Dubai plans to implement new rental law

The Dubai Land Department (DLD) is working on a new rental law, it revealed on Monday.

The law will replace the current broad rental regulation and give separate weightage to residential, commercial, retail and health and educational property, local daily Gulf News quoted officials as saying.

The law is currently in front of the legislative committee.

Meanwhile the DLD also confirmed that the value of real estate transactions reached Dhs77bn during the first quarter of the year, through 20,000 transactions.

Sultan Butti bin Mejren, director general of Dubai Land Department confirmed to reporters that the value of transactions rose by 45 per cent in Q1 2017 compared to the first quarter of last year 2016.

“This indicates that the real estate market in Dubai is preparing for a new phase of momentum,” the statement said.

The strong results achieved during the first quarter of this year were “not surprising but expected”, especially with the “sustainable growth that the real estate market is currently witnessing”, he said.

He added that the total value of real estate investments reached more than Dhs40bn through 15,501 transactions in Q1.

“These numbers are promising and go against the negative mentions that were being made about Dubai property market’s prospects,” Bin Mejren told reporters.

Dubai’s residential property market, which slumped in the last few years, is expected to bottom out before the end of this year, consultancy Cluttons said in a recent report.

While prices in the residential market continued to drop in the first quarter of the year, the rate of decline fell from last year.

Average residential prices fell by 7.8 per cent in Q1, compared to 8.8 per cent in 2016, Cluttons said.

Overall, 12 of the 32 submarkets monitored by Cluttons registered price declines during Q1, with the Burj Khalifa tower (down 6.9 per cent) leading the price falls.

Looking ahead, the report anticipates that sales values will reduce by a further 5 per cent on average this year.

Read more: Dubai property market to ‘bottom out’ before end of 2017