Kabul Property Prices Up 75% On Tide of International & Drug Money

By Steve Hynd

The BBC reports on the property bubble in Kabul.

According to local estate agents, prices in some parts of Kabul have risen by 75% in the past year.

Part of this increase is due to the prices that international agencies are willing to pay to acquire properties in the best locations.

But wealthy Afghans, who have seen their property portfolios in Dubai plummet over the past year, have also pulled their investments out of the Gulf to plough back into Kabul.

Most of those Afghans earned their money from contracts they have with the military and construction projects, although some acquired it from proceeds of the drug trade and buying property provides them with a means of laundering illicit gains.

With a four bedroom house costing the equivalent of about half a million dollars and the average wage for normal Afghans being about $100 a month, the influx of foreign money may be yet another way in which the occupation has shafted the common people of Afghanistan.

"I have seen five families sharing a house, with five people living in each room," says Mr Bahadery.

He mentions that there is an expression in Afghanistan which sums up the people's resolve.

"We are not living, we are surviving."