Prime real estate prices in Dubai and Manama will finish the year up to five percent down on the start of 2011, Knight Frank has said in a new report. The real estate consultancy added that the decline in prices in the Bahraini capital are set to drop faster in 2012. In its forecast for next year, Knight Frank said Manama house prices were likely to fall by between 5-10 percent. It said it did not have the data to forecast Dubai prices for 2012. Dubai home prices have dropped 64 percent from their peak in mid-2008 after the global credit crisis caused mortgage lending to dry up and drove speculators from the market. Of the cities covered in the forecast, 32 percent are expected to see luxury house prices fall in 2011, 25 percent are tipped to remain unchanged, and the remaining 43 percent are set to see prices end the year higher than they started. Jakarta and Nairobi are forecast to be the strongest performers in 2011, with prices rising by up to 20 percent over the year, Knight Frank said. Kate Everett-Allen, of Knight Frank's international residential research unit, said: “Positive price movements this year can largely be attributed to rising cross-border demand from wealthy individual investors (especially in London and Paris), a lack of new supply (Moscow) and strong growth in domestic wealth (Beijing).
