An Analysis Of Dubai Real Estate Market In Year 2009

By Author: William King
Total Articles: 365
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Year 2009 was not as bad for Dubai real estate market as you'd expect after going through news of so many setbacks. Even though there were plenty of issues concerning property buyers, the number of real estate transactions didn't really decline as compared to previous years. This year, approximately 80,000 transactions recorded which is not significantly lesser than the previous years. In fact, in many ways year 2009 was the second best year in terms of real estate transactions taking place (in case we are just comparing on basis of the number of transactions in the last decade.) However, lots of activity in a property market doesn't really mean that the market is booming, for the reason that majority of these transactions can be the case of owners selling their properties at discounted rates and leaving the market.

Another very interesting aspect to look at is the number of foreign investors taking interest and investing in Dubai properties. Again, the figures were not that bad. Indian and UK nationals had the biggest share while Pakistan was not much behind. There was considerable investment coming from Iran and Saudi ...
... Arabia as well. Other notable countries were Kuwait, Oman, United States and Russia. Palm Jabal Ali and Dubai Marina had the biggest numbers of properties sold. Year 2009 see lots of major projects coming to a halt and it includes some projects by giant developers like Nakheel or Emaar. Only good thing to come out in this aspect was the completion of Burj Khalifa (Formerly known as Burj Dubai).

RERA came up with a number of new laws for developers, investors, brokers and sellers to tighten the realty sector (and to tighten the media sector as well). Dubai property court was launched to take up lawsuits as the tussle between property developers and investors continued, involving mainly the off plan properties. Most notable laws were Law no 9 of 2009 and the one related to rent increase and other tenancy issues. The global financial crunch took a toll on mortgage markets as well and it went through more than 70% drop this year. Prices and rents kept falling in most localities except for some of the newly built developments; chances are that the decline will continue in this year as well. Even though it's far from being all over as yet, but it seems we'll have to wait for a couple or more years to see some notable recovery.

William King is the director of Pakistan Real Estate & Pakistan Property Portal: http://www.zameen.com/ , UAE Dubai Property & Dubai Real Estate Properties Portal: http://www.bayut.com/ and Property & Real Estate Directory & Classifieds: http://www.propertydir.com/. He has 18 years of experience in the marketing and trading industries and has been helping retailers, entrepreneurs and startups with their product sourcing, promotion, marketing and supply chain requirements.