Dubai

Dubai

Postby LenaHuat » Thu Dec 04, 2008 9:45 pm

One of my good friend got burnt in this:-
Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) -- The classified ads in Dubai read like an obituary for a real-estate market that until a few months ago seemed immune from the global credit crisis.

A Turkish investor, who identified himself as Sebat, took out 10 bright yellow ads in the Nov. 25 edition of Gulf News, the United Arab Emirates’ biggest newspaper, with the headline: “DIRECT FROM OWNER DISTRESS SALE!!!” Sebat said he used to be able to buy four or five properties at a time and sell them the next day for a profit of as much as 5 percent.

“There is panic in the market,” said Sebat, 52, who wouldn’t give his full name because he’s juggling 60 properties.

The property bubble in the desert emirate, home to the world’s tallest building, most expensive hotel suite and largest manmade islands, is bursting as scarce credit and slumping oil prices have international investors scurrying to dump assets.
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Re: Middle East

Postby blid2def » Thu Dec 04, 2008 10:04 pm

There's a Businessweek article today on this...

The Downturn Hits Dubai:

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/c ... topStories
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Re: Middle East

Postby blid2def » Fri Feb 06, 2009 2:25 am

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Re: Middle East

Postby winston » Sun Feb 15, 2009 9:16 pm

Barneys Buyers Said to Offer Half '07 Price as Dubai Seeks Cash By Jonathan Keehner, Sara Gay Forden and Haris Anwar

Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Barneys New York’s owner, Dubai’s Istithmar World PJSC, may sell the luxury retailer for less than half what it paid two years ago as the state-owned fund seeks to raise cash to meet debt payments.

Barneys, which Istithmar bought for $942.3 million in 2007, may fetch $350 million to $600 million, according to four people familiar with potential bids. Even in that price range, a surge in retail bankruptcies, falling luxury sales and frozen credit markets are muting interest, the people said, declining to be identified because the talks are private.

“It’s a buyers’ market,” said John Guy, a fashion and luxury analyst with MF Global Securities in London. “The fact that luxury-goods stocks have fallen more than 30 percent in the past year is also going to weigh on expectations.”

Dubai and its state entities borrowed $80 billion to finance the emirate’s transformation into the Persian Gulf’s banking and tourism hub. It’s now being stung by a drop in both real-estate values and the price of oil, which fuelled the region’s growth.

The government’s Dubai World owns both Istithmar and real- estate developer Nakheel PJSC, which needs cash for debt maturing this year, according to a person familiar with Dubai World. Nakheel sold $3.52 billion of Islamic bonds in December 2006 that mature in 2009, Bloomberg data show.

Istithmar, which managed more than $10 billion as of last year, also owns 20 percent of Canadian circus troupe Cirque du Soleil and a majority of Gulf Stream Asset Management LLC.

Expansion Stymied

Barneys, an 86-year-old retailer that sells fashions by designers from Balenciaga to Manolo Blahnik, was stymied in its international expansion as credit markets evaporated and luxury consumers retrenched. It operates 13 outlets and 18 lower-priced CO-OP stores as well as nine Barneys department stores in cities including New York, Beverly Hills, Seattle and Chicago.

Istithmar World’s Dubai-based media consultant, Nicholas Nesson, said the fund has no comment. Reuters reported Feb. 8 that Dubai World Chairman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem said the fund hasn’t sought buyers for Barneys.

Sulayem didn’t answer his mobile phone when called for comment yesterday. Sana Maadad, a Dubai-based spokeswoman for the company, said Sulayem wouldn’t comment further.

The yield on the three-year Islamic bond issued by Nakheel Development Ltd. soared to 41.85 percent this month on concern the developer’s finances were getting squeezed.

Property, Luxury Slump

Residential property prices increased fourfold in the last five years in Dubai, helped by the global credit boom and new laws allowing foreigners to own property. The credit crunch has since cut off its state entities from borrowing. Dubai, the second-largest of the United Arab Emirates, started work on the world’s tallest building and created islands shaped like palm trees during its boom this decade.

Any buyer of Barneys faces a crisis that luxury-goods billionaire Bernard Arnault calls the worst since the 1930s. In 2009, luxury sales may fall for the first time in a decade, consulting firm Bain & Co. estimates.

Founded by Barney Pressman to sell cut-rate men’s suits in 1923, Barneys began building women’s lines in the 1970s with the help of his grandsons, Gene and Robert Pressman. “We went to Paris and Milan and started buying designers like Armani, Alaia, Versace and Prada,” Gene Pressman, 58, said by phone on Feb. 6. “We carried a jeans and designer mix that was unique.”

The Pressman family lost control in 1998 and the company exited bankruptcy protection in 1999. It was bought by Jones Apparel Group Inc. for $294.3 million in 2004. Istithmar acquired Barneys from Jones in September 2007.

Istithmar has been working with New York executive-search firm Herbert Mines Associates in New York to find a replacement for Howard Socol, 63, who resigned as Barneys’ CEO in May.

