Dubai Seen Prepared as Home Prices Predicted to Tumble 20%

Faced with predictions that Dubai home prices may drop as much as 20 percent this year, analysts say the emirate’s real estate developers and lenders are better prepared than when a crash in 2008 brought the city to the brink of bankruptcy.

Standard & Poor’s this week estimated that values may fall by as much as a fifth this year, while brokers CBRE Group and JLL Inc. see a 10 percent decline. Still, builders and banks face less risk than they did six years ago, thanks to lending restrictions, a clampdown on speculation and greater dependence on rental income.