Yoho Midtown

Speculation about a slow down in Hong Kong’s skyrocketing real estate market was quashed today, when property company Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd. announced it had sold 900 apartments over the weekend for a total of HK$4.2 billion ($540 million)

The apartments were in the Yoho Midtown development, almost an hour from downtown. Prices averaged HK$5,400 per square foot, dramatically higher than the HK$3,000 per square foot buyers were paying for homes in Hong Kong a year ago, Bloomberg reports.

In general, prices in Hong Kong rose 29 percent in 2009, stoking concerns that a new property bubble was forming. Last fall Henderson Land Development sold a five-bedroom apartment for a jaw-dropping HK$439 million ($56.6 million), believed to be a record for Asia.

Shanghai Financial Center

Despite the economic downturn, 2010 will see more skyscrapers completed around the world than in any single year in history, according to the organization that tracks the industry.

More than 100 buildings of 200 meters or taller are due to finish this year, which is more than the total already in existence in New York and Hong Kong combined, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat says.

“It is not just height, but the sheer volume of high-rise buildings set to be completed in 2010 that is astonishing,” the organization reports.

In many ways, the flurry of activity in 2010 is simply a fluke, the delayed residue of the go-go years, when these projects were financed. In 2009, the number of completed skyscrapers fell by 28 percent from 2008, thanks, in large part, to the unprecedented number of skyscrapers built in the United Arab Emirates in 2008.

Money continues to flow into Asia Pacific property markets, which are recovering quicker than other regions, many analysts believe.

This week Apollo Management, the giant New York-based private equity firm, announced plans to launch a $500 million to $1 billion fund targeting distressed property. The fund will be based in Hong Kong and headed by Grant Kelley, who was chief executive officer of Colony Capital Asia until a year ago, the Financial Times reports.

As more and more investors eye the Chinese property market, evidence is growing that a real estate bubble is forming, at least one expert believes.

"I do see all of the signs of a credit induced real estate bubble that I think is going to be a doozy," Kynikos Associates founder James Chanos told CNBC.

Chanos, a hedge fund manager, has been trumpeting the possibility of volatility in the market for weeks. In interviews this week he emphasized an “impending crash” is not imminent, but the bubble in China is “unprecedented.” There are about 30 billion square feet of commercial space under construction only, he said.

“Looking at companies, I'd be very leery of companies who are exporting materials to China to build up this construction bubble,” said Chanos, who CNBC introduced as a “famed short seller.”

By an overwhelming margin, investors chose London as the world’s top commercial property market, according to an annual survey by Washington D.C.-based Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate.

London moved past Washington D.C. and New York, with Paris and Tokyo rounding out the top five. In the 2009 survey, London was second, in a virtual dead heat with New York and Washington, but this year respondents chose London by a wide gap, the association reports.

Fifty-one percent identified the U.S. as the best opportunity for capital appreciation, compared to 37 percent in 2008 and 26 percent in 2007. Two-thirds of respondents said they planned to increase their U.S. investments in 2010.

The annual survey reflects the responses of 200 AFIRE members, who control more than $842 billion in real estate.

Fearing a new property bubble, the Chinese government this week imposed new measures to restrict foreign investors and speculators.

In total, the government called for 11 measures, including measures to curb the flow of so-called “hot money” from foreign markets. “Excessively rising housing prices” in some cities call for “great attention,” the government announced.

As part of the plans, the government is moving to “strengthen monitoring of capital flow and trans-boundary investment and financing activities so as to prevent credit from entering the real estate sector illegally and stop overseas speculative funds from jeopardizing China's property market,” according to a government release.

The government will also move to “guide reasonable housing consumption and curb speculative investments.” Earlier this month the government imposed a sales tax on homes sold within five years of purchase, increasing the time period from two years.

Dubai

Prices in Dubai fell 47 percent in the last year, the largest drop reported in the latest Knight Frank Global House Price Index.

Overall, Knight Frank’s news was fairly upbeat, with 68 percent of the countries reporting upticks in the third quarter. However 57 percent of the countries were still lower than a year ago, led by Dubai, Bulgaria (down 28 percent) and Thailand (down 18.4 percent).

The report spotlights the rollercoaster in Asia, where Singapore is down 14.5 percent from a year ago, but posted a 15.2 percent jump in the quarter. Hong Kong prices are up 5.6 percent from a year ago.

Headlines from the world of property:

U.K.: Commercial Loans Dry Up

Billions in troubled loans has lenders wary. (Financial Times)

Telstra to Float Chinese Real Estate Portal

The Australian company plans a public offering for SouFun. (The Australian)

U.S. Retirees Revive Mexcian Market

Latin American portal sees uptick in inquiries. (OPP, free registration required)

Despite the carnage of the last year, investors are ready to place more money in property, according to a new report from Barclays Wealth and the Economist Intelligence Unit. A survey of 2,000 high net worth individuals found 35 percent ready to increase the property allocation in their portfolios in the next two years, compared to 17 percent planning to decrease their property exposure.

The long-term confidence in property was global, the report found, with investors in nine out of 10 countries expressing optimism about the long term prospects for the market. The lone exception was Spain, where investors said they were still downsizing their property exposure.

Despite jaw-dropping declines in places like Dubai and Bulgaria, the latest data from Global Property Guide shows signs of recovery in many housing markets. Of the 27 areas surveyed, 16 posted increases in the latest quarter, indicating “the trend is toward recovery,” the analyst site concludes.

Some of the markets showing in uptick from the previous quarter included Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and the U.K. For the year, Singapore and the U.K. are still down from a year earlier, “however the annual data is somewhat like a car’s rearview mirror,” considering the decimation of the later part of 2008, the report notes.