TOWERING HIGH

The UAE’s real estate market has seen strong growth this year, with Expo 2020 Dubai adding further impetus to a sustained recovery, writes Lynnette Sacchetto, director of Research and Data at Property Finder

- Lynnette Sacchetto

The Dubai real estate market’s stellar performance has not failed to impress even the pessimists over the last year and a half, and Q3 2021 has been no different, continuing the phenomenal story of the booming market.

During the pandemic – from H2 2020 until date, the various factors that led to the growth in UAE real estate, specifically in Dubai, has been pent-up demand, low mortgage interest rates, proactive government initiatives, policy shifts in various residency programmes and the resilience with which Dubai handled the pandemic and kept the tourism industry alive, among other things.

In addition, you can’t talk about the residential real estate market without highlighting the extreme shift and high demand in the villa/townhouse segment for both sales and rentals. This trend in demand started at the beginning of the pandemic and has remained strong to date. The prices of villas/townhouses are continuing to rise due to high demand and low supply, and since we are only expecting 6,000 new units to be completed by the end of 2021, this doesn’t add much of a dent to the supply equation.

As of September 30, 2021, Dubai has recorded over Dhs104bn in real estate sales transactions, which is the highest value recorded since 2017. Mortgage transactions are also at an all time high, breaking all records year-to-date.

Mohab Samak, managing director of Engel & Völkers in Dubai says: “Surprisingly, the property sales volume in 2021 jumped almost twice the sales volume in 2020. Far off from what people had thought, the Dubai real estate market has picked up relatively fast despite the setback in 2020 due to the global pandemic. The hype began when the property prices dropped, which created a great opportunity for investors to purchase properties at a lower price.”