UAE real estate boom good for local media including The National
Posted on 12 May 2008 with no comments from readers
Today the Gulf News added a fifth property section to the thud of newsprint that arrives on the door each day in the UAE, and the whole paper was wrapped as usual in a hugely expensive four-page advertisement.
Even Abu Dhabi’s new newspaper The National is well placed to pick up on the boom in real estate advertising. This week the Cityscape 2008 show hits the capital amid a blaze of publicity.
Meanwhile, my friends at the Emirates Business 24/7 business daily in Dubai are slow in publishing my articles because they are being squeezed out by a surge in advertising, now one third of the newspaper.
It is going to be a bumper year for advertising revenues in the UAE, driven almost entirely by the real estate boom. Advertising in other sectors is down marginally due to the impact of inflation on costs for businesses not involved in real estate or real estate finance.
As I am not in advertising sales there is an obvious question I can ask: what happens if the real estate boom falters to the media sector? It would not be a pretty picture that is to be sure.
But as the other report on this blog today indicates house prices are presently spiraling upwards – 10-15 per cent in the past two months alone – and there does not seem any end in sight for the real estate boom that has gripped Dubai since 2003 and Abu Dhabi for a couple of years.
High oil prices, low interest rates and massive domestic inward investment leading to huge population growth – these factors suggest far higher house prices to come – and a lot more advertising for the local media. How long before the Gulf News has a sixth property section?
