Thursday, January 7, 2010

Rome Property For Sale

TYPE Section of a villa on three levels with garden.
CONDITION Excellent.
LOCATION In a residential area. Good position.
MUNICIPALITY Rome
PROVINCE Rome
REGION Lazio
SIZE 310 square metres (3336 square feet)
ROOMS 8
BEDROOMS 3
BATHROOMS 2
FEATURES Brick construction, terraces.
LAND No, but lovely private garden.
GARDEN 900 square metres of garden with irrigation
ANNEX No.
ACCESS Excellent.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

World's tallest building opens in world's newest real estate desert

Thank goodness the Dubai area is geologically stable, because its regional politics and economics certainly aren't.

Pretty soon some 12,000 people will be living and working in the Burj Dubai, a soaring 818m needle of glass, concrete and steel that overshadows the diminished real estate on the desert floor that is Dubai.

At least that's what the owners of the world's tallest building hope as they officially open the centrepiece of the 202ha development this week. The project is one of superlatives. Not least that it will house the world's highest mosque nearly 160 storeys above ground. It cost $1.5 billion to build, according to Dubai’s state-owned developer, Emaar. It's a building without peer, although a number of other super-structures are being constructed elsewhere on the globe and in nearby Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. It's also a testament to the day the world stopped viewing Dubai as the Neverland of economic prosperity, effectively deserting the Las Vegas of the Arabian desert.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Start the bidding: Rome Home Depot for sale

By REBECCA CRONISER
Observer-Dispatch
Posted Jan 01, 2010 @ 04:49 PM
ROME —

Just $1.9 million. That’s what is needed to start the bidding Jan. 19-20 in the online auction for the former Home Depot building in Rome.

It could be a deal for the property, which is assessed at nearly $7.2 million.

But finding someone interested in the building is going to be tough, officials say.

“I don’t see it going,” said Rome Mayor James Brown. “It’s tough the way the economy is. Nobody is really expanding at this point in time.”

The giant orange and beige retail store on Rome-Taberg Road has sat empty since it closed in the summer of 2008.

The store wasn’t open for long in Rome. The 112,940-square-foot building — with 19,646-square-feet of outdoor side yard — opened in 2003.

Start the bidding: Rome Home Depot for sale

By REBECCA CRONISER
Observer-Dispatch
Posted Jan 01, 2010 @ 04:49 PM
ROME —

Just $1.9 million. That’s what is needed to start the bidding Jan. 19-20 in the online auction for the former Home Depot building in Rome.

It could be a deal for the property, which is assessed at nearly $7.2 million.

But finding someone interested in the building is going to be tough, officials say.

“I don’t see it going,” said Rome Mayor James Brown. “It’s tough the way the economy is. Nobody is really expanding at this point in time.”

The giant orange and beige retail store on Rome-Taberg Road has sat empty since it closed in the summer of 2008.

The store wasn’t open for long in Rome. The 112,940-square-foot building — with 19,646-square-feet of outdoor side yard — opened in 2003.

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Italy's Tax Amnesty Brings in $114 Billion

MILAN -- Requests by individuals to repatriate funds under a tax-amnesty plan launched in October totaled about €80 billion (about $114 billion) as of Dec. 15, a top government official said Tuesday.

Last week Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti said the government extended the tax amnesty plan to April 2010, in a move to collect more assets currently deposited out of the country, but increased the fee to be paid to 7% of the total value of the assets. Investors that repatriate assets by Feb. 28 will pay a 6% fee, the ministry said.

The Italian government in October launched the tax-amnesty plan, the third in the past eight years, which allowed Italians to repatriate funds deposited in tax havens out of Italy through Dec. 15. As part of the plan, people would have to pay a 5% fine on the total amount of assets repatriated and wouldn't have to declare how they earned the money. In November, Mr. Tremonti estimated windfall tax revenue for the government at up to €4 billion.

Small domestic asset managers as well as private-banking boutiques have benefited most from the flood of new funds, as Italy's two largest domestic retail banks -- Intesa Sanpaolo SpA and UniCredit SpA -- weren't able to attract large sums of assets deposited offshore, according to several people involved in the tax-amnesty plan.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

From Ceausescu to the New Italy

he recent election in Romania, in which President Traian Basescu was re-elected with 50.3% of the vote, underlined why, 20 years after the fall of Ceausescu, Romania has become the new Italy.

In both countries, politics are hard-fought, polarized, and periodically bizarre. The comedy and melodrama of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi are well known. But the failed impeachment of Mr. Basescu and the odd bedfellows and political pillow fights of Romanian politics are rarely noted outside Bucharest.

The parallels are remarkable. Both countries reclaimed democracy when they executed their dictators Benito Mussolini (April 28, 1945) and Nicolae Ceausescu (December 25, 1989). Both emerged from dictatorship flat on their backs economically and with many friends in the West fearing they would not sustain democracy. And within 20 years, with support from America and Western Europe, both became firmly democratic, much more prosperous, and economically and militarily relevant members of the European Union and NATO.

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