Anup Pankhania had to cut the offer price for apartments he’s developing in London’s Bloomsbury district by as much as 500,000 pounds ($805,000) because of a luxury-home tax that doesn’t exist yet.

The discounts are just one example of price increases for the best London homes stalling after more than five years of gains as investors wait to see if the U.K.’s Labour Party will take power next year and impose a promised annual “mansion tax” on properties valued at 2 million pounds or more. Owners of second homes who are based abroad would pay more than those who possess a single U.K. property and live in it.

“There’s too much uncertainty and that rings in the ears of all the buyers,” Pankhania, managing director of developer Jaspar Group of Companies, said in an interview. “Foreign investors get worried and that’s a direct effect of all these politics to do with this mansion tax.”

An earthquake that struck southern China last night destroyed almost 7,000 homes and injured 324 people, the official Xinhua News Agency said today.

The 6.6-magnitude quake in Yunnan province killed one person and the likelihood of major casualties is low, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said in a statement on its website. An earlier statement by the Earthquake Administration had said the temblor resulted in “great casualties and heavy losses.”

The earthquake authority enacted an emergency plan covering quakes that result in between 50 and 300 deaths or heavy economic losses. Premier Li Keqiang ordered a “whole-hearted” rescue effort, the State Council said in a statement on its website. The epicenter was 460 kilometers (286 miles) southwest of the provincial capital Kunming, where the quake was felt.

When I was around 14 my parents took me to Rome. I don’t remember much about the trip except for an overcast day when we made an obligatory visit to the Pantheon, which initially seemed like another dark and ominous monument. But once inside, standing beneath its dome, with natural light streaming in through the oculus, I found myself, for the first time ever, totally mesmerized by my physical surroundings.

Completed around a.d. 125, under Emperor Hadrian, the Pantheon was an extraordinary feat of architecture for its time, and nearly 2,000 years later it remains one of the world’s most important structures. A tour de force of engineering, the building was constructed using progressively lighter materials, with travertine at the base, unreinforced concrete for the coffered dome, and a lightweight pumice mixture at the top.

Sweden’s rent regulations, which for decades have kept housing affordable, are now fueling a surge in home prices that’s threatening the Swedish economy.

The low rents in attractive areas such as central Stockholm have encouraged many Swedes to stay put in their apartments and discouraged builders from constructing properties for lease. This has exacerbated a housing shortage that has sent prices and private debt to record levels in Sweden.

A growing number of builders, landlords and analysts are calling for the government to scrap rent regulations to alleviate the housing shortfall. Home prices have more than doubled since 2000 and Swedish households with mortgages owe their creditors an average of almost four times their disposable income. The central bank and the International Monetary Fund have warned that soaring debt levels make the economy vulnerable to a severe shock if unemployment rises or prices collapse.

Mr. Rolander may be contacted at nrolander@bloomberg.net; Mr. Magnusson may be contacted at nmagnusson1@bloomberg.net

According to an article by several attorneys of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP published by Mondaq, the British Columbia Supreme Court decision in Acciona Infrastructure Canada Inc. v Allianz Global Risks US Insurance Company “should be noted by all construction and insurance lawyers, owners, contractors, insurers and brokers, as the Court interprets for the first time the LEG2/96 clause, a design/workmanship exclusion developed by the London Engineering Group which is commonly used for large infrastructure projects.”

Mondaq further reported that the decision “also clarifies the requirement of fortuity and the definition of 'damage' under a COC Policy, issues not frequently litigated by Canadian courts.”

Japanese homebuyers are piling into floating-rate mortgages, stirring debate over whether they are too complacent as Bank of Japan stimulus revives inflation.

The proportion of home loans with adjustable rates climbed to 42.8 percent of Japan’s new lending in February, the highest since December, according to data from Japan Housing Finance Agency. The lowest variable mortgage rate at Japan’s three biggest banks was at 0.775 percent, compared with a 10-year fixed rate of 1.3 percent.

Outstanding housing loans to individuals expanded to 113.7 trillion yen ($1.1 trillion), the most since at least 1974 in June as BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda’s monthly sovereign bond buying aimed at ending deflation made it cheaper than ever to finance a home purchase. Borrowers like 30-year-old retail employee Eriko Brown, who chose a flexible-rate mortgage to buy a house this year, are betting rates won’t rise significantly, even as global policy makers fret over how to exit from easing.

