NEWS FROM THE UAE
SOURCE : THE NATIONAL
Dubai rents could drop by 25%
ABU DHABI - FEB. 25: Rents are forecast to dip slightly in the capital and drop by up to a quarter in Dubai, in a reversal of the soaring accommodation inflation that has burdened tenants for so long, a study has revealed.
Rents in Abu Dhabi and Dubai peaked late last year, bringing to an abrupt halt the days when average prices in popular neighbourhoods doubled in 12 months, according to Landmark Advisory, a division of the Dubai-based estate agent, Landmark Properties.
The study said average apartment and villa leasing rates in Dubai would drop 25 and 23 per cent respectively this year. After dramatic increases in Abu Dhabi, it said, rents were likely to remain “relatively stable” during the first half of the year or see “marginal declines”.
The forecast has been linked to job losses and downwards pressure on salaries, as well as an increased supply of new homes.
Although Abu Dhabi developers will complete up to 4,250 homes this year and 10,600 units in 2010, raising the total supply to 197,100 units, the capital will still face a shortfall of 28,000 units next year, the report said.
Jesse Downs, Landmark Advisory’s head of research, said several factors had caused the capital’s average rents to “hit a ceiling”.
“Residents simply could not afford to pay higher prices,” she said.
People had also been seeking alternatives to the capital’s high prices and short supply by commuting from Dubai and Al Ain or staying in hotels or serviced apartments. More residents had been illegally subletting bedrooms in their apartments and villas because they could not afford to pay exorbitant rents alone.
“This [stabilisation of rents] will have a positive impact on residents,” she said, “and also the companies who very often bear the burden of these large increases in housing costs through their housing allowances and expatriate compensation packages.”
Julie Crosby, a letting consultant at the Abu Dhabi-based brokerage LLJ Properties, said: “The good news for new people coming in is that the panic we were seeing last summer, where people had to make a decision on the spot, is not as prevalent. “People have a little bit more time and may be shown three flats instead of one, but it’s still expensive. There are some communities, such as Raha Gardens, where there is more product and prices have come down by about eight per cent.” However, overall prices had not fallen to below their peak of last summer, she said.
While rental conditions may be easing in light of the economic downturn, they have yet to filter down to Walter Lacerna, a Filipino project manager. He is still having a hard time finding a one-bedroom flat to share with his family. “If you want to find somewhere you have to have good contacts and a lot of time,” he said. “There’s been no price decrease and the quality is bad. I was staying in Dubai for a long time and it’s more expensive here.”
In Dubai, the lack of bank financing meant that residents could not afford to buy property, which pushed people into the leasing market.
Even so, the Landmark report said, by December “job losses and worker exit softened demand and rates began to fall”. It expects the trend to continue over the coming year. In large master developments, such as Dubai Marina, the rental rates could vary between different buildings by as much as 50 per cent, depending on the quality of apartments.
Villa rates already fell two per cent in the last three months of 2008, ahead of the much larger drop expected this year. Sales prices will experience an even bigger decline, plummeting between 10 and 50 per cent this year, the report said.
At its peak last summer, International City homes cost about Dh1,100 (US$2.99) per sq ft, but are forecast to average Dh500 per sq ft by October, a fall of 54 per cent. House prices in Abu Dhabi, meanwhile, were forecast to drop by five to 15 per cent depending on the completion date of the property. The report said this was due to “transactional gridlock and virtually non-existent demand for off-plan properties”.
Prices for master developments, including Al Raha Beach and Reem Island, would settle at their original selling price or 10 per cent below.
Forecasts beyond this year were difficult to make because “the market is changing so rapidly” said Ms Downs.
Faulty traffic lights are blamed for fatal crash
DUBAI - FEB. 25: The family of one of the victims of a car crash has blamed faulty traffic lights for the fatal accident.
Anne P Abraham, 33, and Santi Verghese, 30, were both nurses at the Zulekha Hospital in the Al Nahda area of Dubai.
They died in the car on their way to the hospital early on Monday, as they hurried to respond to an emergency call.
Ms Abraham’s husband Thomas Mathew, was driving the car. He was also injured in the accident and is recovering at the Rashid Hospital in Dubai.
Police said the incident occurred after the car went through a red light and collided with another vehicle at the Amman-Doha road junction. Mr Mathew’s brother, Verghese Thomas, said yesterday that their family in India had been informed of the tragedy, but he insisted: “The accident was not my brother’s fault.
“There was a problem with the signals at the junction, which is why my brother moved forward.”
Dubai Police are investigating the crash. They said the traffic lights were the responsibility of the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA).
Mr Mathew was informed of his wife’s death yesterday, relatives said. Both families come from the southern Indian state of Kerala and have been living in the UAE for the last few years.
Anne leaves behind her husband and a seven-year-old son, Abel, who attends the Gulf Asian English School in Sharjah.
Relatives said yesterday that the boy had not yet been told about his mother’s death.
“We are deeply saddened and seriously worried after this incident. We will do something for the boy,” said Dr Shaukat Tarveen, principal of the school.
The school will conduct a condolence meeting today. The teachers are also planning to visit his father in hospital.
The other nurse, Ms Verghese, leaves a nine-year-old son who is in India. Her husband, Joseph George, who works in Dubai, said: “We do not know what happened. Santi was sitting behind in the car.”
He added that her body would be handed over to the family today.
Abu Dhabi invites bids on 131km metro line
ABU DHABI - FEB. 25: The capital moved a step closer to having a metro system yesterday as the Department of Transport invited tenders to design a 131km-scheme supported by a network of trams and buses.
The Government said it was inviting bids to prepare a feasibility study for the metro, create a preliminary design and provide a detailed implementation schedule for building a rail system.
