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Property adverts show signs of panic selling in Dubai

'The classified ads in Dubai read like an obituary for a real-estate market that until a few months ago seemed immune from the global credit crisis,' said one commentator.

One man who took out 10 bright yellow ads in the United Arab Emirate's biggest newspaper said he is desperate to sell because he is juggling 60 properties.

Sebat, a Turkish property investor, is typical of the kind of speculator who buys off-plan and then flips or sells before the property is completed but now finds it impossible to meet payment deadlines because of the economic downturn and is having to sell.

'Direct From Owner Distress Sale,' his advert screamed. Sebat said he used to be able to buy for our five properties at a time and sell the next day for a profit of as much as 5%. 'Now there is panic in the market. Things aren't moving,' he said.

Scarce credit, falling property prices and slumping oil prices have international property investors scurrying to dump their assets.

Russian businessman Artur Khayrullin moved to Dubai three years ago to escape the Russian winter and invest in the booming real-estate market. Now he's being forced to sell four apartments to raise cash for his family business in Moscow. They have been on the market for two months.

'With all this oil money in the region, I thought the Dubai property market would be secure from the global problems. Now nobody is getting financing,' he said.

'In such a nasty downturn, which we are seeing now, Dubai is just not immune to global events,' said Michael Baer, founder of Dubai-based Baer Capital Partners and great-grandson of Julius Baer, who started Switzerland's largest independent wealth manager. 'Maybe the boom is over for the time being,' he added.

Baer said he is optimistic that the boom will return if the government takes the right actions. 'There will be layoffs, they will have readjustments in asset prices and maybe they will have more careful accounting practices,' he said.

Some development may become impossible to sell. 'There will be less interest in buying third or fourth homes in Dubai. There are bound to be white-elephant developments. If it was built on the premise of build it because buyers will come then that could turn out to be a mistake,' said Gabriel Stein, a director at London's Lombard Street Research, which provides economic analysis.

Now buyers are more reluctant to look at off-plan properties and prices have dropped as much as 20% since September, according to developer Al Jabal Holdings. The speculative buyers were more than 50% of the market and now they are disappearing.

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