Dubai house prices fall 1.23% in May - Reidin

A new real estate index for Dubai, launched in partnership with the emirate's property regulator, has revealed that house prices fell on average by 1.23 percent in May, compared to the previous month.

Reidin's IndexFocus - UAE, produced in assocation with the Real Estate Regulatory Agency (RERA) and the Dubai Land Department (DLD) showed that apartment prices fell faster than villas.

According to the data, apartment prices decreased by 2.88 percent last month, while villa prices increased slightly by 0.63 percent. Year-on-year, this reflects a small increase of 0.32% over May 2009.

Reidin.com, an online information services company, compares prices in a total of 19 district and project-based areas.

In a comparison of size categories, sales in the 101-150 sq m sector increased by 0.93 percent since April while all other property size categories decreased in sales, the company added in a statement.

The price increase in thr 101-150 sq m category still represented a 2.28 percent drop compared to May 2009.

The biggest drop was seen in the 51-100 sq m category, which fell 5.04 percent since April but showed a year-on-year price increase of 1.88 percent.

Overall, the Reidin.com SPID - All Residential dropped 16.10 basis points to 180.10 in Q1 of 2010, registering a decline of 8.2 percent from Q1 of 2009.

The apartment index declined by 11.01 percent, while the villa index declined by 6.66 percent between Q1 2009 and Q1 2010.

Ahmet Kayhan, CEO, Reidin.com, said: "Accuracy of information is ensured through a number of sources, from an oversight committee to correlated data about oil prices, gold prices, and airport traffic.

"These elements not only create an appropriate 'check and balance' against data findings, but they can help create meaningful analysis for forecasting and model development."