Dubai sees rise in searches for villas

Since the UAE reduced National Sterilisation Programme hours and movement restrictions were eased ahead of Ramadan in Dubai, one of Dubai’s real estate listings and mortgage aggregators has seen new trends and positive signs in the market over the past few weeks.

A new study from the UAE’s Property Finder and Mortgage Finder shows an increase in leads and sessions on their sites, along with an increase in searching for houses along with searches for “pool” and “garden” residential units – particularly in Dubai.

Over the past week, since movement restrictions were eased, the number of listings has increased by six percent for rentals.

Property Finder has also seen a new trend emerge, as searches for villa rentals in Dubai have increased by 11 percent compared to the same week in 2019.

That’s not all, as payment terms have also taken more of a priority, with landlords accepting a higher number of cheques to ease the financial load on the tenants.

“We are starting to see signs of the market returning to a new normal. In the past week, both the listings on the portal as well as the number of listings views increased,” said Lynnette Abad, director of research and data at Property Finder.

“In the previous weeks during the lockdown, we also started to see an increase in searches for villas and townhouses, outside space such as gardens and balconies and pools in villas. This is a clear indication that people are valuing personal, outside space in their homes.”

As for the Dubai-based Mortgage Finder, it has seen a 27 percent increase in mortgage enquiries since the movement restrictions have been relaxed.

“Many of our inquiries are coming from those who are interested in securing pre-approval now in anticipation of buying a property in the next few months,” said Richard Boyd, director at Mortgage Finder.

“Pre-approval is the first step in the mortgage process and having this in place early in the property search puts a potential buyer in a stronger position when it comes to moving forward with a transaction.”