A study by Landmark Properties has predicted that rents for apartments in Dubai will drop by 25 percent and villas by 23 percent. The report comes just days after the managing director of the Dubai Real Estate Institute (DREI) predicted rents would fall by up to 25 percent over the next 18 months. Dr Salem Al Shafiei also predicted that layoffs among sales and marketing staff in the real estate sector were likely to continue during 2009.

Published reports have claimed that a group of property investors has presented Dubai’s Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) with a petition urging the watchdog to clamp down on "fly-by-night developers" who were unable to deliver projects amid tightening liquidity and project financing, even though they've taken down payments from investors.  The petition allegedly came from the Dubai Property Investors Group, made up of more than 300 local and international investors, lawyers and real estate developers.

Official figures indicate that cancellations of residency visas in January 2008 rose 86% over January of 2007.  Dubai’s Ministry of Interior Naturalization & Residency (DNRD) released data showing that 54,684 residency visas were cancelled during the month of January, compared with 29,418 in January 2008.  This translates to approximately 1,764 per day, higher than the 1,500 cancellations reported in the media during the past three weeks.

An average price tag of $7,151 per square metre, makes Dubai fifteenth most expensive real estate markets in the world, according to a recent study.  That’s still cheap, though, compared to the leader: Monte Carlo, where a top-end apartment costs on average $47,578 per square metre.