On solid ground - the Qatar property market

In 2004, when Qatar enacted a law (Number 17 of that year) allowing foreigners to buy properties in some designated areas, the country's population was 750,000 and house rents averaged less than QR1,500 a month.

Today, the population has literally exploded, having surged more than three times to 2.33 million, and rent prices have quadrupled.

Qatar's property and rental markets did very well until 2008 but prompted by the world financial crisis that raised its head that year, house prices fell by about 40 percent the following year. They dipped again, albeit marginally (by about four percent), in 2010.

Qatar's victory in the coveted bid to host the 2022 World Cup late in 2010 changed the equation entirely. House prices and the rental market began stabilising the following year, and the boom that began then, continues.

Local newspapers are always full of reports of how property owners have been increasing rents and how the hapless tenant is being made to suffer. But ironical as it may seem, the most expensive rental properties in Qatar are in an area where a vast majority of owners are foreigners - The Pearl-Qatar.

"Prices have continued to rise in The Pearl-Qatar, especially for most studio, one and two-bedroom units," says Dan Strutt, sales and leasing manager of real estate agency, LS, that focuses on The Pearl-Qatar and West Bay residential accommodation, in comments published by a local newspaper late January.

Property rates in these locations are much above QR10,000 per square metre and continue to rise.

"It is a city in itself and being a freehold zone, it is a lifestyle location," is how a real estate agency official described The Pearl-Qatar in comments to bq.

"The rental market for The Pearl-Qatar is doing very well," confirms Al Asmakh Real Estate Development Company to bq.

Freehold and leasehold zones

As opposed to this elite destination for expatriate living, the cheapest rental accommodation is available also in expatriate-dominated but working class localities - those of Al Muntazah and Al Mansoura.

Interestingly, what makes this massive man-made island, The Pearl-Qatar, a desirable location for elite living is its status as a freehold zone - an area where foreigners can buy and own property for ever.

Al Mansoura and Al Muntazah, along with the adjoining Najma and Umm Ghuwailina, which are not far away from these localities, are among the 18 designated areas in Qatar where non-Qataris are allowed to buy leasehold properties - properties that can be leased by them for 99 years.

Upon expiration, the lease can be renewed or the land and structure go back to the original owner.

For more on this story visit bq magazine’s website