Delegates to the 3rd Malaysian Property Summit 2010 last Tuesday would have gone home with mixed signals about the market this year. The speakers were generally optimistic, but there was no show of great enthusiasm.

Office space take-ups and rentals in downtown Kuala Lumpur are expected to slide in 1H 2010 but improvement in the oil and gas sector growth may cushion the downward slide, says Sarkunan Subramaniam, executive director of Knight Frank Malaysia.An estimated 1,874,000 sq ft of new office space is expected to come on stream in 2010, and this will impact the market in the short to medium term, he s

Switzerland is synonymous with the dazzling beauty of the Alps, spectacular ski spots and a host of other tourist destinations. But there’s also a hidden gem that’s a big hit with visitors too. Called Zermatt, the quaint village is tucked away at the foot of the Matterhorn, dubbed the most photographed mountain in the world.What does a Swiss tourist hotspot have to do with real estate?

It is easy to fall in love with Zermatt. There’s something to do in this quaint Alpine village, even for a non-skier or someone not into hiking or mountaineering, that will make for a memorable holiday.To discover the beauty of the Alps, hop onto the Gornergrat Bahn or the Matterhorn railway to the Gornergrat.

Jan 21, 2010, seemed to be a very significant day for the development of Malaysian land law, with headlines nationwide lauding another landmark decision that corrected a “blatant error” which had stood as good law for the better part of the last decade.

Alastair Hughes, Jones Lang LaSalle’s CEO for Asia-Pacific, describes his first year in Singapore as “a bit of a baptism of fire”. He relocated from London, where he was  JLL’s CEO for Europe, Middle East and Africa for five years, and prior to that, managing director for JLL in UK.

PETALING JAYA: Jetson Construction Sdn Bhd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kumpulan Jetson Bhd has signed a memorandum of understanding with China State Construction Engineering (Hong Kong) Ltd (CSCHK) to jointly submit a tender for a project at Platinum Park on Jalan Stonor, Kuala Lumpur.

PETALING JAYA: MK Land Holdings Bhd posted a lower net profit of RM 3.839 million in its second quarter ended Dec 31, 2009, down 26.22 % against RM 5.203 million recorded in the corresponding quarter last year. Revenue however increased by 1.42% to RM 48.448 million from RM47.770 million.

KUALA LUMPUR: The Al-Hadharah Boustead REIT (real estate investment trust) achieved an 8.8 per cent increase in realised operating profit of RM69 million for its financial year ended Dec 31, 2009, from RM63.5 million
in the previous year.

KUALA LUMPUR: Some “normalisation” of the interest rates are now in order after they were reduced to “unprecedented” levels following the global financial crisis, said Bank Negara Malaysia governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz.