Qatar Real Estate News
Qatar housing market to record growth in view of 2022 World Cup
Qatar is likely to witness strong growth potential in its residential property market, prior to hosting of 2022 FIFA World Cup, despite the low activity levels at present, according to latest Asteco report.
The Asteco CEO, Elaine Jones, mentioned that Asteco’s latest market report indicates that the outlook for residential real estate market in Qatar continues to remain positive at present. This may be due to stable political environment, strong economy and the developments that are planned in view of the 2022 World Cup.
The Qatar property sector reported an overall modest leasing activity during the second quarter of this year. The overall apartment rents were in the range QR4000 to QR14000 for double bedroom apartments, indicating hardly any change from the first quarter.
The apartment rental areas including Al Sadd and Pearl Qatar showed stable rent rates, with no movement from Q1 2011 results.
However, the single bedroom and triple bedroom units recorded rent rise, with majority of demand coming from working population in large corporations, planning expansion into Qatar, or beginning new operations in Qatar.
Further, the activity on the Pearl Qatar is likely to strengthen during the coming months, with new retail outlets likely to come on stream, said Asteco.
As for villa rentals, although the rentals remained steady, marginal increase in prices have been recorded in Al Dafna. This could largely be attributed to factors such as strong employment opportunities, prevalence of large individual villas, and beach accesses with areas attracting senior expatriate staff, rich nationals and diplomats.
According to the report, majority of potential buyers were western expatriates and GCC residents, with few enquiries from Qatari nationals, who were mainly seeking distress properties.
In the commercial property sector, a marginal decline of 3percent has been noticed in rental rates, in comparison to that of previous quarter. However, few areas like the B Ring Road area, recorded an increase of QR5 per square meter. During September 2009, the Urban Planning Authority banned usage of residential villas as commercial office space, which led to relocation of several businesses and companies into commercial districts, which further reflected in rentals. The drop in rental rates have actually led to increased demand for Grade A office stock in prime locations, the report pointed out.
Posted on 19/7/2011