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The number of off-plan transactions in April increased by 12.9 percent, which was the highest in 14 months.
According to UAE's leading real estate portal Property Finder, the real state sector in Dubai witnessed solid activity last month recording a total of 4,832 property transactions worth USD 2.3 billion.
Off-plan transactions increased by 12.9 percent, hitting a 14-month high, while the secondary/ready property deals fell for the first time in 11 months, stated the portal.
One in four apartments sold in Dubai in April was either in Dubai Marina, Downtown Dubai, Jumeirah Village Circle or Jumeirah Lakes Towers.
Property Finder states that this is the highest value of monthly property transactions in four years. In terms of volume April had 4.2 percent more than March 2021 and 0.6 percent more in terms of value. Thus, the transactions number for the year to date totals 16,577 deals worth USD 9.8 billion.
In April, 70 percent of the total transactions were up to USD 544 thousand, while 23 percent were between USD 544 thousand to USD 1.3 million, four percent were between USD 1.3 million to USD 2.7 million and 3 percent above USD 2.7 million.
'The dynamics in the residential real estate market in 2021 have been interesting thus far. In April alone, we have seen six villa transactions over AED50 million, with one on the Palm recorded as the second highest villa transaction in 2021 worth AED105 million,' says Lynnette Abad Sacchetto, Director of Research & Data.
'When looking at the mortgage transaction data, we have seen that April, March and January of 2021 had the highest number of monthly transactions since March 2010,' she notes.
Interestingly, one of the major trends seen in April was in Mohammed bin Rashid City that recorded the highest number of transactions in a single community.
It is followed by Jumeirah Village Circle, accounting for 5.8 percent of all transactions and Dubai Marina with 5.6 percent of all transactions. In addition to that, Business Bay, which has dominated the top two spots for the highest number of monthly sales in a community for the past year, fell from 7.2 percent of total transactions in a single month to 3.5 percent. Falling from number one on the ranking to number 10.
In April, 60 percent of all transactions were for secondary/ready properties and 40 percent were for off-plan properties. As for the volume of transactions, the off-plan market transacted 1,934 properties worth USD 841 million and the secondary market transacted 2,898 properties worth USD 2.1 billion in total.
As it has already been mentioned above, compared to March 2021, the number of off-plan transactions in April increased by 12.9 percent, the highest in 14 months, and the secondary/ready property transactions decreased for the first time in 11 months by 0.92 percent.
'In the past few months, we have seen the highest amount of off-plan transactions month-on-month since February 2020 as the off-plan sector seems to be picking up again,' said Sacchetto.
'Developers are wooing foreign investors with attractive pricing schemes and capitalizing on the new visa regulations to attract foreign direct investment,' she added.
In the villas/townhouses sector, 18.5 percent of all sales in April took place in Mohammed bin Rashid City, followed by Dubailand (10.3 percent), Dubai Hills Estate (9.4 percent), Rukan (5 percent) and Town Square (4.9 percent).
As for apartments, 8.5 percent of all sales transactions took place in Dubai Marina followed by Jumeirah Village Circle (8.4 percent), Jumeirah Lake Towers (7.6 percent), Downtown Dubai (7.3 percent) and Business Bay (5.4 percent).
According to Property Finder data, the top areas of interest in terms of searches for villas/townhouses in April 2021 were Dubai Hills Estate, Arabian Ranches, Palm Jumeirah, Mohammed bin Rashid City and Damac Hills, while for apartments these were Dubai Marina, Downtown Dubai, Palm Jumeirah, Business Bay and Jumeirah Village Circle.
