Dubai – Mubasher: The Middle East's real estate market suffers further uncertainty after the recent election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States of America, according to a survey by the international property consultants, Cluttons.
London topped the property pick for Middle East High Net Worth Individuals, followed by New York and Singapore for 2016.
New York is no longer included in the top target locations for 2017, the survey showed, finding "no US city appeared in the wish lists of Middle East investors for next year."
Faisal Durrani, head of research at Cluttons, said: “Rising numbers of students from the Gulf travelling to Canada has certainly aided the city’s emergence in the minds of the Gulf’s wealthy, but it’s quite likely that it will serve as a proxy location to New York, while we all wait and watch to see what ramifications, if any, the US election result has on global property investment flows."
Although London look like a much safer investment hub for Middle East investors, the pull of a London investment may be eroded to an extent due to currencies pegged directly to the dollar and until the dollar slides in the coming weeks and months, said Durrani.
Dubai overtook London as the most preferred property investment location for 2017, while Toronto, the only North American city, emerged, in joint third place with Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and New Delhi, the report indicated.
“Dubai is a market that is well known and well understood and with events like the 2020 World Expo looming on the horizon, the surprise US election results may boost domestic investment activity temporarily, which will be welcome news for the property markets across the region as they currently work their way towards the bottom of their current cycles”, said Steven Morgan, senior partner at Cluttons.
