If only they had used transparent aluminium George and Gracie would have nothing to fear.

Madam, – In view of the massive fall in property prices in Dubai, should it now be called “Don’tbuy”? – Yours, etc,

MICHAEL F O’NEILL,
St Mary’s Road,
Dundalk, Co Louth.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/let ... 04546.html

My idea of hell is being stuck in a dinner party with regular Irish Times letter-writers.

Duly noted. You won't have to worry any more.
Yours, etc.
db.

Destitute in Dubai: One man's story

It was six o'clock in the morning when I met Nicholas Warner down by the Dubai Creek and already the temperature was 35C. We both knew that in a few hours it would climb to nearer 50C.

He eagerly showed me to a bench shaded by a palm tree that faced the waterfront so we could talk without getting burnt

As Angela Shah reports for The New York Times, investors are calling the Burj "distressed," as the building has not yet bounced back from a 40 percent downturn in apartment prices it suffered in 2010.
Meanwhile Dubai's stock market is stuck at its lowest level in 7 years.

there is more

The Straight Poop About the World's Tallest Building
November 10, 2011
By Diane Bullock

Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world and widely considered a symbol of Dubai's ambition and modernity, has some strikingly stone-aged inner workings. Perhaps it’s a nod to its humble fishing village roots, but this crowing jewel of the metropolitan Dubai skyline is actually not supported by a municipal sewage system.

This needle-shaped architectural marvel may be one of most explicit examples of the ‘beauty is only skin deep’ idiom. It may look pretty impressive on the outside but what lies beneath isn’t so much so. On all 160 occupied floors, the wastewater produced by the toilets and sinks doesn’t flow down a series of sewer pipes that lead directly to a septic system or municipal sewer -- the way a regular skyscraper waste system works.
Cont'd.....

The Central Bank has capped lending to mortgage customers as part of a raft of new rules aimed at avoiding another property bubble.
The rules, which have been under consideration since the onset of the Dubai property crisis, limit financing for nationals to 70 per cent for the first house, and 60 per cent for any further properties. Expatriates can borrow up to 60 per cent for the first house and 50 per cent after that.

The country’s biggest bank has urged a rethink of the Central Bank’s plan to cap local and expatriate mortgages.
Amid a property industry backlash, National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) said it was surprised with the “sudden decision”.
The Central Bank’s plan appears to have created confusion in the market. A note from Bank of America Merrill Lynch to clients this week said: “We have spoken to mortgage departments of a few banks who are all seeking clarity from the [Central Bank] … this is likely to have an immediate impact on mortgage lending going into the new year.”
NBAD, which has a market capitalisation above Dh39 billion (US$10.61bn), and other lenders were taken by surprise this week when the central bank introduced loan to value limits on mortgages.
“We were not part of this decision making,” said Abdullah Al Otaiba, the senior general manager of domestic banking at NBAD.
“We would like to understand what is the benefit of such a decision in a market that is about to recover.”