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Santhosh Chandran
Doha
DECLINING rents of prime and mid-segment residential properties in Qatar have affected a large number of small scale real estate groups who rented out residential units to third parties with the help of middlemen after hiring them directly from Qatari owners.
Although the business has no legal protection, it has thrived so far because, it is an important source of income for a large number of small scale real estate groups as a considerable number of single workers and families from Asian countries have been availing their services to get houses on affordable rents.
However, with falling rents, these smaller real estate agents are in trouble. Some of them have, in fact, already wound up their businesses while others having long-time contract with individual native landlords are struggling hard to get tenants.
An official of such a real estate firm in Old Airport area said,"I have lost 30 to 40 percent of tenants owing to the collapse of rent negotiations in the last one year. Two years ago, I had received enough customers for a double bedroom housing unit for a rent of QR4,500 QR5,000. But now, I am struggling to get QR3,500 for the same. We have already shut down three of our agencies."
According to sources, many of the existing Asian expatriate tenants have already given notices for the cancellation of tenant contracts and sent their families home."Given the trend of falling rents, it seems that the future will be extremely challenging especially for those who rented out villas or hired villas on long-term contracts," said an agent working in Al Hilal area.
He added,"Currently, we cannot compete with the prominent real estate groups who are offering brand new housing units against our renovated ones at lower rents than ours."
However, some other agents said that rent fluctuations of this kind are common."This market chaos will not last for long. The falling rent will stop at a point where supply and demand meet at a fair proportion and there we can re-enter the market," said an Asian expatriate who runs many such businesses in Doha.
The increasing number of advertisements of cheap house rents on social media and public places like restaurants, shopping malls as well as on street lamp posts are enough indications of falling house rents in the country.
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26/09/2016
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