Qatar house prices have fallen as much as 30 percent in the last six months due to the global economic crisis but there is still some demand for property that will limit further price weakness, a real estate executive said.

"Qatar is a relatively small market and developed later than others. The impact of what is happening globally is translating less severely than in other parts of Gulf," Blair Hagkull, managing director at Jones Lang LaSalle, Middle East and North Africa, said on Tuesday.

The once-booming property market in Dubai, a member of the United Arab Emirates, has been hit particularly hard by the global economic downturn.

The prices tumbled 41 per cent in the first quarter, property consultant Colliers said in a recent report.

More than half of the construction projects in the UAE, worth $582 billion, have been put on hold, Dubai-market research firm Proleads said in February.

A significant amount of new housing is committed in Qatar and likely to enter the market over the next 12 months, the real estate services company said in a report, adding the economic slowdown could reduce supply in the medium term.

Hagkull pointed out that the rate of new houses coming onto the market was decreasing.

"We're seeing a slowing down in some of the large projects (in Qatar). Instead of doing them in one phase, they'll do them in several," Hagkull added.

An increasing number of proposed residential projects are likely to be delayed or cancelled, LaSalle said.

The supply of modern office space will jump to 1.2 million sq m by 2010, a six-fold increase from 2007 while a further 2,300 hotel rooms are expected by 2011, up from around 5,100 rooms, the report said.-Reuters