Dubai, known as one of the most progressive cities in the Middle East with a large expat community, is predicted to have major changes in its realty market this year, at least where rental prices are concerned.
A leading inestment firm in the Middle East, the H Holding Enterprise, has recently predicted that there will be a price correction in the rental prices in the emirati city.
New apartments and villas, which, according to the mother company of Omega Real Estate, will be completed soon will increase supply. The additional residential units, which will be ready for occupancy sometime this year, will affect the rental prices.
Average housing rents in Dubai will continue to fall for as much as 10 percent in the next few months, property expert JLL predicted.
H Holding Enterprise chair Hafeez Abdullah said "According to Asteco, 12,000 apartments and 2,000 villas are expected to be completed this year."
Abdullah added that the decline in rent prices could improve the "Emirate competitiveness over other regional and global markets, and might encourage more people to benefit from this most significant drop since 2011."
It was also mentioned earlier that Dubai's decrease of rental prices could be taken as a positive sign in the long run as "it would give the market time to absorb the existing supply pipeline."
Abdullah said that there were more than 140 nationalities who invested Dh218 billion ($59.3 billion) in the real estate market in the emirates in 2014.
"We saw new investments methods facilitated to encourage more investors to come." He further cited examples, like for instance, "Dubai has allocated over 100 hectares of land for affordable housing, mostly to meet the demand for dwellings for people earning between Dh3,000 and Dh10,000 ($817 and $2721) per month. These efforts will pay off gradually."