Easier Mortgages Needed for Property Market: Shuaa

The UAE government needs to hasten the rehabilitation of Tamweel and Amlak, the country’s two beleaguered home-finance lenders, to stabalise the housing market, the chief economist of Shuaa Capital said on Sunday. “Despite some announcement by the banks, it is still extremely difficult to get a mortgage if you are an expatriate,” Mahdi Mattar told delegates at an International Monetary Fund conference. “And 80 per cent of the population are expatriates.” Dubai is facing a “huge” oversupply of homes, and one of the solutions to this supply overhang is for lenders to make it easier for people to obtain mortgages to “kick-start demand for real estate,” Mattar said. While the federal government has taken proactive measures to support the banking sector, it has not come out with a comprehensive plan to support the real estate industry, in which prices have fallen by about 50 per cent from last year’s peak, he said. “We need to see support to the real estate sector, and it is a shame that the mortgage companies we have in the UAE and the whole controversy about their merger (and) banking licence has not been resolved.”