The rental prices for apartments have dropped by 18.4% compared to the same period in previous year. However, on the contrary, rents for townhouses and villas have increased by 3.9%. The average annual rental price for a two-bedroom villa has been recorded as AED 130,000 and three and four-bedroom villa rentals ranged between AED 150,000 to AED 210,000 respectively. Annual rental prices for studios were AED 35,000, one-bedroom apartments – AED 52,000, two-bedroom apartments – AED 78,000 and three-bedrooms – AED 114,000.
Dubai's economy was heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, like all other countries, as real estate prices and the overall demand for property dropped in 2020. During the first quarter of 2019 to the first quarter of 2020, the average apartment prices in Dubai lowered by 12%, whilst the average price for villas and townhouses decreased by 4%.
Real estate consultancy ValuStrat said in their recent report that in the first quarter of Dubai's property market of 2021 it had registered the highest number of housing sales since 2010. According to ValuStrat, over 6,000 completed properties with a total value of AED 13.5 billion and 3,600 off-plan properties worth AED 5 billion were registered in the first quarter of 2021. The total volume of ready property sales increased by an annual rate of 76.1%, which is 17.4% higher compared with 2020, while off-plan property sales decreased by 30.2%, which is still 8.9% higher than in the previous year.
The increased popularity of villas and townhouses, have demonstrated that freehold villa areas have seen improvement in capital values since the first quarter of 2020, ranging between 1.8% and 5.4%. As for apartments, only 50% of areas have shown a value increase and some areas have seen decreases of up to 2.8%. According to ValuStrat, the best results in freehold areas have been recorded in Arabian Ranches, Dubai International City, The Lakes, The Meadows and Palm Jumeirah.