Source: Arabian Business —
The UAE defied global market trends to score an exceptional year, according to market analysis by CBRE.
Dubai real estate, in particular, saw an impressive rise with property prices up 9.5% and more than 90,000 transactions recorded.
Meanwhile hospitality came back towards pre-Covid levels, office demand increased and retail had a double-digit growth, said the CBRE.
UAE real estate strength
The UAE real estate sector continued to record strong activity levels in the last quarter of 2022, concluding what has been a standout year for the UAE market despite global economic headwinds and uncertainty.
Taimur Khan, Head of Research – MENA at CBRE in Dubai, comments: “The UAE’s real estate market concluded a stellar year, with performance and activity levels reaching multi-year, if not historic, record highs in many sectors.
“Attention will now turn to the outlook for 2023, where mounting global economic headwinds were starting to potentially raise questions around if this performance could continue.
“Even with those risks, we had anticipated that both performance and activity levels would have remained resilient over the course of this year, albeit with growth rates expected to moderate considerably in a number of sectors.
“Our view on this has not changed, in fact, on the back of an improving global macroeconomic backdrop, CBRE forecasts that market performance in the UAE’s real estate sector will remain steadfast in 2023.”
The CBRE report broke down its findings into four sectors: residential, hospitality, office, retail.
UAE residential sector
In the residential sector, average property prices in Abu Dhabi increased by 1.5% in the year to December 2022, with average apartment prices rising by 0.9% and average villa prices increasing by 4.1%.
In the rental market, Abu Dhabi’s average rents moved by 1.0% on average over the same period, with apartment rents increasing by 1.3% and villa rents increasing by 0.5%.
In the last quarter of 2022, Abu Dhabi’s total transaction volumes increased by 14.9% from the previous year.
In 2022, 3,856 units were completed and delivered in Abu Dhabi, with 78.0% of this supply located in Al Raha Beach and Najmat Abu Dhabi.
