Dubai’s Deyaar eyes 1,000 home handovers in 2012

Dubai’s Deyaar, the emirate's second-largest developer by market value, will hand over more than 1,000 housing units in the next year, the firm said Sunday.

Deyaar, which was badly hit by Dubai’s property bust, will complete and hand over four projects in the next 12 months, its acting CEO said in an emailed statement.

Commercial property Fifty One @ Business Bay, is scheduled for a February handover followed by the Oakwood Residency in International Media Production Zone in March, the firm said.

The Burlington and Oxford Tower will both be delivered in the second half of the year, said Deyaar. Around 90 percent of the units, valued at around AED1.5bn, have been sold, it added.

Property prices in Dubai soared after the city opened its real estate sector to foreign investors in 2002, granting them freehold ownership rights at many developments.

From start-2007 to mid-2008, prices rallied almost 80 percent, Morgan Stanley estimates showed, with billions of dollars worth of new projects launched by local developers.

But home prices in Dubai, the Gulf property market that had the biggest reversal because of the financial crisis, have declined 60 percent in the wake of the global economic downturn.

Deyaar in November posted profits of AED600,000 in the third quarter ending Sept 30 compared with a loss of AED145m in the prior-year period.

The developer earned a net profit of AED45m in the first nine months of the year, compared to a loss of AED489m in 2010, according to a statement on Dubai's bourse website.

Property consultants Jones Lang La Salle last week said property rents in the UAE will hit bottom in 2012 with lease levels showing signs of an uptick in 2013. The Gulf’s worst-performing real estate market will “peak” in terms of its sliding rents over the next 12 months, despite the estimated 38,000 units due online in Dubai in 2012, the firm said.

“The rental market has generally performed better than the sales market during 2011, with asking rents having stabilised and now improving,” the company said in a report published earlier in the month.

Apartments, which made up 90 percent of new stock in 2011, saw a three percent rise in rents in the fourth quarter, and were only marginally down on the year-earlier period.

Oil-rich Abu Dhabi will also see property rents steady but is unlikely to see the same price climb as Dubai amid a pipeline of 28,000 units due online this year, JLL said.  

“Due to the significant development pipeline, rents will continue to experience downward pressure. This will help decrease the rent premium that Abu Dhabi has maintained over Dubai to date,” the report said.