Dubai is “taking off again”

Back at the end of March 2020, almost the entire world and certainly this city experienced an extreme slowdown in its familiar fast pace of life. Dubai went into 24/7 lockdown for almost 4 weeks and the government asked us to stay home except for emergencies and essential shopping of food and medicine.

It was tough to carry out the normal day-to-day work of an Estate Agent, viewings were almost impossible as restrictions were tight. Even when allowed, the buyers and tenants were reluctant to go out and the sellers and landlords did not want visitors. Meanwhile, the developers and colleagues were only available via Zoom and understandably a lot of our clients went into a “wait and see” mode.

Some compared it to the 2008 property bubble crash, but I was living and working here during that period in Dubai and this was nothing like it. Why? Because the phones, the meetings, and the transactions stopped completely in Q4 of 2008. In contrast, during the last two months, the enquiries have continued, transactions have been happening, construction has continued, and most importantly, prices have remained relatively stable.

There was some gradual easing of the restrictions during Ramadan and by the time Eid al-Fitr arrived towards the end of May, we had learned to adapt and to understand more about how the new normal will look like.

Now, as we enter June, private businesses are allowed to operate at 100% capacity and Government employees have returned at 50% capacity with the expectation that they will be at 100% by 12 June.

On Thursday, May 21, Emirates began operating flights to Chicago, Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Melbourne, Milan, Paris, Sydney and Toronto, and from July 1, they will be taking bookings for flights to 12 Arab countries. As of now, these destinations include Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia.

Malls are now operating at 100%, community gyms at 50% capacity, public beaches and 70 parks are open, cinemas have re-opened, salons and barbershops and public transport is fully operational within the city.  

Mosques, schools and universities remain closed for now and are not expected to re-open until after the summer.

All bars will remain closed until further notice, but F&B outlets are open and those that are licensed to serve alcohol may only do so at the table.

Tenants are renegotiating their rents or are on the move, seeking better value while taking advantage of the current supply and demand curve.

Developers are back at their offices and getting creative without dropping their prices. They are now more open to doing deals on payment plans, lowering of booking amounts, some are offering rental guarantees and waivers on fees and service charges, and generally becoming more flexible and nimbler in their dealings with buyers.

Almost all sellers are sticking with their pre-COVID-19 pricing and in some cases, there have been standoffs between them and buyers hoping for prices to fall. I know first-hand that sales are definitely on the increase for both off-plan and secondary sales and the industry reports are all highlighting the increased transaction numbers, week on week. 

There is a lot more detail to be considered than is possible to include in this short message, so please ask away or we can arrange a telephone call or Zoom meeting to discuss. Suffice to say that we are not seeing the pre-COVID 19 transaction numbers just yet, but it is all looking a lot more positive than it did back in March 2020…………… READ MORE HERE