Distressed sales of Dubai property are increasing as investors rush to offload homes under pressure from the global credit crisis, real estate agents say. Dubai-based Elysian Real Estate this week sent out a text message to up to 40,000 mobile phones advertising distressed property sales, offering a luxury six bedroom, six-bathroom villa in Dubailand, a multi-billion-dollar luxury theme park. “There is a sizeable increase in the number of property owners in an urgent state to sell,” Robert Macnair, the firm's sales director, told Reuters on Thursday. “It could be they have a large payment coming up or they've seen the market dropping over the last month ... there is a real sense of urgency.” The villa advertised costs AED21 million ($5.72 million) - half its original price - and will be completed in 2009, the text reads. The once-booming property sector of the emirate is facing a slowdown in loan growth and real estate activity as it grapples with the fallout from the global financial crisis. Macnair said that he had seen an increase in the number of emails from other agents stating they have a distressed sale. Quaid Abbas, property consultant at Engel & Volkers, said the number of distressed sales started to increase at the beginning of November, adding that he had seen investors selling at 5 percent below the original price for off-plan properties. Dubai lawyer Kavita Panicker, owner of ACE Consulta Juris, said she receives “two or three calls a day” from US-based investors who bought Dubai property and now face problems making installment payments. “They want to give back the property, or change the title even at a loss,” she said, saying developers were not inclined to take back property. “There's a clause that if they default, the developers can take the property and the payments made so far so. In many cases, these buyers only have a receipt of payment for the installments. They are desperate to sell.” Distressed sales are further signs that Dubai's property sector is facing a meltdown, as mortgage lenders suspend loans, prices tumble and developers scale back on large projects. Dubai Islamic mortgage lender Amlak said on Wednesday it had suspended new loans as buyers struggle to get mortgages. Properties on the emirate's Palm Jumeirah island have fallen as much as 40 percent since September, brokers say, while government-owned Nakheel announced in October it had scaled back dredging work on its massive Palm Deira Project, the largest of three palm archipelagos planned to house more than 1 million.
