44% of millennials in Dubai intend to purchase a home

Millennials in Dubai have expressed an interest in purchasing a property within the city

Millennials in Dubai have expressed an interest in purchasing a property within the city, with many opting for affordable one bedroom apartments in locations such as the Dubai Marina and JVC, a dubizzle study has found.
Millennials are also referred to generation Y and are individuals born during the early 1980s and 2000. According to the Dubai Statistics Centre, as of 2015, the median age of residents in Dubai lies between 30 and 34 years - that is approximately 500,000 residents within this segment out of a 2.5 million population. If that bracket expands further and taken into consideration the full rather of expats that fall within a millennial label (25 to 39 years), that equates to 1.2 million people.
In a millennial dominant market such as Dubai, dubizzle has commissioned a research study to unveil the sentiment of this segment towards buying a home locally, the reasons behind this, and awareness of new home search methods. The sample earn anywhere between Dh20,000 to Dh35,000 a month; 31 per cent were working at middle management level; and 13 per cent were owners of their own business.
Around 44 per cent of millennial expats surveyed said that they wanted to buy a home in the UAE in the next three years. Whereas 59 per cent of the sample pool said they wanted to buy outside the UAE in the next three years. The 59 per cent who said they wanted to buy outside the UAE and preferably in their home country reasoned that they didn't know how long they wished to stay in the UAE.
There was however a crossover in regard to certain individuals considering to buy homes both abroad and in the UAE within the next three years, with the intention that the UAE would serve as an ideal base during the prime years of their careers. When asked about the important of buying a home in the UAE, Westerners and Arab expats scored higher than Asian expats who would rather buy a property back in their home country.
Dubizzle's research study confirms that the UAE remains a prominent choice for Arab millennial expats to purchase property in the UAE, with 54 per cent of the sample stating that their country was a risky place invest in and/or that they did not want to go back to their home countries to live long-term
On the other hand, the first time buyer Asian expat - predominantly Indian expats - in the millennial segment were more in favour of purchasing their first property back home. The more established Indian expat who already has a property or properties back home would purchase in the UAE due to the UAE's convenient geographic proximity to India, as well as it being able to provide an ideal business environment to set up shop for new business entrepreneurs.
Those who did not want to purchase a home in Dubai, said so because they did not know if they wanted to spend the rest of their life in the UAE. Moreover, 25 per cent said that it was too early for them to purchase a home, and that instead they wanted to invest their money in their own business or other businesses with ideas they support.
Interestingly, 36 per cent of individuals mentioned that they would rather use new home search features, such as 360 virtual reality tours to screen properties online and save time. The millennial segment's property buying preferences based on search volume numbers on dubizzle, are for one and two bedroom homes in Dubai Marina; one bedroom homes in JVC; and two bedroom homes in Motor City and Sports City. This is followed by preferences for one bedroom apartments in JLT, and two and four bedroom homes on the Palm
- rohma@khaleejtimes.com