Author : Suzanne
Courtesy - Arabian Business.com
Emaar Properties, the Middle East and Africa’s biggest developer by assets, expects to complete two Dubai apartment towers at least two years late, according to a letter sent to buyers.
The 45-story buildings, designed by New York-based Frank Williams and Partners Architects, are now set to be finished in February 2012, according to letters sent to buyers and seen by Bloomberg. Emaar didn’t respond to telephone calls and e-mailed questions about the apartment projects, which were due to be completed this month.
The developer inaugurated the 828-meter (2,717-foot) Burj Khalifa in January.
Mehdi Nosratlu, an apartment buyer notified of the delay on Feb. 28, said he has already paid Emaar 65 percent of the 3.1 million dirhams ($844,000) he owes on a property purchased in April 2008. The 55-year-old German citizen heads a group of almost 400 investors who bought homes in the two towers and are trying to reach an agreement with Emaar. So far, buyers have paid 30 percent to 65 percent of the total purchase price, he said.
“We’re stuck,” Nosratlu said in an interview. “We are paying on mortgages taken at the height of the market and paying interest on properties that I doubt will be completed by the new deadline. No work has been done on the site in almost a year.”
Only part of the foundation work of the apartment project, called 29 Boulevard, has been completed.
Emaar put all new real-estate projects on hold in February 2009 to stem a decline in prices by limiting the supply of new homes. Selling prices in Dubai, the second biggest of the United Arab Emirates, have fallen more than 50 percent from their peak in the second quarter of 2008.
Source : Arabian Business.com
