Real estate firm: Dubai rents drop 23 pct in 1Q

New research has shown Dubai residential rental prices dropped 23 percent in the first quarter of 2009 as the economic downturn forced foreign workers to pull out of the fast-expanding city.

Thursday's report by real estate company CB Richard Ellis has attributed the decline to job losses among expatriates, a drop in tourism and a considerable new supply of homes.

CBRE says the biggest declines have been in the newest developments built for job-seeking foreigners who had flooded into the oil-rich Persian Gulf's business and tourism capital during the boom years.

Prices in state-owned developer Nakheel's Discovery Gardens took the biggest hit, with rents falling by a third since late last year.

Is Real Estate Market really going down?

With the global economic crisis hitting Dubai's real estate market and other businesses, it has been reported that real estate business is going down specifically the off-plan properties. No premium properties or distress properties are common now in the market.

I am neither a real estate agent nor a broker but as what I have heard from agents and read from newspapers, I think that this is true. One of the popular Dubai-based estate developer as they say is laying off around 200 of its workers. The other property firm had reduced the level of its shareholding allocated for foreign investment from 20 percent to 15 percent to protect itself.

It has also been reported just in case you don't know that there are banks who are now reluctant to lend against a property that has yet to be built. And even car loans as what my colleague told me is now on hold, I don't know if this is true.

I have made a poll to see whether it is true that real estate market is really going down. You can cast your vote on the upper right portion of my blog if you think you still want to buy property in Dubai and you can give your comment why did you choose your answer.