Expats can afford those rens if the rent was not included in the Employment contracts.

I am aware of some contracts where the rental property provided to the employee costs more then the salary. And this is for some Western Expats from North america!!

I agree with Aviduser here. The rental market is overblown and has to come down unless the government of Qatar wants to find itself renting all the properties directly or indirectly.

This will impact real estate as well. typically, in North America,the real estate is priced around 70-80 times of annual rental value.

If the rents go down, so does the property value.