It Could Be Worse: Dubai's Real Estate Crashes 30% in 3 Months

• February 17th 2009

by Will Smith

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The New York Times has published a piece on the economic and real estate situation in Dubai, which until recently had been one of the world’s hot spots of growth. Now that the economic calamity affecting the rest of the world has caught up with it, Dubai is crashing — hard. A few of the highlights from the bleak article:

• In some parts of the city real estate prices have dropped 30 percent — in just two or three months.
• Layoffs are rampant. Expatriates, which make up a huge percentage of the workforce, lose their permission to stay in the country after one month of being jobless, resulting in an exodus of talent and money.
• Many of the laid-off white-collar foreigners in Dubai purchased apartments or cars which they can no longer afford. Rather than face debtor’s prison — literally, incarceration — they flee the country and leave the assets behind. There are reports of 3,000 deserted cars sitting in the airport parking lot.
• The local government is not forthcoming with economic statistics, which adds to the uncertainty and fuels pessimism.

See the full article here. Separately, ArabianBusiness.com reported that 52 percent of construction projects in the U.A.E. have been suspended.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/it_could_be_worse_dubais_real_estate_crashes_30_in_3_months/551.