An announcement was made recently by Nakheel, a Dubai based Business group and one of the world’s largest and most innovative real estate developers, that their sales for 2008 till date are displaying a threefold increase on 2007’s full-year figures.

The portfolio of Nakheel includes Dubai’s iconic coastal developments Palm Jumeirah, The World and Waterfront. The portfolio has been estimated at US$80 bn. The Trump Organization of US, French hypermarket operator Auchan, and Mirvac, the Australian property developer are included in the JV.

Till this time of the year, more than 6,100 Nakheel units in Dubai have been sold (97 percent) or reserved (3 per cent), which has exceeded the targets of the developers..

As reported by Manal Shaheen, Director of Sales, Marketing and Customer Service at Nakheel, “Unit sales in 2008 comprised more than two thirds apartment sales (68 percent), over a quarter villa sales (27 per cent) and five percent land plot sales. These units were released in 13 staggered launches between 1 January and 31 August 2008. A further 2,650 units will be released in 11 additional sales launches scheduled for the final quarter of 2008.”

He further said, “If you compare the expansive vision of Dubai to the construction capacity constraint, which is currently around 80,000 dwellings per year, and if you believe that population growth will continue to rise by 6-7 percent per annum - a conservative estimate, then by 2020 we will still not have enough residences to meet demand - even with the staggering amount of homes that Nakheel is delivering over the next two decades.”