Dubai's ready-to-move-in villas, townhouse 'in big demand' in October
The demand for ready to move in villa/townhouses is at an all-time high, growing by over 500 per cent since May, according to a leading real estate portal, the Property Finder.
Last month witnessed a total of 3,395 transactions worth AED6.93 billion ($1.8 billion). This consistent growth for the sale of ready villas/townhouses started from June and since then has grown by over 500 percent in the past 5 months.
In October, 991 villa/townhouses were transferred, and 2,031 apartments were transferred in both the off plan and secondary market, while n the luxury segment, 11 off-plan apartments were sold in October worth AED 220.7 million, with each apartment selling for over AED 15 million, according to Property Finder.
For the past four months Dubai has witnessed the highest number of transactions for villa/townhouses consistently, each month being at an all-time high with the record broken the very next month.
This consistent growth started after May which had 110 transactions and since then has grown by over 500 percent, said its top official.
"The fear of not having enough space and lack of outside space has become the new reality many people faced since the pandemic started," stated Lynnette Abad, the Director of Research & Data at Property Finder.
"All of us started to spend more time in our homes. We worked from home, our children were home-schooled, and we chose to stay home more, cook homemade meals and avail delivery services. All of this prompted a new trend and people started to want more space and outside spaces for their family," she explained.
"People also started to migrate away from densely populated city centres and towards the suburbs. All of this has led to an all-time high for transaction volumes in Dubai for Villas/Townhouses," she added.
The top areas for secondary (ready) Villa/Townhouses in October 2020 were Nadd al Sheba (11.8 percent), Town Square (7.8 percent), International City (6.7 percent), Arabian Ranches (6.4 percent) and Dubai Hills Estate (5.9 percent). 39 percent of the transactions were for 4-bedroom units, 34.7 percent for 3-bedroom units and 14.8 percent for 5-bedroom units.
Looking at proprietary data from Property Finder, the search trends show us that the top five locations for consumers searching for villa/townhouses were Dubai Hills Estates, Arabian Ranches, Palm Jumeirah, Damac Hills and Mohammed bin Rashid City. Keywords such as ‘upgraded’, ‘pool’ and ‘furnished’ were the top three keywords in October 2020.
Overall in October 1013 villa/townhouses were transferred in both the off-plan and secondary market. A total of 2,031 apartments were transferred with 1,128 in the secondary market and 903 in the off-plan market.
"It will be interesting to see what the future holds for the villa/townhouse segment if this trend continues. If we look at new villa/townhouses stock this year, there have been 7,225 completed," stated Abad.
"In 2021, we are expecting to see 7,822 new villa/townhouses completed. The question will be, is this enough supply based on the current trends and transaction numbers we are seeing?” she added.