The Pearl, Qatar

With rental and sale prices quickly spiralling upwards, Qatar is just the latest country in the Middle East to pledge to do something about it.

There are many reasons as to why the prices in the Middle East have been going up, but many people who have experience in the sector will know that the main one is higher demand and lower supply.

With people taking a look at markets outside of Dubai and the UAE in the Middle East, many of the other countries have also experienced property value increases directly tied to high demand and low supply. With the recent selling of a total of QAR 1.5 billion worth of property amongst other similar events, Qatar property values have started to shoot through the roof.

While this is very good news for investors who already have their investments locked in, for most of the people that actually live in Qatar and pay rent to a landlord, this has not been good news at all.

And now, the Qatari government has decided that it needs to step in.

In a recent press conference, the government of Qatar promised to build cheaper homes as well as place regulatory controls on the price of raw materials as well as make state-owned land available for development at rates that are basically free. All of these different propositions are aimed at doing one thing and one thing only - cutting the cost of property values.

With property values having risen more than 30% in the last year alone and the Qatar central bank already having played its hand on following the United States Federal Reserve in cutting interest rates, the only way for the Qatari government to conceivably be able to control these prices in the short term is precisely through the introduction of regulatory measures.

What does this mean for property investors in the region? Well, according to most analysts, it is very unlikely that Qatar will be able to completely stop the rise of property values and since it is still a very viable market, most analysts would still attempt to lock in property investments before the controls hit the market.

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