Dubai real estate transactions up 20% in 2011

Posted by: stephen Tuesday, 3 January 2012 6:53 PM[UAE] - UAE

Would anyone care to comment and above all, explain these reports, without invective or partiality? I could care less about the teeny weeny Dubai property market but it would be nice to get a broad gauge of whether or not money is flowing again.

On Nov 20th, AB proclaimed

"Dubai saw less than 1,700 real estate deals in the first ten months of the year, government data shows, a 70 percent decline on sales made at the housing market?s peak in mid-2008. Some 1,603 deals were signed off in the ten months to October, down from 5,363 during the same period in 2008, data from Dubai Land Department showed"

Now DLD would have you all believe there were 35k transactions in 2011!

Were the last figures incorrect? Did Birdie go out and conduct 33k transactions in December?

Posted by: charles Wednesday, 4 January 2012 1:27 PM[UAE] - uae

well spotted Stephen.
Would be interesting to know for those 1,700 deals, what the total value was and indeed why a complete change of position within a month.
Maybe we should use the terminology "Birdie hype" then we will all know what we are talking about for things like this in future!

Posted by: bemused Wednesday, 4 January 2012 9:08 AM[UAE] - UAE

I think you mean you couldn't care less. Neither can I.

Posted by: Red Snappa Tuesday, 3 January 2012 5:23 PM[UAE] - Ireland

Remember RERA only has finite resources and there is a significant degree of record keeping catch up involved here. With all the external high octane political pressures in the Gulf region and tough economic times ahead in Europe and America for that matter, overseas companies will be looking to win orders and a revenue stream rather than speculatively investing money and resource.

European Banks are basically out of here for the time being, so as we are starting from such a low base any real recovery in the property market will take years. You will never see the hordes of buy-to-let investors again, just the occasional wealthy migrant for the big properties and a trickle of average upper-middle income families buying to live, should they see a longer term career path.

A very slow burner, just like any other maturing property market with the world economy in the state it's in.

Posted by: IGK Tuesday, 3 January 2012 4:07 PM[UAE] - uae

Sure the worst is over for Dubai Property but that does'nt mean that we are going to see the boom we say in the near future. In fact these figures mean that the property market has come back to what it was before the freehold evolution & will remain that way for a long long time.

Posted by: Mike DeLonghi Tuesday, 3 January 2012 4:01 PM[UAE] - Saudi Arabia

What the Land Department conveniently forgets is the FACT that the total number of transactions are actually 8% down compared to 2010, its only the monetary value that has gone up (!).
I would assume a lot of the transactions are bogus intra-developer transactions and surely a declining number of transactions are a more credible picture of the activity levels than the AED value, which can easily be skewed by one big transaction.
Again, people have been trying to talk the market back up since the crash and they will continue to do until it finally happens.

Posted by: A Palm Shoreline Apartments residient Tuesday, 3 January 2012 1:47 PM[UAE] - Dubai

Cannot wait to see the figures for 2012. With the appalling treatment of all Nakheels tenants, especially on the Palm Jumeirah Shoreline Apartments, I bet the Dubai property transaction total will drop through the floor in 2012. Who would want to risk their hard earned savings with a major government property developer like Nakheel threatening to lock most of the tenants in the Shoreline Apartments out of their apartments from 15 Jan 2012.

I am so shocked to see Nakheel destroying the re-sale value of its properties. Are they never going t0 try to sell another Nakheel property themselves, or do they think the world will just forget, or do no Google research before buying?

Posted by: Geko Wednesday, 4 January 2012 1:29 PM[UAE] - Dubai

Almost, they have all the money-in and least care to release anything out. Who benefits the most if investors' patience tested to the core to drop-off or walkout?