Thursday, January 29, 2009

State of the nation...

I haven't been a very prolific blogger this year have I? Apologies for being away for so long...It's almost February and I have no clue where the first month of the year has gone.

Oh ya, I know. Work. Been really busy, which I guess is a good thing these days. But no one's safe, really. I keep hearing of people being laid off, from different industries. And it's not just dozens of people...no...it's hundreds of people being laid off at once. Scary. So has the bubble finally burst?

And what's scarier is that they say (not sure who "they" is but it's OK. Humour me for a second here) that the worst is yet to come. My company has not laid off anyone yet, but that's not to say that it ain't gonna happen eventually. They're being very nice and considerate about it but at the end of the day, there's a bottom line they need to worry about and that comes first, right? So yeah, no one's safe.

I guess there are couple of good things that have come out of this situation so far:

1) Less traffic. Has anyone noticed that there are less cars in Dubai? Is it because there are less people or because more people are leaving their cars at home (or sold their cars)?

2) Less useless people getting paid for doing nothing. I equate this economic crisis to a good detergent, getting rid of a bunch of people who were overpaid and under-productive. And making sure that the people who DO have a job are actually working. Like real estate agents for example. Now, they actually have to do a selling job, rather than just serve as a middle-man between the buyer and the seller.

3) Lower rents? Not that I've experienced that as of yet, and again, "they" say that in a couple of months, rents will go down even more. But is that really true? I am highly concerned because I am on the hunt for a bigger apartment. Not by choice really. If I could, I would stay put rather than having to pay over Dhs 160K for a 2 bedroom. Can I find anything for less than that in the "New Dubai" area? Oh, and is it a good time to be buying? Or should I stick to renting?

Will be back soon. Promise.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

yesterday my friend saw a 2 bedroom in the greens for 118k AED. look at dubizzle better deals day after day.

Jessie said...

I am a student in the United States and I am taking a class called Gender in the Middle East. We are doing a project where we read blogs from a male and a female then ask questions relating to the blog. You were talking about layoffs in Dubai and I was just wondering about when they started. Do the layoffs, from what you have seen, fair when it comes to gender or is there any gender biased? The United States is going through an economic depression and I was curious if there was any correlation between the two.

Dubai real estate said...

Well, crisis and economic slowdown is good as long as you are not laid off and one more thing about crisis I like is that at least talented get opportunities to excel in their relevant fields.

Romana said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
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