The committee also heard evidence from Bruton Knowles, a property consultant company and Plymouth University.

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Historic property consultant John Addison said the old system could work very well if it was managed properly.

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In Shanghai, for instance, rents this year have increased 18% for grade-A and grade-B buildings in the popular Puxi district as vacancies have fallen to a ten-year low of around 7%, according to Jones Lang LaSalle, a global property consultant.

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That was echoed by Simon Rawlinson, a leading property development consultant at EC Harris.

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Kevin Wakeem, a 34-year-old property tax consultant for energy companies in Houston, was one of those dreamers.

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The two men operated from offices in Mayfair in London where Kallakis pretended to be a property tycoon and Williams posed as a financial consultant.

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Jonathan Heath, a private economic consultant, notes that poor documentation of loans, along with laws that make it virtually impossible to seize property, may make the recovery rate even lower.

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