Nakheel: 1,180 homes handed over to buyers

State-backed developer Nakheel has handed over more than 1,180 homes across the Dubai in the last 18 months as the firm’s focus shifts from construction to the completion of existing project.Dubai’s largest developer said Sunday that 700 units in its Marina Residences project had been handed over to buyers, alongside 100 apartments in its Masakin Al Furjan development.Some 130 homes in the Discovery Gardens complex had also been released to buyers, Nakheel said in an emailed statement, alongside 256 homes in the stalled Jumeirah Village development. The next project slated for delivery is the Emarati cluster in International City. Nakheel expects to handover over 1,663 units to buyers by the year-end, the statement said. The property developer behind the palm-shaped islands off Dubai’s coast pledged in August to deliver 7,982 homes in nine developments across the city in the 15 months ending Dec 2012, in areas  including Jumeirah Islands, Al Furjan and the Waterfront project. Nakheel was one of the biggest casualties of Dubai’s real estate crash, suspending at least 100 projects in the wake of a property collapse that more than halved house prices in the emirate.The emirate saw one of the world’s biggest reversals of fortune following the global credit crunch three years ago, forcing Nakheel to reduce staff and halt work on projects including the man-made islands of Deira and Jebel Ali. The developer, which split from its parent firm Dubai World in August to become a government entity, said this month it wrote down AED78.6bn ($21.4bn) from the value of its real estate.Nakheel wrote off AED301.4m in the first half of last year, AED73.8bn in 2009 and a further AED4.44bn in 2008, the company said in an Islamic bond prospectus. To reduce costs, the developer cut its workforce to 986 in March 2011 from 3,818 in October 2008, the prospectus said. Nakheel expects to spend AED7.4bn this year and another AED1.4bin 2012 to complete nine projects across Dubai. Nakheel said August 24 it was restructuring some AED59bn ($16.1bn) of liabilities, including AED32bn to Dubai government, AED19bn to trade creditors and AED8bn to banks. The developer also said it would  issue the first tranche of a twice-delayed AED4.8bn Islamic bond to trade creditors at a profit rate of 10 percent. The company offered trade creditors repayment of 40 percent cash and the remaining 60 percent in the form of an Islamic bond, or sukuk as part of its restructuring program. Dubai’s property prices are expected to drop further as 54,000 homes will come onto the market from 2011 to 2015, Jones Lang LaSalle estimates. That’s about 15 percent to 20 percent of the existing supply, according to the real-estate broker.