The Unassuming Economist

“Real estate prices have continued to decline, but the quality of the real estate loan portfolio has remained resilient. Structural measures taken in 2014, such as the tightening of industry self-regulation, higher real estate fees, and tighter macroprudential regulation for mortgage lending, have helped contain speculative demand for real estate and led to declining prices. This trend has continued with Dubai’s real estate average residential prices falling by 11 percent in 2015, also reflecting oversupply and strong headwinds on demand. In Abu Dhabi where the supply growth slowed, they fell by 0.8 percent. However, these developments do not appear to pose systemic risks for the financial sector, as the nonperforming loans for construction and real estate development declined from 12.3 percent in 2013 to 7.5 percent by end-March 2016. Similar improvements have been experienced for loans to households with NPLs ratio down from 10 to 4.9 percent over the same period”, according to the IMF’s report on United Arab Emirates.