Dubai: Highest property deals in 8 years recorded in June

Dubai recorded in June the highest real estate sales transaction volume since December 2013 with 6,388 deals worth Dh14.79 billion, taking the year-to-date total deal value to Dh61.97 billion, according to the latest data from Property Finder.

The eight-year high monthly property sales transactions soared 44.33 per cent in June compared to May 2021 in terms of volume and 33.2 per cent in terms of value, the region’s leading property portal said.

The spectacular rebound, according to realty pundits, was driven by strong demand from end-users and investors on the back of an economic buoyancy spurred stimulus packages, visa reforms and a successful vaccination.

“High sales transaction volumes in April and May of 4,824 and 4,426 respectively made for a great Q2, which had the highest quarterly volume of sales transactions since Q4 2013. Q2 2021 had a total of 15,638 transactions worth Dh36.86 billion, 33.26 per cent more than Q1 2021 in terms of volume and 46.76 per cent more in terms of value,” the portal said in its report.

“This brings the year to date total to 27,373 transactions worth Dh61.97 billion. To put this into perspective, all of 2020 had a total number of 35,041 sales transactions worth Dh71.87 billion,” it said.

“If we take a deeper dive into the data, and compare real estate sales transactions in both June 2021 and Q2 2021 with similar periods in 2020 and 2019 we see that the market has had significant growth and Covid was a growth accelerator for the industry,” Property Finder analysts said.

Lynnette A Sacchetto, director of Research & Data at Property Finder, said the trends this year have certainly kept everyone on their toes, with month-on-month increases and record breaking months for sales transactions, high investment demand from residents and foreign investment and property prices increasing across prime, popular communities. “It has been a dynamic market to say the least.”

Global rating agency S&P Global recently shared positive remarks on Dubai real estate and forecast more than 30 per cent revenue growth in 2021 on supportive market trends for real estate and a gradual recovery in other business segments.

“We expect Dubai’s GDP to rebound about 3.5 per cent in 2021, followed by growth of 2.5 per cent in 2022,” S&P analysts said.

“The rebounding of Dubai’s super-prime market echoes a wider global trend, signaling the start perhaps of a ‘Roaring Twenties’ for global real estate,” said Faisal Durrani, head of Middle East Research at Knight Frank. Dubai's luxury home sales have already exceeded last year's total as economic activity, particularly tourism, has rebounded in the past six months on the back of one of the world’s fastest vaccination campaigns.

Indians contributed 16 per cent of the housing sales in Dubai sales by volume – pushing in more than Dh8 billion into the sector in 2019. Since the pandemic, interest in Dubai real estate has only increased – Q1 2020 saw a 15 per cent growth rate in the number of real estate transactions compared to Q1 2019, according to data from Anarock.

Property Finder report said in the second quarter the overall average secondary transaction value, compared to Q1 2021, has increased by 17.28 per cent and the average off-plan transaction value has increased by 0.83 per cent. “Following on from the rest of the year’s trends, Q2 outperformed previous quarters and we will most likely see this trend continue until the end of year and into 2022,” said Sacchetto.

Compared to June 2020, transactions in June 2021 increased by 173.46 per cent in terms of volume and 204.5 per cent in terms of value and when compared to June 2019, last month recorded a 140.87 per cent surge in terms of volume and 179.13 per cent in terms of value.

Almost 62.2 per cent of all transactions in June were for secondary/ready properties and 37.8 per cent were for off-plan properties. “When we look at the volume of transactions, the off-plan market transacted 2,418 properties worth a total of Dh 3.5 billion and the secondary market transacted 3,970 properties worth a total of Dh11.29 billion. Comparing this to May 2021, the number of off-plan transactions in June increased by 44.44 per cent and the secondary/ready property transactions increased by 44.26 per cent,” said the portal report.— issacjohn@khaleejtimes.com