgules, vice president of U.S. Office Research for JLL. However, with office construction still trending water, companies often aren’t finding the large blocks of space they require, clearing a path for redevelopment and other value plays.
"With supply remaining constrained in lots of these urban areas as well as some suburban ones, many landlords are more aggressively thinking about repositioning dated and obsolete office product to meet the growing demand," Georgules said.
The most active office buyers so far this year have been opportunistic and value-add private equity investors, including Amtrust Realty Corp., which acquired Illinois Center, a two-tower, 2 million-square-foot property in Chicago’s East Loop, from Sam Zell’s Equity Commonwealth for $376 million, or $185 per square foot. Although occupancy of the buildings at 233 N. Michigan and 111 E Wacker Drive was only 73.5% at the time of sale, Amtrust revealed plans to upgrade the retail concourse and other areas of the property to boost leasing.
Despite market perceptions of a disconnect between REIT share prices and private valuations as a result of stock market volatility, REITs haven't missed out on their piece of the action in office property sales. In another value-add deal, Highwoods Properties acquired the 896,449-square-foot Monarch Centre at 3414-3424 Peachtree Road NE in Atlanta’s Buckhead submarket, paying a joint venture of JV of New York State Common Retirement Fund and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority $303 million at a cap rate of 4.29%, despite a vacancy rate of 18% at the property.
The influx of offshore capital from Asia and other regions into U.S. primary markets accelerated again in the third quarter, with nearly a quarter of all office deals acquired by foreign buyers, compared with 15% in the broader U.S. real estate market, according to JLL. While New York City and Los Angeles saw the highest investor interest, Seattle has also become a target of offshore capital in the second half of 2015.
In Seattle, for example, an affiliate of Hong Kong-based GAW Capital Partners acquired the 1.7 million-square-foot Columbia Center at 701 5th Ave. from Beacon Capital Partners for $711.5 million. GAW paid $417 per square foot for the downtown property built in 1985 and renovated in 2005.
Senior executives for the two largest publicly traded CRE services firms this week noted the continued abundance of foreign and other sources of capital, and that capital is flowing increasingly into transactions in non-gateway markets.
Cross-border capital flows have also remained strong into the fourth quarter, Bob Sulentic, president and CEO of CBRE Group, Inc. told investors during the company’s third-quarter earnings call Tuesday.
"We think half of the clients that we did business with a year ago were moving capital across borders. Half of them intend to move even more capital this year," Sulentic said.
If forecasts of potential disruptions come to pass in debt markets, particularly CMBS, a sufficient supply of capital is available from other sources to step into real estate, Sulentic said.
“We have been anticipating that the rate of growth in sales will come down to a more sustainable level, and we still believe that is likely to be the case, but we are not seeing deals die basically because of a lack of capital,” Sulentic said.
CBRE Chief Financial Officer Jim Groch said sales activity in U.S. and European secondary markets have strengthened while activity remains quite strong in core CBD markets. The gateway markets also saw plenty of large transactions during the quarter, topped by the largest, the $2.29 billion sale of Metro Life Insurance Plaza at 11 Madison Ave. A joint venture of CIM Group LP and The Sapir Corp. sold the 2.35 million-square-foot asset to SL Green Realty Corp.
In the supply constrained Boston market, Pearlmark Real Estate Partners sold a two-building portfolio on Federal Street totaling 818,231 square feet to Rockpoint Group LLC for $326.5 million, or about $400 per square feet. In the East End of Washington, D.C., Boston Properties sold the 10-story, 325,361-square-foot 500 8th St. NW to Prudential Real Estate Investors for $318 million. At a strong $977 per square foot, PREI felt justified in paying above replacement cost for the core-plus property.
In fact, all commercial property sectors are seeing strong activity, with total CRE sales up 19% over the same period last year, while the trailing four-quarter total for the four major property types is the highest ever registered by CoStar at about $370 billion.
Office property sales volume was up 30% to $115 billion in the first three quarters of 2015 compared with last year, Only the meteoric industrial real estate sector has seen stronger year-to-date sales growth at 32%, and office is the only major property type to log a significant increase in third-quarter sales volume, increasing 14% from a year ago, according to preliminary CoStar sales data.
Over 65% of metro areas are trading at or above their last-cycle peak pricing on price-per- square foot basis. San Francisco has logged the strong price gains since 2013, unsurprising since the Bay Area was already ret-hot going into that time period. However, Atlanta, Miami and Los Angeles, where activity was very soft two years ago, have seen pricing growth take off at a strong clip since 2013, according to CoStar Commercial Repeat Sales Index (CCRSI) data.
Jolly's bill relates to non-immigrants who are working in the US and hold an E-2 Treaty Investor Visa. The E-2 Visa requires recipients to invest in the US economy, usually by starting a business and hiring people. However, recipients are required to reapply for an E-2 Visa in some cases every two years, often returning home to apply for a new visa. It appears, unfortunately, that this bill if passed will not help if you wish to remain permanently after being on an E-1 Treaty Trader Visa. Currently to gain permanent residence based on investment you need to invest from half a million to one million US dollars and employ at least ten people. Business people on E-2 visas typically run small businesses and are unlikely to have that sort of money to invest.
