DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Dubai’s property scene is displaying no signal of cooling off, as 2024 is on observe to be one other document yr when it comes to gross sales figures and property values, in keeping with native actual property corporations.
Growing demand for property, particularly within the luxurious area, is boosting costs not simply of properties, however of every thing else within the metropolis — simply because the United Arab Emirates is predicted to emerge because the world’s high wealth magnet for the third consecutive yr.
For Hussain Sajwani, chairman of Dubai property large Damac, that spells each good and unhealthy information.
“What concerns me a little bit in Dubai is that [it’s] becoming an expensive city, and I’ve said this in the past, that Dubai [is] going to be [an] expensive city. Because whenever there is so much demand, and especially when talented people, average people are coming, they create more demand,” Sajwani advised CNBC’s Dan Murphy from Riyadh on Tuesday.
“So today, to get a seat in a school is difficult … and of course, the business is going to raise prices, and inflation [is] going to be high, so Dubai is going to be an expensive city,” the chairman mentioned. “And I hope [the] government find ways and means. And it’s not easy to find ways and means when there is a continuous influx of people to the city.”
The newest Dubai property market numbers inform a narrative of burgeoning demand. In July of 2024, property gross sales reached 49.6 billion dirhams ($13.5 billion), a 31.63% improve from the identical interval in 2023, in keeping with locally-based brokerage agency Elite Advantage Actual Property.
“The first half of 2024 alone saw over 43,000 property transactions valued at approximately AED122.9 billion, marking a 30% increase from the previous year,” the agency’s report launched on Sept. 10 wrote, including that the expansion is due partially to the “rapid absorption of new inventory.” Round 80% of the items launched since 2022 have already been offered, the report estimates.
Aerial view of cityscape and skyscraper at sundown in Dubai Marina.
Lu Shaoji | Second | Getty Photos
“The Dubai property market is doing extremely well, and I think we’re going to continue to do well, because the demand in Europe is amazing,” Sajwani mentioned. “Everybody wants to go to Dubai, from the taxi driver to the waiter to the businessman … Dubai now is attracting a lot of not only wealthy people, but a lot of talented people. And it’s growing in a different level from pre-Covid.”
The Damac founder famous the way in which through which the Covid-19 interval supercharged Dubai’s reputation as a spot to stay: whereas a lot of the world remained in lockdowns, the emirate inspired tourism and attracted new residents with the assistance of visas for distant employees and entrepreneurship.
“Dubai today is a global city, by all means, and attracting a lot of talent and a lot of businesses, we’re going to continue to grow,” Sajwani mentioned.
Dubai has skilled a unstable boom-and-bust cycle prior to now, most notably throughout its 2008-2009 disaster interval, when the emirates’ property market crashed, and quite a few traders needed to default on their money owed. Requested if he was frightened a few comparable cycle repeated itself, Sajwani expressed confidence that the system was totally different now.
Requested if Dubai is extra steady now, Sajwani replied: “100%.”
“One of the key reason for that is that the regulations the Dubai government brought in after [the] ’09 or ’08 crash has been very good regulations. Very, very strict on developers, on customers, and on zoning,” he mentioned. “So that regulation is helping — not everybody just can come and enter the market and just launch a project … There is very strict escrow, so the customer’s money is very much protected, and that’s what makes the market very efficient.”
