Property deals in Dubai reached USD 3 billion in May 2021

77 percent of residential units sold were apartments and 23 percent were villas and townhouses, Property Finder said.

UAE's leading real estate portal Property Finder reports that property transactions in Dubai jumped to a four-year high in May, which indicates that the market is steadily recovering from the last year's COVID-19 crisis.

4,429 real estate deals worth USD 3 billion were registered in the emirate during the month, the highest since March 2017. 

The total transaction value in Dubai’s property market has grown by more than 324 percent since the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020, the latest data show.

'One indication that Dubai’s real estate market has rebounded is that the average transaction value for a single property has increased, 16.77 percent for villa/townhouses and 17.18 percent for apartments in one year,' said Lynnette Abad Sacchetto, director of research and data at Property Finder. 

When looking over the past few years, Sacchetto said transactions have not only picked up since 2020 but from 2019 as well.

'To put things further into perspective, we have seen a 36.5 percent increase in total volume of sales transactions and a whopping 83.8 percent increase in total value of sales transactions when comparing May 2021 to May 2019,' she pointed out. 

Other research data say UAE property market remains subdued overall. Buyer demand for properties has indeed increased since the easing of coronavirus restrictions last year, while prices and rents in the market are still weak compared to pre-COVID-19 levels. 

Apartment rents in Dubai fell by 10 percent in Q1 2021 compared to Q1 2020, while sales prices went down by 2 percent during the same period, according to Asteco. When compared to the 2014 peak, rental rates were 44 percent lower, while sales prices were 35 percent lower. The situation in Abu Dhabi is virtually the same: in the first quarter apartment rents and sales were still down 8 percent and 2 percent respectively, compared to a year ago. 

The bulk of properties (77 percent) sold last month were apartments, while the remaining 23 percent were villas and townhouses. 

Most of the buyers also continued to prefer secondary or ready properties, which accounted for 62 percent of total last month’s deals. The off-plan market represented 38 percent of all transactions. 

The most popular areas for villa/townhouse purchases in May 2021 were Dubai Hills Estate, Arabian Ranches, Palm Jumeirah, Damac Hills and Mohammed bin Rashid City. 

As for apartments, the most desirable locations were Dubai Marina, Downtown Dubai, Palm Jumeirah, Business Bay and Jumeirah Village Circle.