Jolly's bill would make it easier for E-2 Visa holders to obtain immigrant status once they had been in the US, legally, for 10 years. It would also permit their children, who under current legislation face may face difficulty in remaining in the US when they turn 21 (unless they obtain a work related E-2 visa or student visa or some other type of visa), to be covered by their parents' visas until the age of 26.
Addressing the audience at Da Sesto Italiano Ristorante e Vino, most of who came to the US on an E-2 Visa, Jolly said: "While we address reform for illegals too, and I believe we do, we can't possibly begin to reform the immigration system that involves only those who are here without documentation without recognizing that our legal immigration system has failed, and has failed each and every one of you."
The bill would actually assist people like Da Sesto's owner, Sesto Ramadori, who is originally from the region of Marche, Italy. He came to the US 18 years ago, arriving from Canada where he holds citizenship status. He describes how he recently went through the E-2 application process again in the summer of 2014.
He said: "We went through all the paperwork and filed an application. It's not just the matter of an extension. You literally have to do all the paperwork to show that your business is viable and that you're employing people... It's a lot of money; it's a lot of uncertainty."
Andy Strickland, a St. Petersburg immigration lawyer and Mr Ramadori's attorney said: "The process is costly; you're looking at $4,000 to $5,000. Plus, if they decide to go abroad for their visa instead of extending their status here with the US Citizen and Immigration Services, if they don't do that, then they have to go abroad and get a visa, they have expenses with that as well."
Strickland says Jolly's bill is viable: "Why chase people away who came here the right way, who are doing things the right way, who are creating jobs for U.S. citizens? I think we should reward people who are doing things the right way and give them an opportunity to keep doing things the right way."
Jolly stated that there will be opposition to his bill because of the anti-immigration sentiments of some people. He also says that the bill is so common-sense that it should pass easily.
He said: "I think people in Congress will recognize the importance of addressing legal immigration at the same time we're having a national debate about illegal immigration. It's only fair that we do so and it's right that we do so."
Jolly says he expects a tougher challenge at procedural level, passing a small piece of legislation to reform part of the American immigration policy, given that the focus has been on comprehensive immigration reform (CIR). However, adding the bill as part of a larger CIR proposal is something that he is willing to consider.
Jolly said: "Whenever you have comprehensive immigration reform, it is hard to pass small provisions. This one, I hope, is a very simple one that we could move outside of the comprehensive immigration reform. Let's recognize the contribution of legal immigrants now, but it may be that this gets wrapped into comprehensive immigration reform, and I'm okay with that. We're prepared to have that conversation."
"Mr Jolly may be being overly optimistic. It has proved to be extremely difficult to pass immigration reform legislation through Congress."
If you wish to set up a business in the US and are a national of a Country under the E-1 Treaty Trader or E-2 Treaty investor schemes we can help with registration as an E-1 or E-2 Treaty Business. We can also help with L-1A and L-1B intra-company transfer visas to transfer staff to the US and help with other types of visas. Call the London office on 0344 991 9222 for further details.
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Visit the Miami Bright Education Foundation pages and read About it and its articles ….
Rethinking “Wealthy”: The 5-Step Ladder From Middle Class to Financial Freedom
The year kicked off with buyers across the country racing to lock in rising mortgage rates and close on homes—except in one surprising region.
Sales of existing homes, which have previously been lived in, rose 3.3% from December to January, according to the most recent National Association of Realtors® report. The 5.69 million purchases also represented a 3.8% increase from January of 2016.
Those are the seasonally adjusted numbers, which are smoothed out over a 12-month period to account for seasonal fluctuations in market activity.
Joe Kirchner, doesn’t anticipate that the throngs of buyers descending on the market will slow any time soon.
“I don’t think we’re going to see any huge increases in sales, but I don’t think we’re going to see any big declines,” he says. “The economy is still strong and we have job growth.” This means more people have the means to become homeowners.
Here’s the good news: Sales of newly constructed homes rose in the beginning of the year. The bad news? It wasn’t enough to ease the housing shortage that is frustrating would-be home buyers across the nation.
Buyers purchased about 3.7% more new homes in January than in December, according to a joint report by the U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The January purchases were also 5.5% above where they had been a year earlier.
“New-home sales should be growing much more than they are,” says Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke “We should be seeing twice the volume of new-home sales, and we’re not.”
The reason is that there aren’t enough buyers who can afford the median $312,900 price tag of one of those new homes, often decked out with the latest appliances and finishes. They are nearly 37% more expensive than the median $228,900 price for an existing home in January
The broader national index rose 5.8% for the year in the December period, the strongest gain in 30 months. Economists had forecast a 5.4% increase in the 20-city index, which attracts more attention than the national measure.