Empty promises: U.A.E.'s sky-high office vacancy rates and empty apartments

[marmar]

Empty promises
Commentary: U.A.E.'s sky-high office vacancy rates and empty apartments

By Raymond Beauchemin, MarketWatch


ABU DHABI (MarketWatch) -- Eighteen months ago, I was standing by a window in the Marina Mall, looking out toward Lulu Island's sandy beaches. A new acquaintance was standing by my side. He said, "A year from now you won't recognize it."

Behind us, work was still going on in the enclosed space that would eventually house a bunny slope, maybe about a third the size of the ski hill at the Mall of the Emirates in Dubai.

Christian himself had been in Abu Dhabi less than a year at that point, working on a sewage-treatment plant. He pointed out road and housing construction behind the mall. "All of this is new from when I arrived."

He was right. Things do change fast here.

In the short time I've lived in Abu Dhabi, I've seen buildings come down and a lot more go up. The F1 Grand Prix race is to be run Nov. 1 on Yas Island. When I first arrived, the Abu Dhabi race was still a Montreal race. Six months ago, it seemed construction would never catch up, but it has. It surpassed expectations, I guess you could say. At the height of construction, more than 41,000 people worked on Yas Island, logging more than 184 million hours to finish the project. The local Guggenheim and Louvre are to open in 2013, and I have no doubt someone will throw enough labor at them to see that the museums are built on time. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/property-vacancy-rates-in-uae-running-sky-high-2009-11-03

[SoCalDem]

1. Who on earth will buy/rent all these places?

and here, we have the Vegas Strip..with all the mega-hotels that are reducing their rates to try and get people to come to Vegas..

[JCMach1]

2. The part you don't get from the OP is that housing is desparately needed for workers

in the UAE. However, most of the housing was built at the luxury end of the scale, so it has had little effect. ALL the housing in Abu Dhabi would be full at the RIGHT PRICE.


Think thousands of luxury apartments and villas and no one to buy them!