Construction Maison

After a UBS housing report pointed to as many as one in four homes owned offshore by mainland Chinese buyers being kept empty, and a further quarter used on a "temporary" basis, experts have been quick to say the results do not apply to Australian real estate . Among the naysayers is Jane Lu, head of Australia for Chinese international property site Juwai . She said there was "no hard data" and called the idea of vacant apartments held by offshore buyers as an "urban myth". "Most Chinese buyers of inner- city apartments are not so wealthy that they can afford to leave their property vacant ??? rather than renting it and earning some sort of income. There are some who do not live there full-time, because it is their second home. " Chinese investors are no more likely to turn down easy rent money than are Australians ... Australian second-home owners probably have more vacant properties in Ballina and Byron Bay than Chinese investors do...

As summer comes to a close and the kids go back to school, there seems to be a whole lot of movin’ going on. Marguerite Vann teachers moved back into a renovated building this past week while other school personnel were moving to new positions or even new schools. Teachers were moving in new supplies and displays to assist them in teaching their new classes. And those yellow school buses will be moving again tomorrow, some over newly paved highways and roads. The Salem Road extension from Exit 124 to Highway 25 at Lake Beaverfork opened last week and frequent travelers are loving it. Stoby’s had a soft opening to raise funds for Haven House yesterday but if all goes well, the restaurant will be opening on Wednesday. Two of the most anticipated improvements for the new restaurant are more seating and restrooms that aren’t located in the kitchen. After several readers commented about the sign for Captain Hook’s Fish and Chicken being down, a message from the restaurant, which is ba...

There were nine of us living in my first flat in Paris. It was grand on the outside, with a trompe l’oeil and marble staircase in the entrance hall, but grimy and dark inside. Only three of my flatmates had full-time jobs, and they all smoked. All the lights in the hall were broken. I moved there from London nearly four years ago, during the gloomiest days of François Hollande’s presidency, long before the youthful reformer Emmanuel Macron took power this year. Economic growth at the time was weak, unemployment double that of the UK today, and polls showed two-thirds of French people thought the nation was in “decline”. My flatmates, who I found online, were all 25- to 35-year-olds from the provinces who had come to Paris to find work and, passing their days in our tiny kitchen, were victims of this faded France. Within rigid labour markets many struggled to find jobs, or the right jobs, and were frustrated and angry. They protested in the street, talked incessantly about politics a...