Secondary home sales spur Dubai realty’s V-shaped recovery

The property market in Dubai has started to gain momentum --- inversely to the global trends --- with the realty landscape showing signs of a V-shaped recovery.

There is an unexpected surge in demand in the second half of the year for secondary villas and townhouses in the emirate.

In its first-ever Zeitgeist on the UAE property market, Property Finder Group, the leading real estate digital platform in the Middle East, found that 3,928 transactions worth Dh7.65 billion were made in Dubai in November, the highest in the past nine months.

“To date the total number of transactions that have taken place in the Dubai real estate market amount to 33,537 worth Dh69 billion,” the report said.

Latifa Ibrahim Ahmed, the director of the Dubai Land Department’s (DLD’s) real estate studies and research department, observed strong signs of recovery in the emirate’s realty market.

He said: “Overall, this means that the market will enter the new year strongly, especially if we take into account the growing momentum of preparations for Dubai Expo 2021.”

The secondary property sales in November were the highest in the past six years and seven months.

September to November reported the highest secondary/ready villa townhouse sales.

November marked the highest secondary/ready unit sales as far as apartment sales are concerned in 16 months, according to Data Finder, the data platform under the Property Finder.

Top searched keywords throughout the year included ‘upgraded’, ‘furnished’, ‘pool’, ‘payment plan’ and ‘sea view’.

This implied that buyers are looking for houses that offer more value for money, supported by more amenities and luxuries to improve their quality of life.

The desire to upgrade stemmed from the fact that many people have been confined indoors since March because of the raging novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak.

The second half of the year saw ‘chiller-free’, ‘upgraded’ and ‘new’ as the most popular keywords, further emphasising that people are levelling up their living solutions, the report said.

The research data revealed that most consumers wanted to upgrade.

“Despite the uncertainty and instability this year, the Dubai real estate market saw an increased appetite for upgraded housing solutions – be it to a larger, more spacious home situated on the outskirts of the city, or even if a move to a smaller space, but in a more prime location, people are looking to set themselves differently,” the report said.

Analysts believe that record growth month on month was driven by pent-up demand. One of the reasons behind this trend in higher demand for the secondary villa/townhouse sector is that when the movement was restricted and people were confined to the four walls of their house, they started to yearn for more spacious units, said the report.

“What once served as simply a roof above their head, has now transformed into their workplace, their social space, an educational facility for their children, as well as where they dine and relax. People are now deriving pleasure by creating a home and a space that they are comfortable in and want to spend more time in,” it added.

The number of villa and townhouses searches have increased by 400 per cent since the start of the year, as compared to apartment searches that have witnessed a drop. “Given the accessibility of the current real estate market, people are also looking to upgrade to more prime locations including the likes of The Springs, Dubai Marina, Jumeirah Lakes Towers and Arabian Ranches -- as demand increased, the available units in these areas decreased and prices for properties in such localities are currently on the rise to balance the demand and supply,” the report said.

The most popular search apartment localities included central localities such as Dubai Marina, Downtown Dubai, Palm Jumeirah, Jumeirah Village Circle, Business Bay, Jumeirah Lakes Towers and Jumeirah Beach Residences continue to be key for apartments.

The most popular searched home neighborhoods in the category of villas and townhouses, including Dubai Hills Estate, Arabian Ranches, Palm Jumeirah, DAMAC Hills, including Akoya by Damac, and The Springs were the highest searched areas in Dubai.

issacjohn@khaleejtimes.com