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Sales of villas and townhouses in Dubai rose to their highest ever as buyers snapped up spacious properties amid the raging coronavirus pandemic.
A total of 493 secondary villa and townhouse properties were purchased in July 2020, historically the highest number of transactions recorded in a single month for that unit type, according to Property Finder.
More tenants are also setting their sights on larger units, with the searches for villas and townhouses on the Property Finder portal rising by 58 percent in the same month when compared to July 2019.
“One of the reasons we are seeing this trend is due to the high demand for larger properties with more outside space,” Property Finder said.
“During the crisis and lockdown, search and demand data showed that people started looking for bigger properties,” it added.
Recent market research data had earlier highlighted the increase in demand for properties in Dubai after the easing of coronavirus restrictions. According to ValuStrat, the volume of ready home sales in July went up by 35 percent compared to the sales volumes recorded a month earlier.
However, the Middle East consultancy firm pointed out that when the total sales transactions are taken into account, the market is still experiencing a serious decline. Total residential property sales for July were 50 percent lower than the sales recorded in the same period last year.
Popular communities
Lynette Abad, director of research and data at Property Finder, said some of the locations popular among house hunters in July include Arabian Ranches, Dubai Hills Estate, Palm Jumeirah, Damac Hills and the Springs, which accounted for nearly 35 percent of all searches for villas and townhouses in the past four months.
“It is clear that consumers are looking for well established communities with ready properties,” said Abad.
For ready units, a lot of buyers were looking at Nadd Al Sheba, which accounted for 14.4 percent of the sales, as well as Dubai Hills Estate (6.7 percent), Al Furjan (5.9 percent), Dubai Industrial Park (4.9 percent) and Mudon (4.7 percent).
Among the buyers of off-plan properties, Dubai South emerged as the top choice, representing 28.1 percent of the sales, followed by Dubai Hills Estate (23.4 percent), Arabian Ranches 3 (15.6 percent), Town Square (10.9 percent) and Dubai Land (7.8 percent).
(Writing by Cleofe Maceda; editing by Seban Scaria)
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© ZAWYA 2020
