End-users now dominate UAE market, says Tamweel

The findings are based on analysis of home finance extended by Tamweel between January 2011 and June 2012, Tamweel said on Sunday.

The lender described the move to end-users availing home finance as “a positive change in the UAE home finance market”.

It added that as the number of end-users has increased, so too has their equity participation. According to Tamweel, in 2008 its average finance-to-value ratio was 80 percent but today that has dropped to 75 percent.

The Dubai housing market previously suffered from a spate of investors who bought property in the emirate only to “flip” it to others.

Flipping properties is the business of buying villas and apartments off-plan and then selling them before they are built, a strategy that made millions for some but contributed to Dubai’s housing crash.

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, fell more than 60 percent in the wake of the global credit crunch.

“The past 18 months have witnessed a profound shift in the UAE home finance sector,” said Varun Sood, acting CEO of Tamweel.

“Importantly, customers are no longer seeking to over-leverage themselves, and are instead fully prepared for significant equity participation, which is a very healthy characteristic of the UAE home finance sector today.”

Last month, Tamweel said UAE home finance transactions in 2012 were likely to be 30 percent higher than in 2011, adding that it estimates that the home finance market will surpass AED8bn ($2.17bn) this year.