2020

Real Estate is a speculative market at the best of times, but 2020 was one that no one saw coming.  
 
What was expected was that developers were always going to hold back on new project releases to allow supply to catch up with demand, this allowed the secondary market to overtake off-plan sales.
 
Some very interesting trends appeared, as reported in 2019, there was a concern about the number of Villa/Townhouses being handed over this year, this actually became a benefit to the market as many not only took advantage of price adjustments but renters and buyers also wanted to get out of apartments and into villas for the new norm of working from home.
 
In addition, we saw a higher number of tenants looking for more flexibility with contracts due to uncertain times.  Many requested to remove the break clause, a penalty which was introduced by most landlords of 1-2 months’ rent if they break the lease, interestingly, this is not in the Law most landlords have adapted to this change.  Others were looking to spread out the payments further than the usual average of 4 payments across the year to 6 or 12. 
 
Another interesting trend was people coming in without residency visas for lengthened periods of time.  Dubai is seen as a ‘safe’ country compared to the West, along with the sun and lifestyle, many decided to take advantage of ‘work from home’ to work from abroad! This helped the short-term market quickly recover after the lockdown.

Please do not hesitate to get in contact if you are looking to sell or lease your property, or if any property related questions. 

Laura V Adams

Supply

Supply  Total number of projects: 126 | Total number of units completed in 2020: 26,089 | Apartments: 20,684 | Villas: 2,138 | Townhouses: 2,638 

Total number of projects: 317 | Total number of units scheduled to be completed in 2021: 101,432 | Apartments: 80,394 | Villas: 11,741| Townhouses: 2,119  

Total number of projects: 56 | Total number of units scheduled to be completed in 2022: 23,338 | Apartments: 13,417 | Villas: 8,111 | Townhouses: 1,018 

Total number of projects: 21 | Total number of units scheduled to be completed in 2023: 12,462 | Apartments: 8,580 | Villas: 1,666 | Townhouses: 1,639

Demand

Residential Sales

 Top Ten Lead Generated Areas Location

% of Total

Dubai Marina  8.9%
Downtown Dubai  6.5%
Dubai Hills Estate  6.1%
Jumeirah Village Circle  6%
Palm Jumeirah  5.9%
Business Bay  3.5%
Jumeirah Lake Towers  3.1%

4+ Beds  11.25% 
4 Bed 14.07%   
3 Bed 25.37%     
2 Bed.   21.58%
1 Bed.   18.82%. 
Studio.  8.90%


Residential Leasing

 Location % of Total

Dubai Marina  10.6%
Downtown Dubai  6.9%
Jumeirah Village Circle  5.6%
Business Bay  5.1%
Palm Jumeirah  4.7%
Dubai Hills Estate  3.6%
Jumeirah Lake Towers   3.5%
Al Barsha  2.9%

4+ Beds  5.23%  4 Bed 8.21%    3 Bed 17.50%     2 Bed.  25.07. %1 Bed.   28.41%.  Studio. 15.57%

Migration Flow of Tenants 
data from DEWA of move in and move out requests for 2020

Total of 272,701 Move-in Requests against 121,541 move out requests 

An incredible +151,160 surplus of tenants

This could be for many reasons, contributing factors are likely to be supply, price reductions allowing people not to have to share or rent rooms and more flexible payment options as many landlords are now accepting 6-12 payments, and so on.

data collated from propertymonitor and datafinder.ae