'Dubai is most transparent real estate market in Middle East'
Monday, 28 July 2008, 19:30 IST
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Dubai: This Middle Eastern metropolis showed the greatest improvement in real estate transparency globally in the last two years and is also the most transparent market in the region, a new report said. According to the Real Estate Transparency Report 2008, by leading real estate investment and advisory firm Jones Lang LaSalle, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi followed Dubai as the most transparent markets in the region. "Transparency in real estate markets matter," Blair Hagkull, managing director of Jones Lang LaSalle's Middle East and North Africa (MENA) operations, said in a statement. "It matters to investors as it provides the basis for their investment strategies and it then informs decision making. It matters to occupiers and tenants because it provides certainty and reduces risk," he said. He added that the most valuable real estate assets in the world are located in some of the world's most transparent markets such as Britain, the US, Canada, Australia and France. The new survey, which covered 82 markets around the world, puts Dubai at the top of "tier III" markets, which classifies this city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as semi-transparent. Bahrain and Abu Dhabi closely follow in this tier. There are five classifications with "tier I" denoting the most transparent markets and "tier V' the most opaque. According to the report, Dubai's real estate market is more transparent than the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) markets. It is also the most transparent market in the MENA region. "Key factors such as the establishment of RERA (Real Estate Regulatory Agency) by the Dubai government and new laws such as the Strata Law and the Landlord and Tenant Law have catapulted Dubai to the position as the most transparent of the MENA markets," Craig Plumb, head of research for MENA at Jones Lang LaSalle, said. "These trends have been emulated in other states of the Gulf, most notably Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, the second and third most transparent markets of the region respectively," he added. Both Saudi Arabia and Egypt saw improvements since 2006 and are among the top 10 most improved markets globally. However, MENA, despite showing the greatest improvement as a region, remains the least transparent of the regions covered by the report, which also includes the European Union, the Americas and Asia Pacific.
Source: IANS
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