UAE investors more likely than others to buy real estate

UAE investors are more likely to invest in real estate over the next 12 months than their peers in countries such as the UK, the US and India, a new survey from Barclays Wealth has found.

“In the case of the investors from the UAE, one can explain this tendency on the grounds of a strong preference for bricks and mortar investment – despite the scale of the recent property crash in Dubai, one of the Emirates,” the wealth manager said in a report on Sunday.

Out of UAE investors, 37 percent said they were likely to increase their allocation to real estate in the coming year, compared with 24 percent of UK and US investors, 18 percent of Indian investors and only 13 percent of Spanish investors.

Among the 10 countries that were most heavily represented in the survey, respondents from the UAE were least critical of the handling of the crisis by policymakers, with 48 percent of respondents rating their central bank as successful in its actions to stem the crisis.

“Central banks and governments in the Gulf region did all that one could have hoped to respond to the crisis,” said Florence Eid, managing director for the Middle East and North Africa at Passport Capital, a global investment firm.

“For example, the government in the UAE undertook quite a bold move early on to guarantee all deposits in all banks. They also recapitalised the banks and extended liquidity facilities in a move that was followed by the Saudi central bank.”

The survey’s 2,100 respondents had at least $750,000 in investable assets each and were polled in March, April and May this year.

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