Dubai property sales transactions have scaled record highs since the government announced the forming of the new Higher Committee of Real Estate under the chairmanship of Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and First Deputy Chairman of the Executive Council, said a report.

The committee’s purpose is mainly to ensure that semi-government real estate companies do not compete with private investors and also to develop a comprehensive strategic plan and vision for all major real estate projects in the emirate for the next 10 years.

According to Data Finder, the real estate insights and data platform under the Property Finder Group, 5,051 overall property sales were recorded with the Dubai Land Department (DLD) in November alone, hitting a 11-year high on a monthly basis.

This eclipsed the 4,774 overall property sales registered in October 2019 and the 4,007 real estate transactions recorded in September 2019. Cumulatively, this amounted to 13,832 transactions in the three-month timeframe, said the report.

Going by previous estimates, December is usually a good month for property transaction numbers in Dubai. According to publicly available DLD sale transactions data, there were 2,672 sales transactions registered in December 2018 and 3,696 real estate sales deals recorded in December 2017, it stated.     
Also, the DLD registered the sale of Burma Island, part of the World Islands, for Dh112.8 million ($30.7 million) on December 8, 2019.

Property Finder Group said looking at the data, it appears the announcement of the committee has had a positive impact on market sentiment in the three months since September.

With Expo 2020 less than a year away, it seems like people are making up their mind to buy property in Dubai, it stated in the report.

This comes on the back of several stimuli such as extended visas, streamlined processes and fee relaxations announced by the government to boost investment in the property market this year.
Positive regulations such as the Central Bank removing the 3 per cent early settlement fee for mortgages, relaxing the maximum age requirement to repay mortgages and lifting the 20 per cent cap on real estate lending for banks have also inspired confidence in the property market, it added.  

Lynnette Abad, the director of Data and Research at Property Finder, said: "It is a combination of all of the above as to why sales transactions have increased this year and consumer confidence is building up in the market."

"This, coupled with declining prices and an excess amount of supply, has given the buyer much choice, attractive prices and incentives," he added.

According to her, Business Bay has emerged as the top pick for buyers, with an overall 1,160 property transactions recorded in the last three months.

Other communities which registered the highest number of overall property transactions in this timeframe were Dubai Creek Harbour (1,057), Dubai South (838), Jumeirah, with projects such as La Mer (647), and Downtown Burj Khalifa (560), she added.

Property Finder Group pointed out that the off-plan properties continued to dominate transactions and were preferred by investors due to attractive prices, payment plans and fee waivers.

In terms of communities, Dubai Creek Harbour saw the most off-plan transactions (1,030) in the three-month timeframe, followed by Business Bay (863), Dubai South (696), Jumeirah (586) and Villanova (508).

November also recorded brisk activity for off-plan sales, clocking in 3,053 such transactions, the second highest since September 2015, which registered 3,258 such deals, stated the Data Finder report.

In the secondary market, International City topped in terms of the number of transactions (443), followed by Dubai Marina (359), Business Bay (297), Jumeirah Village Circle (282) and Bluewaters Island (262), it added.-TradeArabia News Service