The conventional wisdom of the Lebanese real estate market, and I’m sure the readers of this magazine have heard it a million times, is: “The value of real estate never goes down.” Making it the undisputed bulletproof investment or saving tool that we have adopted through generations. Our real estate industry is accustomed to riding out political and socio-economic crisis, tends to plateau during difficult times before picking up again once geopolitical forces give Lebanon a new role to play. Real estate developers have the habit of licking their wounds and tightening their belts during these plateau periods to weather the storms. However, the current crisis in real estate that started in spring 2010 has been persistent much longer than any real estate developer can endure. Amplified with their indebtedness and coupled with our government’s disrespect to our sovereignty—which continues to fail in minimizing the external, or their internal selfish
