International News

Hyatt Sells Playa’s Real Estate Portfolio for $2 Billion

by Phil Hall | Jun 30, 2025

Hyatt Hotels Corporation (NYSE: H) announced the sale of Playa Hotels & Resorts NV’s real estate portfolio for $2 billion to Tortuga Resorts, a joint venture between an affiliate of KSL Capital Partners LLC and Rodina. Hyatt acquired Playa earlier this year for...

North Korea Unveils Shoreline Tourist Mecca

by Phil Hall | Jun 30, 2025

North Korea’s tiny tourism industry was shut down during the pandemic and only began receiving Russian tourists again in 2024. Continue Reading North Korea Unveils Shoreline Tourist Mecca

How do mortgage overpayments work? Is it worth it, is it better to overpay mortgage monthly or in lump sum

by Third Party | Feb 6, 2023

Source: National World --- The Bank of England raised interest rates once again on Thursday (2 February). Its base rate now sits at a fresh 14 year high of 4% - 0.5 percentage points higher than the level it was set at in December 2022. Designed to bring down...

Victims across Ontario losing their homes in mortgage scam

by Third Party | Feb 6, 2023

Source: Bradford Today --- A veteran police detective addresses an elderly woman on the front steps of her Collingwood home. He’s holding a cashed cheque for $140,000, money he already knew she had been scammed out of. “I’m Detective Sergeant Jason Lloyd with the...

AFP money-laundering bust highlights Australia’s gaping real estate vulnerability

by Third Party | Feb 5, 2023

Source: ABC News --- As financial sector lobby groups frequently note, the banking industry is highly regulated. There's an A-focused alphabet soup of regulators to satisfy – ASIC, APRA, ACCC, AUSTRAC – oversight bodies like AFCA and BCCC, and then pesky journalists...

‘Our mortgage got so high we put off having a baby’

by Third Party | Feb 5, 2023

Source: BBC News --- Alex Czok and her husband Tom Beech had hoped to start a family this year but when their mortgage went up by hundreds of pounds they put their plans on hold. They are one of the four million UK households facing higher mortgage bills this year....

Residential real estate investors and investment properties in 2020

by Third Party | Feb 5, 2023

Source: Statistics Canada --- Overview For the first time, the Canadian Housing Statistics Program (CHSP) is publishing data on investors. This article presents a profile of these owners and the residential properties they owned in the provinces of Nova Scotia, New...

11 Luxe Homes That Bring the Outdoors Inside, From Costa Rica to California

by Third Party | Feb 5, 2023

Source: Robb Report --- For many people, being surrounded by nature has a positive impact on mood, health and happiness. The pandemic exacerbated the need to be in or around the great outdoors after months of being unable to leave confined spaces. Biophilic design, as...

‘We saved probably close to $100K’: Affluent Americans are snatching up prime real estate in other parts of the world — as the US housing market slumps. Here’s how to do it too

by Third Party | Feb 4, 2023

Source: Yahoo! Life --- Laetitia Laurent knows the value of looking far and wide for a good deal. The Florida-based business owner and her husband had been hunting for a second home for five years before snagging an incredible bargain — in Paris. She made an offer in...

China’s real estate crisis isn’t over yet, IMF says

by Third Party | Feb 4, 2023

Source: CNBC --- BEIJING — China needs to do more in order to fix its real estate problems, the International Monetary Fund said Friday. The property market contributes to about a quarter of China’s GDP and has been a drag on growth, especially since Beijing cracked...

Mortgage overpayments surge as borrowers fend off rising interest bills

by Third Party | Feb 3, 2023

Source: Financial Times --- Mortgage borrowers scrambled to pay down their housing debt after interest rates on home loans soared, with lump-sum repayments and redemptions jumping to £2.4bn in October last year from £1.7bn in the same month in 2021. The figures from...

Mortgage borrowing falls by £1bn as property market slowdown continues

by Third Party | Feb 2, 2023

Source: Money Week --- The latest data from the Bank of England (BoE) shows a growing number of people are questioning whether now is a good time to buy a house, adding more uncertainty to the property market’s outlook for 2023. The BoE’s Money and Credit report...