“But we do know, simply from our observations, that most of the buying and selling is happening with residential property. We believe that this has attracted capital to the province, people who believe there is future potential in Anbar’s cities, which have long had good commercial and social status.”
Majid al-Abdullah is another Anbar local who’s selling up. He and his brothers inherited a large, multi-storey building in Fallujah, that included commercial rental space, from their father.
“But the shop space has been useless for the past few years,” he says. “So, my brothers and I decided to sell the building even though we know we will lose a lot of money. But we believe we are making the right decision because we are going to invest that money in more stable parts of the country.”
Al-Abdullah, who now lives in Baghdad, says he hopes one day to be able to have enough commercial interests inside Iraq to provide him with a living, even if he is living outside Iraq, “where we can provide our children with a better education and a life,” he explains.
“The security measures necessary here have dried up the flow of goods and of well qualified locals,” al-Abdullah continues. “It’s having a negative impact on business, health and education because nobody wants to be here anymore. People are reluctant to return to the city and that includes the doctor that used to rent a room in our building and the business owners who also did.”
the same happens in KRG , only for different reasons , all activities stopped , so the real estate boom , house in Italian village 2 gone down from 200 thousand USD to less than 130 thousand USD, as it showed up that it was over estimated ( including 5 million USD in bribes
forced on investors by local elite politicians ) , those from ANBAR lived mostly in ERBIL , found out that it is safe place , so selling there house in ANBAR can buy better houses in ERBIL , the cities in ِAnbar , SPECIALLY IN RAMADI is volatile, too much corruption , still hard line sunnies work for ISIL, so population do not feel safe , even they were humiliated by ISIL , but keep some kind of affection for them , specially in FALUJA .
Anyway if you visit ERBIL ,you shall see for yourself no less than 10000 house empty , italisn village 1 no less than half of houses are empty , rent gone down from 2300 USD per month to 1200 USD , in italian village 2 rent gone down from 1800 USD per month to 700 USD, inside ERBIL i rentd 2 story house for 300 hundred thousand dinars , before it was rented for 600 thousend dinars .
On the other side politicians who robbed the country build new lavish villas , purchase more abroad .