Emaar results show Dubai shift to villas

Emaar's financial results show a shift in Dubai's evolving property market.

Emaar's villa sales grew by 85 per cent last year. Pawan Singh / The National

The latest financial statement from Emaar Properties reflects a shift in Dubai's property market as buyers trade up from apartments to more spacious villas.

Revenues from apartment sales fell 85 per cent for Emaar last year, while villa sales grew by 85 per cent over the previous year.

The developer, based in Dubai, has residential property developments in countries including Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United States, as well as the UAE.

Apartment sales revenues declined to Dh1.11 billion (US$299.4 million) last year from Dh7.56 billion the previous year, the statement posted on the Dubai Financial Market showed. Revenues from sales of villas reached Dh958.7m compared to Dh517.27m the previous year.

Emaar, which developed the Burj Khalifa and Dubai Mall, did not provide a breakdown of where the properties were sold, but analysts said the figures were likely to be heavily weighted by sales in Dubai and reflected a general trend in the emirate.

"The villa market has definitely performed more strongly than the apartment market over the last year," said Craig Plumb, the head of research at Jones Lang LaSalle, Middle East and North Africa. "The reason for that is because there has been a limited amount of new villas coming into the market compared to a lot of new apartments. That situation may equalise over the next year because there are now more villas coming on over the next year."

"The other factor why villas have performed better is because as prices have fallen across the market, people have been able to trade up from apartments into villas."

Shopping malls and hotels have become an increasingly important source of cash for Emaar, particularly following a sharp decline in property prices in the emirate amid the global financial crisis.

Emaar's retail, hospitality and leisure businesses accounted for 41 per cent of total annual revenue last year, compared with about 24 per cent in 2010.

Emaar suffered a 27 per cent fall in net profit last year compared with 2010.

But net profit in the fourth quarter of the last year surged from Dh274m to Dh716m compared with the same quarter in 2010, boosted by soaring retail and hospitality revenues amid tourism growth in Dubai.

The group said it expected to hand over projects in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon this year.

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