International Property Journal - News and information on global property markets

A French court this week refused to return a Russian oligarch’s $53 million deposit on a French Riviera estate, which is believed to be the world’s most expensive property.

In 2008, mining billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov reportedly offered €390 million ($531 million) for Villa Leopolda, the cliff-top mansion outside Villefranche-sur-Mer built in 1902 for King Leopold II of Belgium. If the sale had completed, there is little doubt Prokhorov would have earned bragging rights for paying the highest amount in history for a single residential property.

“The sale marked the zenith of the real-estate follies among competing oligarchs,” The Times notes.

New York-based King Penguin Properties, which controls property in the United States and Europe, says it is moving away from luxury condo units to focus on multi-family properties.

“Affordable multi-family units present less downside risk that a prolonged period of slow economic growth may present,” managing partner Michael Mikelic said in a press release.

As part of the move, Mikelic says the company is selling the company’s interests in the Trump Place in New York, where Mikelic sat on the board and served as treasurer. In an earlier statement the company said it would invest most of the proceeds into a distressed property fund.

After vanishing into the wind last year, Russian buyers are returning to New York City, agents tell Reuters. Earlier this month a Russian investment fund paid $37 million for a Central Park West penthouse and in June billionaire financier Andrei Vavilov paid $37.5 million for an apartment in the Time Warner Center.

"I've been contacted by one of the largest Russian real estate investment funds. They don't want to build, they want to invest,” said Irina Levieva, a broker at the Ostrov Realty Group.

Russian developer Janna Bullock, who is known for flipping high-end Manhattan properties, recently listed a 21-foot-wide Beaux Arts mansion on the market for $20 million, the Real Deal reports. The 16-room house on East 82nd Street was originally designed in 1903 by C.P.H Gilbert.