Have I Got A Deal For You Dept: 40% of Dubai Buildings Are Vacant

The boulevard of broken dreams is more than just a rock musical. the real estate bubble that was Dubai has been popped like day-old chewing gum. The implication: think carefully about why a place with a nice airline but no other obvious amenities suddenly becomes a must-have location. Clever marketing and the financiers who got in on the ground floor and then would be a good place to start. We are better than this, as a society and an economy. So, why do smart people continue to fall for such risky investments?

Gus Lubin has the scoop in Business Insider:


"Forty percent of the buildings in Dubai are vacant, according to Arabian Business.

For comparison only 28 percent of homes are vacant in America's ghost town, Detroit.

Now here's the scary part. Dubai hasn't stopped building:

As many as 48,000 homes will be completed in the next two years, increasing current supply by 12 percent, Landmark Advisory estimates.

Around 12 million sq ft of commercial space probably will be completed in Dubai this year, according to Jones Lang LaSalle Inc.

Real estate values have already fallen by over 60 percent since the Dubai crisis, according to Arabian Business. New properties coming online are expected to push prices down by another 10-15 percent, in a slump lasting another 18 months.

Last year Dubai office space was the fourth most expensive in the world, at $1,214 per square foot per year, according to Cushman & Wakefield. This year the emirate has fallen off the list, with declines of more than 30 percent.