Egypt’s currency devaluation has cooled property ‘frenzy’: Orascom Development’s Amer

Egypt’s currency devaluation has cooled property ‘frenzy’: Orascom Development’s Amer

The decision to go for currency devaluation has only removed the speculative buying in Egypt's real estate sector.

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Dubai: Egypt’s 38 per cent devaluation of its currency last March is definitely helping cool down its real estate sector. And that’s something the property market was in need of, according to a top developer.

“There was a bit of frenzy going on before the pound’s devaluation,” said Mohamed Amer, CEO of El Gouna, an upscale community project that is part of the Orascom Development network. “Some of the buying activity was understandable, because property is seen as a store of value. Even then, there was an unusual type of surge happening earlier, and something the Egypt’s real estate sector would have found hard to sustain.”

In march, the devaluation move kicked in, but the decision was widely anticipated by investors in the North African market. The actual extent of the devaluation – at 38 per cent – might have caught some of them by surprise.

It’s still early days from the government’s move, and various sectors are still filtering the effects from it. As for property, “We are back to ‘normal’ supply and demand,” said Amer. “What I mean by