Buy an Apartment get a New Bentley Free!

Incredible but true DAMAC a Dubai property developer has promised New Bentleys for every purchaser of one of its penthouse developments.So what’s the catch? Well it might be that Dubai property is headed for melt down this summer and I don’t just mean the heat .With average noon day temperatures around 40c Dubai has never struck me as a paradise playground. It seems crass and desperate, but you can understand DAMAC’s logic. Sentiment is beginning to turn against the city’s property sector, as visitors to the city begin to realize that a building site-cum-beach, ski and shopping destination, where Blackberry-touting, sharp-suited corporate lawyers mix freely in hotel bars with Bermuda short-wearing 40 something’s, isn’t exactly an ideal tourist destination.
Or a place to buy a holiday apartment…“A bubble just waiting to burst”
Indeed, according to almost half the respondents in the latest arabianbusiness.com survey, the
Dubai property market, which soared 19% last year, is a “bubble just waiting to burst”.
Another 25% said that the market does not offer any real long-term value, and is “obviously going to decline.” According to Global Property Guide, Dubai is swamped with new properties to be delivered in 2008 and 2008. “A slump in demand from international buyers due to a global economic slowdown could exacerbate the problem. The speculative nature of its housing market makes Dubai highly susceptible.”“There is a confused feel about the place” says even the famously bullish Stuart Law, of property company Assetz, where “families on holiday mix with businessmen in suits. I was stuck there on a dusty street, waiting for a taxi with building going on everywhere, thinking, why on earth would anyone want to come here on holiday? There’s a million other places you could go.”
Ok wayne thanks for that I hear you say but what’s that go to do with Hong Kong property?
Well read on�
Hong Kong should offer a lot more value than the dry windswept streets of Dubai. Housing transactions are soaring, as mortgage rates go negative. They are now below the rate of inflation at 3.8%, as the government is forced to slash rates almost in line with the US Federal Reserve. This is because its currency is pegged with the US Dollar. And although Bernanke and Co. over in Washington are surely fuelling another almighty global asset bubble, this is one which shouldn’t burst just yet.Here is a quote from Nicholas Kwan, Asian head of research at Standard Chartered Bank on Reuters “Mass market property prices are still 35-40 percent below their peak in 1997,” after which they dropped 65%. “So even if they rise 30-40 percent, prices would only be what they were 10 years ago,” he said. “It’s hard to argue that would be a bubble.” Indeed, in the next 2 years, one Merrill Lynch analyst has predicted a 50% jump in property prices, as the booming Chinese economy continues to drive the Hong Kong market along.
So whats it going to be the desert or oh so verdant Hong Kong?
Whats your view? http://www.852realestate.com