Dubai: Apartment rents in Dubai went up by 1.07 per cent in October compared to a month earlier, a new report showed.
The latest data released by property portal Bayut.com noted that due to the limited supply of properties in the market, coupled with a rising population, housing costs across Dubai continued to increase, but only marginally.
Based on a sample size of nearly 18,000 property listings in Dubai, Bayut.com found that annual lease rates went up by as low as 0.785 per cent month-on-month to as much as 3.19 per cent.
Depending on their locations, some propertiess, however, posted declines of 1.79 per cent to nearly 3 per cent.
Studio units fetched an average rent of Dh62,000 a year, showing a 0.785 per cent rise. One-bedroom accommodations fell marginally by 1.79 per cent to around Dh101,000.
Annual rates for two-bedroom residential homes rose by 1.92 per cent to Dh160,000. Lease rates for three-bedroom apartments, however, dropped by 2.87 per cent to Dh211,000 a year.
Bigger units, or those in the four-plus apartment category, posted a 3.19 per cent increase to Dh356,000, on average.
According to the property portal, the rise in accommodation costs is due to the growth in the number of professionals seeking to live and work in Dubai.
Many tenants have been forced to move houses to look for affordable options, driving up demand for alternative locations such as International City, Discovery Gardens and Bur Dubai.
Haider Ali Khan, CEO of Bayut.com, said that the Dubai Government approved over 200,000 work permits in the first half of 2015, highlighting the size of expat population.
“The strong demand in the rental segment is an indication of that vast number of professionals gradually taking up residences across the emirate,” Khan told Gulf News.
Emirates NBD had had earlier reported that the residential real estate sector is going through a correction, with the pace of price declines appearing to have “moderated in the three months to October.”
While experts are saying the price increases have moderated, a lot of tenants in Dubai are still seeking a relief from high rental values.
The Emirates NBD Dubai Real Estate Tracker reported that more than two-thirds of consumers polled had reported paying more rent fore leases renewed in the three months to October, higher than the August survey.
However, the bank said that households remain much more positive about “both current property values and the outlook over the next twelve months than estate agents.”
Disputing that rents are moderating, Dunia Beydoun, a Dubai-based tenant, said that the rent for her flat in Jumeirah Lakes Towers (JLT) even went up by 15 per cent.
“I just got a letter to renew my one-bedroom apartment rent and the increase is 15 per cent,” she wrote on gulfnews.com last month.
MORE: For the latest property information and data on prices and real estate trends, go to GNproperty