The call for tenders for the metro study pushes forward the department’s surface transport master plan, which will define how the capital’s transportation system develops over the next 20 years.
Planners have been working on the project for a year, and full details are expected in the next couple of months. But the Government said the plan had already indicated the need for a high-speed metro, supported by tram and bus services, to help relieve traffic congestion on the roads and to connect Abu Dhabi island with the suburbs and new communities on Saadiyat and Yas Islands, as well as Al Raha Beach.
With Abu Dhabi’s population growing rapidly, the city’s transport infrastructure must increasingly be built alongside new residential communities, while the department has had to stake out corridors in more developed areas.
Without an improved mass transit infrastructure, the department predicts the road network will reach capacity before 2020. The flow of vehicles to Abu Dhabi island may increase to 100,000 an hour by then, from about 15,000 an hour today.
“From the start we began looking at what are the possible rail system routes that we need to reserve right away,” Abdelgader Elshabani, a senior transportation planning specialist with the department, said at a conference late last year. “If we have to wait until the study finishes, we could lose very important routes for the future rail system.”
No one from the department was available to comment on the development yesterday.
Once completed, the study will present the vision of a metro touted in the Urban Planning Council’s Plan Abu Dhabi 2030 and lay out plans to integrate it into the capital’s urban fabric.
The contract will be awarded in the third quarter of this year and the metro study completed over 18 months, the department said. The consultants are expected to design the metro to mesh with ongoing developments and those at the planning stage. Plans should factor in the future alignment of the rail, metro station locations, depot and maintenance facilities, and train sizes, in addition to tram and bus feeder services so interchanges can be made and service schedules co-ordinated.
Other operations to be planned include the frequency of the metro service and the technology for fare collection and ticketing systems. Capital, operation and maintenance cost estimates are also to be provided.
A preliminary map released by the Government last year shows an integrated transit network featuring the metro with stations on Abu Dhabi island, connecting to the Musaffah industrial zone, the planned Capital City and Masdar, Abu Dhabi International Airport and Saadiyat and Yas Islands.
According to the plans, the tram network will open in 2015, while the metro will be operating by 2020, though planners are aiming for earlier opening dates.
The Government is also reserving space for a regional rail line that will link Abu Dhabi with Dubai. The Red Line of Dubai’s metro is to begin operating in September. Once completed the entire network will have 127km of rail.
Ministry raises bar for teachers
ABU DHABI - FEB. 25: Every teacher applying for a job in a state school will be closely vetted by a new unit at the Ministry of Education as the Government pushes ahead with plans to hire better qualified staff.
Under-qualified teachers have been one of the biggest obstacles facing the ministry in its efforts to reform the state school system.
The director-general of the ministry, Rashid al Nuaimi, said yesterday that higher standards would be put in place for new recruits.
The ministry has not employed strict criteria for hiring in the past, and as a result some teachers working in the state system lack the necessary qualifications.
Mr al Nuaimi said around 10 per cent of the applicants for new teaching positions would be approved under the regime.
The ministry was aware, he said, of the well-documented link between teacher quality and student achievement, and would “concentrate on professional development” to improve levels of expertise in the classroom.
He told a press conference yesterday that the criteria for teacher certification had been approved, but the details were not spelt out.
However, he made it clear that the performance of teachers in the classroom would be monitored before they received certificates.
Mr al Nuami said: “Our priority is the newcomers. We want to be sure that everybody new who comes into the system will be up to our standards.”
The ministry is developing five promotional grades for staff, ranging from teacher up to consultant teacher, although a timetable for the changes has not been announced. Mr al Nuaimi said they were working with the government department that deals with salary grades to draft a new pay scale.
The ministry has been concentrating on teacher qualifications for the past year. Two weeks ago, 60 supervisors graduated from a professional development programme aimed at enhancing teaching skills.
These teachers will in turn retrain thousands of their peers in the northern Emirates through a programme, “Teachers for the 21st Century Professional Development Project”, launched last autumn.
It is a partnership between the ministry, Zayed University, the American not-for-profit organisation the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, and the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research.
As part of the programme, which aims to retrain 10,000 teachers, supervisors were trained in four areas: classroom environment, lesson planning and preparation, instructional practices, and professional responsibility.
Man jailed for housing 24 illegal immigrants
ABU DHABI - FEB. 25: An Emirati man found to be housing 24 illegal immigrants from Yemen was yesterday jailed for four months and fined Dh2.4 million (US$653,000).
A court in Abu Dhabi heard that the Emirati and the Yemenis were together during a raid by the Department of Naturalisation and Residence on a Bani Yas villa on Feb 12.
Brig Gen Nasser al Minhali, the department’s acting director general, said: “We inspected the villa and found the allegations to be true. The Public Prosecution brought a case to the court.”
The Court of First Instance on Bani Yas, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department, delivered its verdict yesterday.
“The court ruled the convicted Emirati, HM, will be subject to an additional six months in prison if he does not pay the amount in full,” a statement issued by the Ministry of Interior read.
The 24 Yemeni defendants were sentenced to two months in prison each followed by deportation.
According to Gen al Minhali, all of the 24 were living in the home of HM and had entered the country to work. It is not known when the men entered the UAE or which route they used, but as Saudi Arabia and Oman divide the UAE and Yemen, Gen Minhali believes “they came through Oman and infiltrated across the border”.
The Yemenis will also have their eyes scanned in case they try to re-enter the country using fake documents.
The ministry highlighted the penalties for aiding illegals in entering the country or for third-party sponsorship. In addition to a two-month imprisonment, the law stipulates fines of Dh50,000 per individual or more, depending on the circumstances.
“The inspection department will continue its campaign at different times and different places unannounced to track infiltrates and whoever helps them, and no one will be exempt from the law,” Gen al Minhali said.