The Dubai residential sector registered 3,814 deals costing Dh7.43 billion in February 2021. The month also registered as the highest number of secondary/ready properties dealt in a single month since March 2014, as per the Data Finder.
Deals in February were 15.6 percent more than the last month in terms of volume and 10.2 percent more in relation to the value. This gets the year-to-date total to 7,109 deals costing Dh14.16 billion, as per the data platform under the Property Finder group.
“During the pandemic, it was very clear in the search and demand data, which we analyze daily, that consumers wanted to move into a property now and not wait for construction to be completed on an off-plan property. This trend was very apparent with end-users who were looking to either purchase their first home in Dubai or upgrade to a larger property with more internal and external space ” says Lynnette Abad, Director of Research & Data at Data Finder.
In H2 2020, the volume of deals in secondary/ready properties was more than that of off-plan properties. This trend also carried into 2021 and the confidence in the ready market persuaded to increase as February 2021 now holds the record for most secondary/ready properties in a single month over the last seven years, striking January’s counts, provided by the Data Finder.
As per Asteco’s Q4 2020 UAE Real Estate Report, the real estate sector has portrayed an unexpected level of flexibility in the face of serious challenges built by the pandemic. However, the supply-demand imbalance is likely to intensify over the course of 2021, the same as that of the previous year. In Dubai, 41,500 new residential units and 1.5 million sqft of office space is predicted for handover in 2021, a figure that could possibly raise if currently stalled/on-hold projects continue the activity.
In February, 68 percent of all deals were for secondary/ready properties and 32 percent were for off-plan properties. “When we look at the volume of transactions, the off-plan market transacted 1,163 properties worth a total of Dh1.61 billion and the secondary market transacted 2,650 properties worth a total of Dh5.82 billion. Comparing this to January 2021, the number of off-plan transactions in February increased by 35.8 percent, and the secondary/ready property transactions increased by 8.2 percent,” said the report by Data Finder.
“Since restrictions have eased and as we moved into a new year, we started to see developers launch new phases to existing projects which are under construction. These new launches, especially in the villa/townhouse segment, proved to be very popular with investors over the last few months,” Abad said.
In the villas/townhouses sector, 10.3 percent of all deals in February 2021 took place in Nad Al Sheba, followed by Dubai Hills Estate (8.3 percent), Green Community (8.0 percent), Arabian Ranches (4.7 percent), and Dubailand (4.0 percent). Talking about the apartments, 14.9 percent of all sales deals took place in Business Bay followed by Dubai Marina(9.0 percent), Jumeirah Village Circle (8.0 percent), Downtown Dubai(6.5 percent), and Plam Jumeirah (6.2 percent).
The main areas of interest in relation to the searches for villas/townhouses in February 2021 were Dubai Hills Estate, Arabian Ranches, Palm Jumeirah, Mohamed bin Rashid City, and Damac Hills. As for apartments for the same period, the top areas of interest were Dubai Marina, Downtown Dubai, Palm Jumeirah, Business Bay, and Jumeirah Village Circle, according to proprietary Property finder demand data.