São Paulo – A survey disclosed this Tuesday (15th) by London-based real estate consulting firm DTZ shows occupancy rates of commercial real estate units in Dubai continued to drop throughout last year. Prices have dropped by an average of 4%, as a result of low occupancy rates and oversupply.
For the first time ever, prices in Dubai have dropped lower than those of Abu Dhabi and Doha, in Qatar.
The report shows that the decline is sharp both in the Dubai free zone and the rest of the emirate, which, like other states in the Middle East, is still recovering from the global recession. The occupancy rate in the Free Zone was 40%. In the rest of the emirate, it was 27%.
If the news is bad for Dubai, the same does not hold true of Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia, which has reversed the trend of decline seen in the last two years. Occupancy rates reached 29% in 2010.
The Middle East operations director at DTZ, Nick Witty, claims that the oversupply of commercial real estate is more commonly seen in the GCC countries (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates). "We are expecting occupancy rates to drop as a result of political unrest in the region," he said.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