Ms. Ishikawa may be contacted at mishikawa9@bloomberg.net; Ms. Ikeda may be contacted at yikeda4@bloomberg.net; Ms. Miura may be contacted at kmiura1@bloomberg.net

Geneva’s private banks could burnish their image by helping to fix leaky roofs and remove asbestos from their hometown’s United Nations buildings, according to Michael Moller, who’s in charge of raising renovation funds.

Moller is tapping private banks busy rebuilding their reputations after the global crackdown on offshore tax evasion. They could volunteer to stump up part of the 837 million Swiss francs ($928 million) needed to renovate the UN’s main center for diplomatic talks as member countries are unwilling to foot the entire bill, he said.

Helping rebuild the Palace of Nations, which has cemented Geneva’s reputation as a center of peace talks, would be the right thing for the banks to do for the city that hosts them, Moller, acting director-general of the UN’s Geneva office, said in an interview. Less than two miles away in the city center, more than 4,000 asset managers, advisers and 120 banks have helped Switzerland amass $2.3 trillion of cross-border wealth.

Fourteen years after the last major hotel opened in Sydney’s center, 42 developers are competing to turn two 100-year-old government office buildings into accommodations as demand soars.

Elsewhere in the city, developers including China’s Greenland Holding Group Co. and Singapore-based M&L Hospitality Trust plan to add more than 5,300 rooms over the next five years. If they are completed, the city’s supply of rooms will rise by about 20 percent by the end of the decade, the most since Australia’s largest city hosted the Olympics in 2000, according to broker CBRE Group Inc.’s hotels division.

Hotel construction is picking up as the number of visitors to Australia grows at the fastest pace in at least nine years, sending occupancies in Sydney to a record and the highest in Asia after Hong Kong and Tokyo. Sydney’s average hotel occupancy is set to reach 88.8 percent by the end of 2016, the highest since at least 2000, according to economics advisory firm Deloitte Access Economics Pty.

Palm Hills Developments SAE plans to invest more than 1 billion Egyptian pounds ($140 million) in projects this year as the luxury real estate developer says it’s close to settling land disputes and an agreement on a loan.

A 2.4 billion-pound loan being negotiated with Arab African International Bank may be sealed by the third week of July, Co-Chief Executive Officer Tarek Abdel-Rahman said in an interview in Cairo today. Once the loan is secured, the developer will probably increase its original 2014 spending plans of 1 billion pounds, he said.

“I think we are going to exceed the expectations of the market this year in terms of new sales, developments, construction and progress in the projects,” Abdel-Rahman said at his company’s headquarters. “We are revising the budget now in light of the new syndicated facility.”

U.K. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg pledged to borrow money to build homes as he sought to “break the taboo” over state support for housebuilding.

The money could be spent buying land or supporting construction by housing associations and local councils, Clegg said in an interview yesterday after a speech in which he outlined the first elements of his Liberal Democrat party’s economic platform for next year’s election.

“Let’s break the taboo, certainly that exists in the Conservative Party, of doing the necessary to build the houses we need,” Clegg said. “This is now emerging as one of the big long-term structural problems with the economy. Not only is it unfair because it prices young people out of the market altogether, it’s actually a threat to the systemic stability of our financial system.”

Mr. Kennedy may be contacted at skennedy4@bloomberg.net; Mr. Penny may be contacted at tpenny@bloomberg.net

Russia’s government is weighing a proposal to free $3 billion of budget funds allocated for two infrastructure projects as it seeks to boost spending on Crimea, a document obtained by Bloomberg shows.

The cabinet in Moscow may halt construction of a Black Sea port and delay plans for a bridge in Siberia, according to the letter signed by President Vladimir Putin’s chief economic aide, Andrei Belousov. The Russian leader ordered the government to evaluate the proposal, it shows.

Putin, locked in a standoff with the U.S. and its allies as tensions escalate in Ukraine, is ramping up spending on the Black Sea peninsula after overseeing its accession from the neighboring country in March. Expanding sanctions from the U.S. and European Union threaten Russia’s economy, which the International Monetary Fund says is in technical recession.

Ms. Pismennaya may be contacted at epismennaya@bloomberg.net; Ms. Tanas may be contacted at otanas@bloomberg.net