Kevin Brass
Through booms and crashes, Kevin Brass has covered international property markets for the International Herald Tribune and New York Times. His work focuses on news and trends that impact shifting markets, providing essential information to agents, investors and consumers looking to buy or sell property.
Dubai Faces Sea of Empty Units
Somehow this is not a big surprise: Dubai, the poster child for the boom years, is facing a surplus of 31,000 homes by the end of the year, according to a new JP Morgan report.
You don’t need a fancy economic degree to figure out the reasons for the sea of empty homes. “Modest economic forecast and negative population growth estimates” are blamed for the surplus. In other words, the flow of overseas buyers has dried up for all those new, ground-breaking, one-of-a-kind developments.
If anything, the 31,000 number sounds light, considering the drop in demand. And that means, if Dubai is a true open market, prices should continue to fall, as well.
The latest report from Colliers International (available here) found prices dropped 48 percent from the second quarter of 2008.