Today is the Grand Opening of One Hyde Park, the most expensive residential development in the world. It is situated in London's Knightsbridge and consists of 4 main buildings connected to each other with total area of 65000sg.m. The development consists of 86 luxury apartments and three boutiques. In the late 2006 an old building on today's development site was demolished and the main construction work was carried in 2007- 2010. The One Hyde Park was designed by Rogers Stirk Harbor + Partners, an exclusive interior design was made by Candy & Candy, and Laing O'Rourke was the General contractor. The luxurious residential development is owned by Project Grande Guernsey Limited (PGGL), a joint venture between Candy&Candy - the company of the famous luxury home developer brothers Nick Candy and Christian Candy, and Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani - the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Qatar. Project was financed via development loan from German Eurohypo AG bank. Maintenance of the development will carry the neighboring Mandarin Oriental hotel which is the first "residential experience" for the company in Europe. There are about 350 guests invited to the Opening for who cooked the celebrity chefs Heston Blumenthal and Daniel Boulud. Despite the continuing steady decline in the cost of housing in the UK, the price of apartments in One Hide Park starting at around £ 20 million, and late last summer one of its penthouses have been sold for a record sum for the country, at £ 140 million (approximately US$ 222m). The six-bedroom Penthouse stretches across two floors and has a wonderful panoramic view through bullet-proof windows to the main sight of Hyde Park- Serpentine Lake. Despite 24 hour protection from SAS-trained security guards, this apartment also equipped with so-called "safe room", where you can hide in the event of a break-in, home invasion, or other threat (as in the American thriller "Panic Room" by David Fincher). Name of the purchaser of this penthouse is kept in strict confidence, but some high-end realtors suggest a possible buyer from the Middle East or Nigeria.

Immediately before the New Year the famous Boston skyscraper, John Hancock Tower, was purchased by Boston Properties for US $ 930 million. The building was initially purchased at a foreclosure auction 18 months ago by Normandy Real Estate Partners and Five Mile Capital Partners for $660.6 million. The resale of the Hancock tower can be described as a brilliant deal, which could not occur without such a chaotic state of the real estate market in the U.S. Note that the famous skyscraper in 2006 cost about US $ 1.3 billion. The total area of floor space is about 158.000 sq. m. John Hancock, the 60 story tower with 241m in height, was built in 1976 and is still the tallest building in Boston. The building is designed by IM Pei & Partners, for which in 1977 the American Institute of Architecture presented the firm with a National Honor Award. According to experts, the glass walls of the Tower reflect its surroundings, do not interfere with it and are in harmony with the historic City of Boston. The same "glass experiment" IM Pei & Partners used when designing the glass pyramid in the middle of historic Louvre, which could not happen without criticism. The building is named after John Hancock (1737-1793) - the first governor of Massachusetts, a patriot of the American Revolution and the author of the stylish signature on the Declaration of Independence of America. Another building named after John Hancock is the Chicago's John Hancock Center, a 100-storey, 344m tall skyscraper.

Popular search engine giant Google, signed a contract to buy office building in New York at 111 Eight Ave. for about $1.8 billion which will serve as the company's Manhattan headquarters. Google already leases 51000 square meter of space in this 18-story building, which was built in 1932. This sale will be the biggest transaction for a single building in the U.S. this year and the largest commercial real estate purchase by a tenant in U.S. history. The building at 111 Eighth takes up an entire block between West 15th and 16th streets in the Chelsea section of Manhattan, south of Midtown. The former industrial warehouse has 270000 square meter floor space, more than the Empire State Building has. Google Inc., according to the latest data, with market capitalization of $188 billion is the third valuable technology company in the world after Apple and Microsoft. Google Inc. was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Later in 2001, Eric Schmidt from Apple, currently CEO of Goole, jointed the team of two founders. According to the latest company regulatory filling, Schmidt and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, all of whom own significant amounts of company stock, will continue to receive a symbolic $1 salary next year.

In August this year, movie star Nicole Kidman and her husband Keith Urban purchased luxurious apartment with stunning views of the Hudson Bay in Manhattan Chelsea (New York). Starting price for penthouse apartment on the 12th floor with 302sq.m surface was 12.5 million dollars, but maybe the charm of Nicole helped pull down the price to $ 10mln. The apartment consists of 3 bedrooms, 2 terraces, library, double height Great Room , kitchen and a garage... Yes, the 32.5sq.m garage, which reside on the same floor with a kitchen. This innovation was first used in New York and looks like this: a special car elevator lift the car to the owner's floor and then you can enter garage with entrance to the kitchen. This feature is really very handy, especially after heavy shopping. It is also very much helpful when renovating and furnishing the apartment. Nicole and Keith live most of the year in Nashville, Tennessee, but also own homes in Australia and Los Angeles.

Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones purchased a two-storey "country house" for $ 5,075,000. The estate is located in New York State, near Bedford. The total area of the house is 585 square meters, and it has five bedrooms, five bathrooms and five fireplaces. The vintage house also contains a country style but contemporary and fully equipped kitchen, a large living room, dining room and library. At one back corner of the property, on 2.3 hectares land, is located guest house, pool and tennis court. It is reported that near the house there is a large horse farm, but it is not specified, whether the Douglas and Zeta-Jones are its new owners. The research made by realestalker shows that in addition to the apartment in the Big Apple and now the country estate in Bedford, NY, Mister Douglas and Ms. Zeta-Jones Douglas own (or owned) a home base in the Bahamas, a ski house in Aspen, a cliff-top compound in Majorca, an apartment in Los Angeles' Century City, a large house in her native Swansea (Wales) and a 5 bedroom beachfront hideout on a private island in the Turks & Caicos islands.