Will the Dubai real estate market experience a bigger sell-off?

In this report, I chose only to focus on the ready re-sale apartment market. I strongly believe that the true market price cannot be measured by off-plan project prices, but by the secondary re-sale market as it represents the end-user’s demand and is least affected by short-term investors or speculators.

The below report factors all of Dubai freehold communities collectively for ready apartments. If you wish to generate the same report for a specific the project, you can simply visit Property Trends and choose the community or the project of your interest, as well as the time frame to generate a ready and simple to read the report.

The fact that we have been witnessing a soft and continuous decline in the average price per sqft, total value and number of sales transactions of ready apartments since their market peak end of 2013 and 2014, makes today’s market fairly stable. Simply because over the past 5 years, the majority, if not all short-term market speculators as well as any overly leveraged investors who didn’t have the financial holding power have previously exited the market. Furthermore, the bulk of those who invested in Dubai in 2018 and 2019 (following the price drop from 2014 to 2017) invested for the medium and long term, as during 2018/19 it was already very clear to investors that there would be less short-term speculation in the Dubai property market as it matured to become a stable, medium to long term investment market.

It also worth mentioning that when we compare 2013 to 2019, while the total value and the number of transactions had already dropped by 50%, the average price per sqft had not dropped proportionately as it only dropped by 30%. This is a clear indication of the price resilience, despite the decline of the number of sales transactions.

With this being said and while nothing is certain in life, I truly believe that it is very unlikely for us to witness any future free-fall price drops or major property sell-offs in the Dubai real estate market. Based on the data and looking at a medium to long term investment plan, there is probably no better time to enter the real estate market in Dubai. Having said this, however, it is crucial to have a trustworthy real estate expert to guide you toward the best investment opportunities. Pushy property salespeople using lifestyle images and brochures will not help you. Even the safest avenues of investment can be the riskiest when approached and done wrong. Real Estate investment is one of the safest and profitable kinds of investment, dont turn it into a risky one by making uncalculated decisions and over leveraging.