Socol, a former chairman of J Crew Group Inc., had been with Barneys since 2001. He oversaw expansion into flagship stores and CO-OPs nationwide, and sought brands that would distinguish Barneys from competitors Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus Group Inc. Herbert Mines Chairman Hal Reiter declined to comment on the search.
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Middle East

Postby iam802 » Wed Apr 08, 2009 11:25 pm

Long article. Touches on the 'dark side' of Dubai

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... 64368.html
1. Always wait for the setup. NO SETUP; NO TRADE

2. The trend will END but I don't know WHEN.

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Re: Middle East

Postby blid2def » Sat Apr 11, 2009 3:01 am

iam802 wrote:Long article. Touches on the 'dark side' of Dubai

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... 64368.html


Correction: it's a very very long article... :D But it's a nice read. As usual, I guess the truth is somewhere in-between, but it's pretty revealing stuff. Don't think the author will be invited back anytime soon.
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Re: Middle East

Postby LenaHuat » Sat Apr 11, 2009 9:06 pm

White swan of cities, slumbering in thy nest
So wonderfully built among the reeds
Of the lagoon, that fences thee and feeds,
As sayeth thy old historian and thy guest!
White water-lily, cradled and caressed
By ocean streams, and from the silt and weeds
Lifting thy golden filaments and seeds,
Thy sun-illumined spires, thy crown and crest!
White phantom city, whose untrodden streets
Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting
Shadows of palaces and strips of sky;
I wait to see thee vanish like the fleets
Seen in mirage, or towers of cloud uplifting
In air their unsubstantial masonry.



From Longfellow's Birds of Passage. Be forewarned abt mirages in desert. They have only themselves to be blamed.
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Re: Middle East

Postby winston » Mon Aug 17, 2009 8:32 am

Sometime back, some of my relatives and friends were talking about investing in Properties in Dubai. Now, I have North-American friends asking me about Properties in China, HK & S'pore :D

================================================

Dubai's house prices plunge into uncharted territory

DUBAI: Just one year ago, property prices in Dubai were surging to record peaks undeterred by a real estate slump in major markets, but they have since gone into free fall and have yet to find the bottom.

Market watchers in the former Gulf boomtown differ slightly on the magnitude of the decline so far, but all seem to agree that the prices of Dubai property, which was selling unchecked over the past three years, should drop further.

"The decline in prices still has a little bit to go before bottoming out," said Sana Kapadia, vice-president of equity research at the regional investment bank EFG-Hermes.

"We expect a total drop in Dubai of between 50 to 60 per cent from peak prices in 2008. We have seen a cumulative decline of 45 to 50 per cent so far in Dubai," she told AFP.

Consultancy firm Colliers International echoed similar estimates in its quarterly report this month stating that the prices of Dubai housing units had dropped by half by the end of June, compared to peak prices last summer.

A report by Landmark Properties last week put the drop in villa and apartment prices in the same period at 44 and 36 per cent respectively.

According to a price index set by the real estate brokerage firm, the average sale price for apartments has dropped from around 1,500 dirhams (405 dollars) per square foot to around 950 dirhams (257 dollars).

Prices are expected to fall further as market liquidity remains tight and costly. Mortgages are scarce, with interest rates between 8.5 and 9.0 per cent, Landmark Properties said.

"Our forecast is that prices will have bottomed out by the end of the year, and should stabilise in the first half of 2010," Kapadia said.

This crash has dragged the emirate's economy into contraction after years of breakneck growth, driven mainly by a property sector benefiting from an abundance of cash from a huge regional oil windfall and foreign investments.

Economic slowdown has also led to job losses in the emirate, which had become a workforce magnet during boom time, leading to forecasts of a drop in population that would put further pressure on demand and prices.

A few areas, however, have seen flickering signs of recovery.

Prices in the recently completed upmarket neighbourhoods on the palm-shaped island Palm Jumeirah, which took a severe beating after shooting to record levels, rose slightly in the second quarter as investors with cash appeared to jump on bargains.

A report by the property management company, Asteco, last month said the prices of villas and apartments on the Palm have risen respectively by 20 per cent and 7.0 per cent in the second quarter, compared to the first quarter, when they tumbled up to 65 and 53 per cent respectively from peak levels.

Asteco still however registered an average drop of 13 and 15 per cent in the average value of villas and apartments in Dubai in the second quarter.

"It would be a terrible mistake to believe that we are out of the woods," said Jeremy Mayhew-Sanders, head of investments and development at Sherwoods Property, referring to such few recovery signs.

He said that some prices had improved due to an artificial shortage of units on offer in some areas, as low prices had pushed some owners to pull their units from the market.

But a shortage of new housing units -- a major catalyst for the surge in prices and rents over the past few years -- should be the least worry for buyers as thousands of new units are being delivered this year, with more scheduled to be ready next year.

"Many under-construction projects are nearing delivery time, bringing more units into the market... There is a lot of supply that has to be absorbed," Kapadia said.

Landmark Properties projects some 22,700 residential units to be delivered by the end of this year, with 40,400 others to be delivered in 2010, although many projects have reportedly been put on hold for lack of cash and interest.

Selling these units would be an uphill struggle for their owners as speculators, who were the real movers of the market, have vanished.

"Between 2006 and 2008, we had purely speculative investors looking for quick return... These guys have been seriously caught short," Mayhew-Sanders said.

Kapadia also agreed that the past volumes of sales would not be achieved again "since a large portion was speculative."

But she pointed out that the "second half of 2010 could see a potential recovery," after a period of price stability.

"For a real substantial recovery, we need greater availability of liquidity, in tandem with more clarity and transparency with regards to property laws, so as to boost confidence for investors and end-users."

- AFP/yt
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Re: Middle East

Postby millionairemind » Mon Aug 17, 2009 8:35 am

winston wrote:Sometime back, some of my relatives and friends were talking about investing in Properties in Dubai. Now, I have North-American friends asking me about Properties in China, HK & S'pore :D


- AFP/yt


So you taking it as a contrarian indicator for the Asian property markets??? :lol: :lol:
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Middle East

Postby winston » Sun Oct 25, 2009 1:55 pm

Dubai: The Art of Living

Dubai is fast gaining a reputation for innovative architectural and interior design, as well as its iconic skyline. Dubai’s hotels are helping raise the bar of architectural extravagance and interior opulence in this glittering city on the sand.

http://www.theluxurychannel.tv/Dubaiartofliving.aspx
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