Dubai, September 11: House prices in Dubai suffered the biggest 12-month fall among global property markets but price declines are easing as global markets recover, a real estate brokerage said.
Prices in the emirate fell 47.3 per cent from the second quarter of last year to the the second quarter ofthis year, Knight Frank said.
“Prices are still falling in Dubai, but the decline has slowed sharply,” it said in a note yesterday.
Dubai’s once-booming property sector has suffered as a result of the global economic slowdown, as prices fall, projects are slowed or cancelled and jobs are slashed.
Over 400 projects worth more than $300 billion have been placed on hold or cancelled in the UAE, with Dubai worst hit, Dubai-based research firm Proleads Global said in July.
“The second-quarter drop was only 7.5pc compared with a massive 41pc slide during the previous three months. While the market still remains oversupplied, transaction volumes have started to increase,” Knight Frank said.
Asking prices have fallen, credit availability has increased and there is more certainty from developers regarding the completion dates of projects, it said.
Property markets in Britain and the US are picking up with values rising 1.1pc and 1.3pc respectively in the second quarter, Knight Frank said.
Second quarter prices rose in almost half the 32 countries covered in the report, while the quarterly drop accelerated in less than a quarter of countries, it said. Norway saw the biggest rise in prices in the same period, up 5.3pc.
–Agencies–