You can feel it across Dubai right now - viewings are packed, prices are climbing, and the post-crisis rebound isn’t just talk anymore. The market is clearly up. But sentiment moves faster than data here. With DLD registrations and settlement delays, what we feel in March only shows up properly in the May numbers. That’s why end of June is the first real moment we can cut through the noise: the lag is cleared, Q1 is fully in the books, and we can finally line up what the market feels like against what the numbers actually say.
Let's start by looking at the Sales volume over the last few months. The resale market is the most accurate indicator of what actually happens on ground.
Ignore the last line going downwards (that's for July as we just started the month and current transactions show up as the total).
We can see the main dip in March, with the lowest dip touching in May. What we can infer from this is that there was a clear drip in March. Some deals are cash which reflect immediately, some deals are mortgage which reflect later on, and mortgage durations can also vary. Which means the remaining affect of March has reflected in May.
The total duration of the dip since the war so far has only been 3 months, and already in June, we see a rise in the volume of transactions, exceeding the transactions from all the months post crisis.
Similarly, the same can be observed in offplan transactions as well.
Primary sales do generally have a longer lag time, from the day the decision is made, the 20% down payment + 4% DLD fee itself can take time, then the developer gets the SPA done, and registers it with the government. This process can take a couple months and the data can be hard to analyze. However, we can clearly see a big dip in May, which recovered in June.
Now let's take a look at the price per sqft chart. The average price per sqft of Dubai obviously is not the best way to analyze the market because Dubai is a combination of many different areas that work like their own mini-markets. Different communities and segments have had different reactions to the crisis, but on average we can infer that there was a mild drop in the overall market prices, from AED 1,900 per sqft to AED 1,700 per sqft. This remained for 2 months total, and is now on an upward journey, on the way to full recovery.
However, if we compare the price per sqft over the years, we can see that even despite the conflict, prices in Dubai are still higher than the past years, even considering the drop. So even if you had bought your property last year, you would still not be at a loss (on average).
Below is the data of these 5 months post conflict (1 March-30 June) compared to the previous 5 months. And this data shows us that overall, these 5 months have been down compared to the previous 5 months. Average price per sqft is down 4%, transactions are down 24%, rental yield is quite the same. And median price is not really relevant here.
But when you look at the Month on Month data, you can see that the chart is green instead of red!
What this means is, this month of June, compared to the previous month of May, is already at an incline!
The same can be observed in the market, developers are not as flexible as they were being in March and April. And inquiries in general have increased as well.
The only logical next analysis would be to see if the people have returned! So let's take a look at the rental transactions.
Below is the overall data from the start of the conflict till now (1 March-30 June). It shows that the new rentals have gone down by 32% compared to the previous 5 months. And renewals have gone down 4% (indicating that some people might have just left the country instead of renewing their lease).
But again, Month on Month chart shows us that the volume of new rentals has gone up by 54%! Which is a huge number.
This indicates that there are a lot more people moving to Dubai now, compared to just last month. Same goes for the renewals - up by 10%!
While it's too soon to say the market is back at full pace, this is definitely a very positive sign. The overall market is doing much better in all aspects even though it is currently summer and the numbers are usually the lowest during this time every year.
