This Thursday, 9pm on ITV1 - could be interesting... the ITV blurb says this..

First in a new documentary series. Today's episode looks at the British victims of Dubai's property crash. While the property boom was in full swing, they paid out thousands for brand new, state-of-the-art homes, but now the recession has left them with nothing. The programme meets the couple who invested in a yet-to-be-built ski resort, a family who were forced to flee in the middle of the night to avoid jail, and a man who travelled to Dubai to meet the developer who took his money but failed to build any apartments.

This is the link:

http://www.itv.com/presscentre/homes...s/default.html

From reading the above it would seem they've only spoken to/looked for people with negative views. As usual.

Surely there are many who took the gamble and bought off plan early on (in 2003 for example) and who are still sitting on a reasonable profit, despite prices dropping by a good 50% since the stupid times of 2006/7?

That's an illogical way of looking at it - if you bought for speculative reasons (as opposed to the quaint old-fashioned notion of simply wanting a roof over your head and preferring not to pour cash down the drain into a landlord's trouser pocket), you'd want to time your buying and selling to achieve the best possible outcome.

If you buy shares at, say, 500p, then watch them go up to 800p, before falling to 550p (at which point you decide to sell), you'd be pissed off, even though you have notionally made a profit.

So, yet again, it's going to be a Dubai bashing programme? Victims?? Some may well be, but so many others were utterly stupid, greedy and just assumed that the bubble would never end. There are people who spend vast amounts of money without reading the contracts or bothering to employ a lawyer.

Property is an asset class and like any other is can go down in value as well as up. I am always amazed at people's short term memories regarding property prices.

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agree..victims of stupidity and greed.

muppets

Read all about it.... Read all about it...

commander agrees with Meow....

Read all about it...

Everything you buy is caveat emptor, but I will have sympathy for some people who bought property out here. The real estate developers and agents blatantly lied to people and sold properties along with implications for guarantees for deliveries, residency visas and a safe real estate legal framework...none of which materalised. Dubai PLC was an insidious example of so many buyers being deliberately misled - in most other countries what happened in Dubai would be considered outright fraud.

Being out here in the boom I can understand why some people bought property they couldn't really afford. Rents were seemingly going up 10% every week and there was a real panic among many Dubai residents to buy something otherwise they would get caught up in the seemingly endless upward rental price spiral. I sensibly would have left but I recognise and have sympathy for people who got caught up in the panic.

The greedy investors, on the other hand, deserve what they got.

I'll say goodbyre now as the world must be ending...

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shut the door on your way out

Agree. Not everyone who got burned was stupid. Naive, yes, but not stupid. These threads always bring out the smug, self-satisfied types.

Doesn't the media worldwide do that? It makes for boring viewing to see happy people being successful. Humans are sick creatures who delight in the misery of others!

That said, a LOT of people were burnt by the Dubai property crash so it's always good to remind people that the UAE is still a third world country with first world revenue...what did people really expect would happen?

N.

From reading the above it would seem they've only spoken to/looked for people with negative views. As usual.

Umm, methinks the clue might be in the title of the programme ? Homes from Hell.....

to my mind the crux isnt about whether people got greedy and lost or not but rather that there must be thousands globally that put money down for properties that werer never real, will never be built etc.
there are more than a few cases of developers selling buildings on land they didnt own and who are now in the wind.

how many of those stories will never be heard and the people who lost never refunded.

buying at a stupid time is one thing and i have no sympathy for those sheep who charged after the bubble but the people who suffered from genuine fraud and scams are truely screwed laregly because of where they bought rather than when they timed their purchase.

Watching this live now - first section about a new couple, car and rent on post dated cheques, lost job and skipped. Fairly on the money so far and only a few Dubai cliches.
just waiting for the daily mail outrage to flow from disgruntled UK investors demanding the 'too good to be true returns we were promised' - sure to come in part 2.
CH

OMG its a new era surely