Donald Trump says UK will avoid worst of property plunge

Published 23rd Jun 2008

Donald Trump, the property developer seeking to build a £1 billion golf course on environmentally sensitive sand dunes in Scotland, has predicted that Britain's housing market will not suffer the same fate as the homes market in the United States because there has been far less over-building in the UK.

Mr Trump's comments come days after Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street broker, gave warning that the UK may be on the brink of a three-year property slump, with house prices forecast to fall 6 per cent this year and 8 per cent next. HBOS, Britain's biggest mortgage bank, last week predicted a 9 per cent fall in property prices this year.

Such declines would be modest compared with those experienced in America, where, in states such as California, Florida and Nevada house prices have fallen by 40 per cent in two years in some areas.

Speaking to The Times Mr Trump said that Britain did not have so much over-supply, a problem that has seen the US endure one of the worst property recessions since the 1930s. Enticed by soaring house prices over the past decade, American property developers accelerated the number of homes they built, which has left America with an estimated nine months' over-supply clogging the market.

Mr Trump, now a household name after hosting the American reality television show The Apprentice, said that he believed that the US real-estate crisis had at least another year to go. “The property market will continue to fall until the credit crisis ends,” he said. “I think that will be in the next 12 months. The problem with the US market is nothing to do with supply and demand, it is because people cannot get credit.”

However, Mr Trump insisted that “a lot of downside has already taken place” and added: “Now, I tell people to buy real estate. There are real opportunities now.”

Tomorrow, the S&P Case-Shiller index, widely considered the best measure of US residential property values, is expected to show that American house prices fell by 15.4 per cent in June compared with a year earlier. That decline would represent an accelerated fall from May, when prices dropped by 14.4 per cent.

Mr Trump, 61, who is famous for his extraordinary combover haircut, is in the middle of a three-week public inquiry in Scotland into whether he should be allowed to build two championship golf courses, a five-star hotel, 1,000 holiday homes and 500 houses on a three-mile stretch of coastline near Balmedie, north of Aberdeen. Environmentalists fear that the development would irreversibly damage the area's sand dunes.

Mr Trump, who is known as “The Donald”, has ruled out building a golf course away from the sand dunes, adding that this would make it a “half-assed” development. He said that the dunes area “is meant for golf”. He has insisted that the Trump International Golf Links Scotland would be better than the Old Course at St Andrews, or Carnoustie or Turnberry.

Mr Trump argued that his project would enhance the environment and would protect birds. “I told the Royal Society for [the Protection of] Birds that the site is a killing field. Hunters kill 25,000 birds a year. Then I explained that all we want are birdies and eagles [of the golf variety]. We would not be killing any birds.”

He said that he believed that the opposition to his project to build “the greatest golf course in the world” was from a few individuals and that a poll conducted in Aberdeen found that “93 per cent of people support me”.

Mr Trump would not be drawn on his expectation of the inquiry's outcome, adding: “I do not want to be presumptuous. I do not like talking about the alternatives.”
Mr Trump will today unveil alongside Nakheel, the property arm of Dubai World, the international launch of sales of private residences within The Trump International Hotel and Tower in Dubai, in a project that he argues has broken price records.
Suzy Jagger and David Lister

Source: ' Times Online '

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