The value of Dubai property deals in 2014 fell 7.6 per cent compared with the previous year, reflecting a slowdown in the emirate’s housing market, official figures show.
Overall property or land sold or mortgaged in 2014 stood at Dh218 billion, down from Dh236bn the previous year, according to Dubai Land Department (DLD) data released yesterday.
DLD, the official government body responsible for registering property sales in the emirate, said that the number of property transactions taking place in Dubai fell by nearly 10,000 or 15 per cent from 63,652 in 2013 to 53,871 in 2014.
“The real estate market has shown a clear ability to gain momentum from year to year, in addition to maintaining sustainable growth, as well as the trend towards maturity,” said Sultan Butti bin Merjen, the director general of DLD.
DLD said that Business Bay was the most popular area for apartment sales during the year, with 4,315 units changing hands, worth a total of Dh7.2bn.
Dubai Marina was the second most popular area for sales, registering 4,121 transactions during the year, worth a total of Dh9.17bn.
DLD said that 51 per cent of all sales were cash transactions, while purchases using mortgages accounted for 44 per cent and the remaining 5 per cent included categories such as “gifted land”.
The results are consistent with agents' reports on the Dubai property market which suggest that sales growth and volumes slowed down halfway through 2014, driven by an increase in property transaction fees and mortgage caps introduced by the UAE Central Bank at the end of 2013.
Last month CBRE reported that the number of freehold residential sales transactions fell 23 per cent in the year to November 2014 compared with the previous year. And the total value of freehold sales during the period fell 16.7 per cent from Dh28.39bn in 2013 to Dh23.65bn.
“The residential market has provided an interesting ride over the last six months because we’re not really used to stability in this market. We’re used to the volatility that we’ve seen in the past, and 2014 was really a year of two halves with the first half showing very strong growth in residential sales, while in the second half we have seen stabilisation comparatively across the market,” said Matthew Green, the head of research at CBRE’s Dubai office.
“I think over the coming year we can look forward to a little bit more stability in a market which has over the last three years only really seen upwards movements.”
lbarnard@thenational.ae
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