GEORGE TOWN: Think City, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Khazanah Nasional Bhd, has approved 18 grants worth RM1.84 million under the George Town Grants Programme (GTGP) after the first round of approvals.

HONG KONG: A growing number of would-be homebuyers in Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing could walk away from signed purchase agreements because they fear house prices are set to fall heavily, say estate agents. By quitting now and forfeiting their deposits, they believe they will be able to cut their losses by returning to pick up bargains after prices have fallen.

SHANGHAI: Susan Lawrence, who left her hometown in Mississippi in the US six months ago to live and work in Shanghai, has mixed feelings about her new living environment.

"There are almost too many shopping malls and they all look the same," says Lawrence, who works for the American Chamber of Commerce.

HONG KONG: Residential rents in Hong Kong have rebounded to levels last seen before the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008. A survey by estate agency Midland Realty shows the average rent in Hong Kong's 100 major housing estates was HK$18.20 (RM7.48) psf at the end of March, up 5.1% in 1Q and back at the level last reached in July 2008.

BEIJING: Chinese land prices rises moderated in 1Q, thanks to an increased supply of land during the same period, the land and resources minister said.

The average land price in a sample of 105 cities was up 8.1% in the first three months from a year earlier, reaching 2,700 yuan (RM1,262) per sq m, the official Xinhua news agency quoted minister Xu Shaoshi as saying.

HONG KONG: Barclays Capital will hire the former Asia real estate team of BNP Paribas, sources said on Wednesday (April 21), as BarCap builds out its investment banking group across the region.

NEW YORK: Uniformed doormen and apartment building workers reached a deal with New York building owners on Wednesday (April 21), narrowly averting a strike that would have left residents running elevators, disposing of trash and doing other chores themselves.

MIAMI: He calls them "Save the Dream" events, but activist financier Bruce Marks is squarely focused on an American nightmare.

For nearly two years now Marks, a 54-year-old former regulator at the US Federal Reserve Bank of New York, has been holding massive mortgage modification gatherings across the country.

SINGAPORE: The search for a new chief executive for YTL Pacific Star, the manager of Singapore-listed Starhill Global REIT, is over.

The Kuala Lumpur-based group has picked Ho Sing, 44, the brother of Temasek chief executive Ho Ching, to take over from Franklin Heng, who died last December from complications following liposuction surgery.

Asset acquisitions in the pipeline