A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Property Play newsletter with Diana Olick. Property Play covers new and evolving opportunities for the real estate investor, from individuals to venture capitalists, private equity funds, family offices, institutional investors and large public companies. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox. In the first weeks of the war with Iran, the expectation was that the impact on the global economy would be short-lived, but as it has dragged on that is no longer the case. Two weeks ago, Christian Ulbrich, CEO of JLL, said he was not “overly concerned” about interest rates, because he thought the end of the war would be coming soon. “If it doesn’t,” he told the Property Play podcast, “We have a different situation.” JLL has a major footprint in the Middle East, managing and leasing properties in Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates and in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It also provides project and investment management for large-scale infrastructure and investment projects. Ulbrich said his concern first and foremost was for his employees in the region, and that he had been in close touch with managers there monitoring their safety. The business impacts, he said, depended on how long the conflict lasted. “It’s a tragedy from a point that the region was on a really strong growth trajectory, and this is, at the moment at least, interrupted for the time being,” said Ulbrich. Residential real estate transactions in the UAE were down 38% in the second week of March compared with the same period in 2025, and the value of transactions was down 42%, according to analysts at Goldman …
