Kuwaiti house prices at 'intolerable' level

HOUSE PRICES: Kuwaiti real estate prices are at an intolerable level, according to one company chairman.

Real estate prices in Kuwait have reached an "intolerable" level, according to a new report by Al-Mutakhasses Real Estate Company, which said it saw no short-term recovery.

Faraj Al-Khudhari, company chairman, added that demand for homes in the Gulf state was lower in the , compared to the same period last year.

The report said many entrepreneurs had limited their activity to monitoring the market rather than buying, adding that transactions were expected to drop further for the rest of the year.

Al-Khudhari urged the government to provide the stagnant property market with the "necessary incentives and motivations to revive it", KUNA News Agency reported.

He said property prices had dropped 40 percent over the past nine months, compared to rates of the past three years.

The prices - a year after start of the international financial meltdown - "have reached an intolerable phase where they almost equalled the cost rates", he added.

Last week, it was reported that Kuwaiti property sales clocked up 8.6 percent in the year to August, the first rise this year.

Sales in the Gulf Arab state rose to KD96.61m ($337.2m) from KD88.95m in August 2008, official data showed.

Residential property deals, which represent the biggest portion of total real estate transactions, were up 31.2 percent to KD55.4m, compared to August 2008.

The National Bank of Kuwait said in a research note on Thursday that it saw a gradual recovery in real estate activity.

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