The effect of the Covid-19 pandemic has worsened the economy all over the world and the US dollar has performed weakly over the past four months. However, the flip side of the pandemic has produced a combination which has benefitted the investors from the overseas and the UK, resulting in the surge in Dubai property sales.
Overseas investors have been drawn to Dubai over its very desirable property prices. They are willing to make a property deal even without viewing the property physically and proceeding with the sales via a remote transfer. That is the confidence of buyers at this moment in time.
According to real estate agents Allsopp & Allsopp said they have had overseas clients buying properties virtually without even seeing the property or signing contracts in person.
Town Square, Jumeirah Village Circle, Dubai Marina, International City, and Business Bay in Dubai have witnessed the highest sales transactions. If only off-plan property transactions were considered, the top performing property investment areas were Jumeirah Village Circle, Business Bay, Palm Jumeirah, Arjan, and International City.
According to Data Finder, the real estate insights and data platform from the Property Finder group, August data saw a rise of 11.3 percent in real estate transactions compared to August 2019. August also did better than July this year by 2.2 percent!
“In previous years, the summer months were typically slower for real estate transactions in Dubai because of the summer holidays. This year, due to the Covid-19 situation, many residents chose not to travel. This, coupled with pent up demand and attractive pricing drove transactions higher,” said Lynnette Abad, Director of research and data at Property Finder.
Lewis Allsopp, CEO of Allsopp & Allsopp, said an evolving digital world will only advance more in the real estate industry.
“With our clients being more receptive to committing to buying and renting homes virtually, there is a whole new avenue opening up into how the market operates. Another trend is that clients are utilizing the virtual viewings to narrow down their property search before going out to physically view a property, saving them a lot of time and effort,” he said.
Devmark Property Group CEO, Sean McCauley said: “Since mid-March, investors from Switzerland, the UK, Germany, and Italy have been able to take advantage of gains made by the Swiss franc, sterling and the euro, as the US dollar weakened over the past four months.”
“Subsequently, development projects in Dubai have, in effect, become 14.8% and 11.2% cheaper depending on whether you are buying in euros or sterling. Indeed, UK investors, for example, buying in pounds could now save over AED 185,000 when buying a one-bedroom luxury apartment, at the Address Jumeirah Resort, once compared with the exchange rates at the beginning of March,” observed McCauley.
According to Property Finder, a new trend is a shift in demand from smaller units to larger units. “Since the start of the pandemic, the ratio of sales transactions for one-bedroom units has fallen by over 10 percent and for studios by more than 34 percent. The ratio of transactions for three, four, and five bedrooms has increased by nine percent, 20 percent, and 15 percent, respectively.”
Lynnette Abad, Director of research and data at Property Finder, further added:
“Since the crisis began, we saw the search demand for larger units and number of bedrooms increase significantly and the sales transactions we are seeing today further validate this data.”
The One Investments property portfolio contains many projects in prime Dubai locations such as a Dubai Marina, Downtown and Jumeirah Village, offering apartments and villas with multiple bedrooms.
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