The world's tallest building syndrome

Nothing lasts forever. Every major city in the world has seen building booms come and go. Dubai will not be an exception. But don't expect anything to happen in a hurry.

The Burj Dubai - set to be the world's tallest man-made structure - will take several years to complete. Yet on past precedent there are at least a few years before anyone need begin to worry about Dubai.

If we take the example of the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur then this building was topped out more than a year before the Asian economic crisis.

The Empire State building in New York was actually built after the 1929 Wall Street crash, although it was conceived in the roaring 20s and on completion became known as the 'Empty State Building' for the next decade.

So the examples are not without qualifications, and a time-lag between the boom and economic bust is a notable feature.

In Dubai the amount of money committed to new construction - more than $50 billion for the next four years and an estimated 85,000 new housing units - is a cause for comfort. Very little of this money is likely to evaporate if the market looks less sure, and half-built buildings are no use to anyone.

Indeed, the prospective date for a construction bust keeps being put further and further back with each major project announcement. Yet as sure as night follows day there will come a time when the cranes fall silent and developers become financially embarrassed.

On the other hand, the far bigger danger to prospective investors today, whether big or small, is getting left out of the boom. The sheer amount of money committed suggests that the boom has further to run, and even in a future market bust property prices may not retreat to much less than they are right now.

The curse of the tallest building - whose long shadow is almost always that of the grim reaper for property booms - is quite a long way off at present in Dubai. And this emirate is currently short of property in all sections of the market.