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Daily Mail

The luxury real estate blogosphere is buzzing about the sale of a Monaco apartment, which might be the most expensive home in the world.

An unknown buyer reportedly paid €240 million (about $314 million) for the 17,500-square-foot penthouse known as La Belle Epoque, where financier Edmond Safra died in a mysterious fire in 1999.

The deal would make the apartment the most expensive home in the world, surpassing the $220 million reportedly paid last month for the penthouse in One Hyde Park in London. (Or at least the most expensive home sale that actually closed, since Russian billionaire and New Jersey Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov backed out of his deal to buy widow Lily Safra’s Villefranche estate, Villa Leopolda, for a reported $531 million.)

Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia were the strongest performing property markets in the world through the first part of 2010, while Europe continued to struggle with the economic tide.

Ireland was the worst performing market, posting a 16 percent drop in prices from a year earlier, compared to a 34 percent jump for Singapore, according to inflation-adjusted data tracked by the Global Property Guide.

Sifting through the rhetoric about declining growth rates and “easing” markets, the latest study of distressed commercial property reveals sharp divisions developing in global markets.

In particular, while the United States and western Europe continue to see substantial increased in distressed sales, Brazil, Russia, India and Hong Kong are among the markets showing signs of stabilization in foreclosures, according to the new survey by the RICS, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Promoters of an upcoming exhibition in Moscow say it will be the first event of its kind to focus exclusively on helping overseas agents and developers market residential property to Russian buyers.

“There are a number of successful international property shows in Moscow and St. Petersburg but they are all aimed at the end consumer,” said Ashley Rigg, director of Globaledge.co.uk, which is co-promoting the event with Russia-based aiGroup. “There has never been anything focused on helping agents and developers both understand the market and more importantly meet local agents who can refer business.”

A French court this week refused to return a Russian oligarch’s $53 million deposit on a French Riviera estate, which is believed to be the world’s most expensive property.

In 2008, mining billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov reportedly offered €390 million ($531 million) for Villa Leopolda, the cliff-top mansion outside Villefranche-sur-Mer built in 1902 for King Leopold II of Belgium. If the sale had completed, there is little doubt Prokhorov would have earned bragging rights for paying the highest amount in history for a single residential property.

“The sale marked the zenith of the real-estate follies among competing oligarchs,” The Times notes.

New York-based King Penguin Properties, which controls property in the United States and Europe, says it is moving away from luxury condo units to focus on multi-family properties.

“Affordable multi-family units present less downside risk that a prolonged period of slow economic growth may present,” managing partner Michael Mikelic said in a press release.

As part of the move, Mikelic says the company is selling the company’s interests in the Trump Place in New York, where Mikelic sat on the board and served as treasurer. In an earlier statement the company said it would invest most of the proceeds into a distressed property fund.

After vanishing into the wind last year, Russian buyers are returning to New York City, agents tell Reuters. Earlier this month a Russian investment fund paid $37 million for a Central Park West penthouse and in June billionaire financier Andrei Vavilov paid $37.5 million for an apartment in the Time Warner Center.

"I've been contacted by one of the largest Russian real estate investment funds. They don't want to build, they want to invest,” said Irina Levieva, a broker at the Ostrov Realty Group.

Russian developer Janna Bullock, who is known for flipping high-end Manhattan properties, recently listed a 21-foot-wide Beaux Arts mansion on the market for $20 million, the Real Deal reports. The 16-room house on East 82nd Street was originally designed in 1903 by C.P.H Gilbert.