Dubai: The rental market in Dubai has registered ‘modest’ rise in newly agreed prices, a new report from Dubai Real Estate Tracker, Emirates NBD, has pointed out.
Gulf News quoted the report as saying that the leasing market started to cool down at the end of 2015.
Property agents reportedly said rents continued to move higher, but the latest increase “was the slowest” since April, when the bank started the study.
“There were a number of reports that cooling demand conditions could place downward pressure on newly agreed rents over the next three months. Reflecting this, latest data pointed to a drop in new rental inquiries for the first time since the survey began in April,” the report said.
There is also an overall subdued investor sentiment in the market, with real estate professionals noting a decline in buyer enquiries and forecasting a decline in housing prices, said the Dubai-based news portal.
However, the majority of residents in Dubai (62 percent) are expecting rents to increase in the next three months, while only a small number (7 percent) expect to negotiate a reduction, the report pointed out.
Looking ahead, around 47 percent of real estate agents expect a fall in Dubai property values over the course of 2016, while 32 percent forecast a rise, it added.
However, property portal Bayut.com reportedly noted that while real estate prices are “rationalising” the rental market in Dubai, as well as in Abu Dhabi, is still growing.
“We found average annual rents for apartment hovering around the Dh137,000 market at the end of 2015, up 2.14 percent from Dh134,000 at the end of December,” Bayut.com was quoted as saying.
“However, individual bed categories registered alternating changes. Average annual studio rents, about Dh61,000 in December 2015, remained the same compared to December 2014. One-bed apartments fetched Dh102,000 in December 2015, registering a 6.6 per cent increase over the same month last year.”
As far as property values are concerned, the numbers were little changed by the end of 2015. According to another research by ValuStrat, the prices did not register any significant monthly change in December, according to Gulf News.
