Dubai: Residents looking to rent a home in Dubai will no longer have to go by what the landlord or the broker says. Instead, they can get all of the rental records of that particular unit with the click of a few buttons – the Dubai Land Department is making sure of that.
This can be done through ‘DXBinteract.com’, which gives real-time info on the rental history. The new initiative also gives prospective property investors a listing of past values before they take the decision to buy.
“This is a complete break from the past because the property info is delivered in real-time,” said Firas Al Msaddi, CEO of fam Properties. “Until now, available market-related data had been focussing on areas and communities as well as buildings. Now, it goes down to the individual unit.
“All that a tenant needs to know how much a particular apartment in Dubai was renting for is to enter the area name, project name and the apartment’s number to access all historical leasing transactions. This kind of data is equally important for landlords as they can run detailed market comparison analysis on neighbouring properties and projects.
“The era of static, generic market reports is over.”
"DLD seeks to permanently and continuously develop the services it provides in the interest of local and foreign investors," said Majida Ali Rashid, CEO of the Real Estate Promotion Investment and Management Sector.
"Through these partnerships, we will provide customers with a secure real estate environment and accurate and reliable data, which will contribute to enabling them to keep track of changes in the real estate market according to the map and follow up on price changes immediately."
A major breakthrough
For tenants and property owners, the instant updates through on DXBinteract.com does offer the prospect of more transparency. It is also a theme Dubai’s real estate authorities had been pushing for, especially as developers take aim at attracting more international buyers after the Expo.
“Whether renting or investing, people want to have a good understanding of how the overall property market is performing,” said Al Msaddi. “They need the real data to make a proper price evaluation. In these days of instant decision-making, the only data that matters is one delivered in real-time.”
New investors line up
In the year-to-date, more areas in Dubai are reporting increases in rental demands from landlords, including in neighbourhoods that had only seen declines in the last four years. On the sales side, the activity continues to be brisk, and with the rise in interest rates – and more to come – some end-users are rushing to make their property buys before mortgage rates get too expensive.
“There are a lot of deals happening in the value-for-money space – there’s Emaar’s Creek Harbour that’s seeing a build up of interest,” said an estate agent. “Two factors are at work – people want to make a purchase before property values rise above what they want to invest. And for non-cash buyers, they want to do so before mortgage rates rise.”
* Area, project name or even a specific unit number.
* Whether the unit is offplan or ready.
* Whether it is sold by a developer or individual (resale)
More mortgage hikes
Mortgage rates in the UAE have already seen one increase this year, and is up for multiple hikes through 2022. By year-end, potential buyers could be staring at an increase that adds up to 2 per cent or more (depending on what the US Federal Reserve has in store). When that happens, it would add up to quite a substantial payout in owning a home.
Developers are bringing out all the incentives they can to reassure buyers, including the post-handover payment plans. And they are also speeding up offplan launches to get in as many buyers as possible before property values and mortgage rates shoot up further.
