A prominent Qatar businessman has predicted a substantial drop in property rentals during 2009 as the supply of new homes is expected to exceed demand.
“The rents are sure to tumble sooner rather than later,” said businessman and industrialist Abdul Hadi al-Shahwani. “They will definitely fall.”
Shahwani said his expectations of a depression hitting the rental market were based on the fact that land prices had already come down by up to 50 percent, both in and out of Doha, reported Qatar daily The Peninsula on Wednesday.
And with building materials now also available at cheaper rates, the housing costs are considerably down, he told the paper.
“It is, therefore, natural for the rental market to follow suit. The landlords of many newly-built apartments are still demanding higher rent but how long they can afford to keep their properties unoccupied, is to be seen. They have to eventually give in,” he added.
Confirming that landlords could be under pressure to pay off the banks, another property market operative, PN Baburaj said the construction boom attracted many new investors who had mostly relied on bank loans to develop rental properties.
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