Pakistan has been in the throes of a massive property boom since 2002 when India was threatening to invade the country. Since that event, house prices have risen by the amount they were wroth every year. Basically, what was $100,000 went all the way to a cool one million dollars in the period of four to five years. The effects were intoxicating. Here is a country, with little or no productive output, no real manufacturing capability, fraud and corruption at every level of society, militarism is the only career choice, and on top of this, a war on terror raging on its doorsteps with every single province of Pakistan effected. And yet, property prices spiraled to the moon!
Something was seriously wrong here, nobody in their right minds would want to invest in a country where children are the target of kidnappers, schools are the targets of suicide bombers and mosques are being razed to the ground in all parts of the country by a schizophrenic military institution which wanted to kill Indians, kill all of the NWFP areas, build nuclear weapons, and on top of that, have a land price boom which would spell its doom... who the hell would want to invest there. They must of been on crack cocaine to even think about it.
Then, it all happened. In late 2007, the property prices stalled and reached their peak, then they began collapsing, and now, they are falling faster than a missile shaped stone! What was $1 Million dollars has been rectified at $250,000 and so forth throughout the land. The massive collapse in property prices leaves no stone unturned as undeveloped land languishes with no investment. Property speculators try to sell off plan schemes and then run with the money. The amount of fraud has just gone ballistic as people realise they have been had in that country. In the capital, prices are dropping the fastest, amazing amounts of people are lowering their asking prices every day just to shift property because there is simply too much lying about unwanted and empty. Plan after plan is being abandoned and those who moved from the villages to the city, wish they never did so.
A dearth of jobs left the property industry, before every street corner had an estate agent, and now, these guys are being reduced to begging on the streets for someone to buy their still overpriced flats which have rats as the current dwellers.
The same is happening in India, they too went through a property boom, but at least they have an IT industry and something to export and produce themselves. They may not have very good military production facilities but that is besides the point, most wars are economic, and the basis of economic war is the land price booms and fluctuations.
Anyway back to Pakistan. Pakistani's have land on the brain, 90% of the court cases in Pakistan are to do with land, and mostly between brothers and sisters fighting over inheritance as land gets divided up into little pockets over and over again. The countries population rises continually, and yet, the cities are torn into pieces as people ravage for whatever trade they can find. Most people generally long to leave the country and go to western heaven. They have little education and little prospects. This property market was one of the few booms which was powering Pakistan's fragile economy. The removal of this is like going off Heroine, the effects are devastating. This boom was powered by access to finance and foreigners, and the foreigners being better educated than the average Pakistani, learned their lessons and ran for their lives. They sold up ans shipped out and now the people who rode on the back of this are paying the price. The average Pakistani is suffering beyond belief as reality hit him that his house is not worth gazillions of pounds, that the smell of open sewers is real, and the difficulties faced by his children will not be shared by stupid immigrant Pakistani's who long to return to a shattered homeland riddled with military, political and economic corruption at every level of society.
It is sickening to watch as the options faced by Pakistani's are reduced to virtually nothing again. As they cower, watching their house lose 1 Lakh per day, nothing is in the imagination as lawlessness and national and personal debt rages through the land.
They face a future where they cannot run, they cannot stop the economic collapse hinged by property, and they cannot believe their eyes. Those who were poor agricultural landowners are laughing, at least before the floods took place anyway, they still eat. It is the city dwellers who have been beaten by the ugly stick of house price collapses.
The problem is that this will not stop, these house price collapses will accelerate faster and faster and will go down for a very long time. This was always unsustainable, right from the beginning, right from the word go, from the first foreign based Pakistani who smelled the boom, invested in it, got out in 2007, and then ran for his economic life back to where ever it was he originated from.
Islamabad - brace yourself - expect half of what it is tomorrow, and half of what that is the next time, and half of what the last half was... until the dust settles and people realise. Property is not what it is made out to be. Zameen isn't the be all and the end all of life. The only Zameen that matters is your 8 foot by 2 foot and six foot deep hole which you will permanently occupy.
Good riddance to the Pakistan property boom - nobody ever wanted it in the first place.
Jeff Imada (China / Philippines / USA / UK)
Professor Jeff Imada - is an economic master and an expert in the economic warfare arts. He has been watching these cycles turn constantly over the last 10 years and has seen the property price collapse coming from 1997 onwards, before it even became a reality. He has studied various forms of economic and industrial war including the powerful 7Tao system, Chinese economic power methods, and United States patterns of economic and industrial combat.
He teaches at multitudes of universities in the world and is an accomplished author in many works including the land cycle effecting 3rd world countries.
This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.
沒有留言:
張貼留言