Dealing with the slowdown facing the United Arab Emirate real estate market was not easy for property developers in 2009. With project financing and mortgages less available as well as market sentiment at basement levels, both investors and end-users were reluctant to invest in a sector so heavily affected by the financial crisis. “People were trying to keep their liquidity to themselves…so there was not that much interest in investing in real estate,” said Faisal Hasan, head of research at the Global Investment House, an investment company which manages real estate funds. With the preliminary fourth quarter and yearly numbers coming out, some developers managed to end the year in a relatively good financial position, while others suffered significant losses in profits and revenues. “It was just a question of the degree of how negative those numbers were going to be,” said Zahed Chowdhury, institutional equity sales manager at Al
