Boom times in Baghdad

From Mayfair to Manhattan, from Dublin to Dubai, the price of housing is falling. But it is soaring in one unlikely place: Baghdad. "Property is the fastest way to make money here," Mohammed al-Hadithi, who runs a real estate office in wealthy Yarmouk, part of the Mansour district of west Baghdad, told the Independent. "Over the past two years, there has been a big rise in the market, because the security situation is calmer." A typical middle-class house in Yarmouk costs €270,000, while a similar one in Palestine Street sells for €190,000.

Refugees who fled either to other parts of Iraq or other countries — mostly to Jordan and Syria — are beginning to return. The United Nations expects that 500,000 Iraqis will come home this year. They won't find it easy to get a house or an apartment, though. Bayan Dezayee, the minister of construction and housing, said last month that by 2015 the population of Iraq would be 39 million. There is an urgent need for 1.9 million extra housing units, she said.

Meanwhile, Salam Pax, the Baghdad Blogger, says that the city's street life is returning to normal.