Thursday, September 2, 2010

Iraq on the brink of property boom
Property prices in Baghdad’s residential districts have soared in the past year as security has improved, and estate agents say the trend is set to continue, given a serious shortage of homes.
“The price per square metre in the Zayuneh district has risen from $500 in 2005 to more than $1,000 today,” said Abu Abbas, owner of Zayuneh estate agency in an upmarket area of Baghdad on the east bank of the Tigris.
“Sellers have become even greedier since the ratification of the security agreement with the US,” he said, referring to the pact setting a timetable for US forces to leave Iraq by the end of 2011.
Although property prices are plunging in many other cities across the world amid the global economic crisis, the return of Iraqi refugees to Baghdad could unleash a ballooning of demand.
Several hundred thousand Iraqis are estimated to have fled since 2006 to escape vicious sectarian violence that erupted between members of the majority Shia community and Sunni Arabs in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion.
Most in demand are small properties and units of large converted houses, as potential buyers are mainly civil servants or people who work for foreign companies.
Baghdad has around one million homes for its seven million inhabitants - there are no exact figures - mostly individual homes as the city has relatively few apartment blocks.
Bayan Dazai, the housing and construction minister, estimates that Iraq will need 2.5 million new homes by 2015.
“We must build 200,000 homes a year and that can only be done by private investors,” the minister said.