Egypt faces real estate collapse
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Apartments remain unfinished, waiting for prices to rise
BBC correspondents from around the world are taking the pulse of the world economy, and this week they are focusing on the state of the property market.
In the Egyptian capital, Cairo, the streets are as busy as ever, but all around, newly-built apartments lie empty.
They are the visible sign that the real estate boom that hit Cairo and most of Egypt in the 2007 and 2008 is now over.
Prices of housing and land are now falling.
"A square metre of land has fallen from 2800 Egyptian pounds (£305) to as low as 2000 now," says Khalid El Sha'er, a Cairo property developer.
The newspapers are full of adverts for new apartments and the buildings themselves are often festooned with billboards proclaiming the merits of the new developments.
