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29 March 2024

Property surplus to ease after mid-2011: Alabbar

Emaar Properties Chairman Mohamed Ali Alabbar (FILE)

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By Staff

Oversupply of homes and offices in Dubai will be eliminated after 20 months, Emaar Properties Chairman Mohamed Ali Alabbar said at conference.

“We need 20 months or so to go over the excess supply. Rates in Dubai about a year and half ago were a little higher than New York, which is abnormal,” Alabbar said this during a panel discussion at the Bloomberg Link Real Estate Briefing in New York.

Landmark Advisory said earlier this year that the oversupply of property in Dubai will hit 80,000 units within the next two years based on conservative assumptions.

Emaar delivered 72 villas and 1,844 apartments in the first half of 2010, said a recent company presentation. The developer delivered 542 villas and 2,534 apartments in 2009 compared to 1,041 villas and 3,935 apartments in 2008.

The company handed over 45 per cent of the apartments in the 200-story Burj Khalifa by the end of the third quarter, according to the statement.

Last month, Emaar reported a seven per cent drop in third-quarter profit, missing analysts’ estimates, on higher costs and write-downs. Net income fell to Dh612 million ($167 million) from Dh665 million a year earlier.

Alabbar said the Dubai-based property major aims to generate nearly 50 per cent of its income outside Dubai in the next few years.  Currently, it generates more than 80 per cent of revenues from Dubai. Syria, Lebanon, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are the best countries for the company, Bloomberg quoted Alabbar as saying.