Cityscape delivers a truly UAE-wide realty story

Dubai developers had their launches and sales, while Abu Dhabi and Sharjah too joined the party

That Dubai’s property market has been ticking along has been evident for well over 12 months now, and more of the same was evident during the three days or the just-concluded Cityscape Global. There were launches galore, and not just of properties, but the value-additions that add to the overall credentials of a property and its immediate surroundings. Developers were ready to commit to Olympic-size pools, extensive green zones and not just confine their promotional strategies to plain-vanilla brickand-mortar launches.

Developers in Dubai were sending out a clear message — they are out to create communities and the more features they can offer, the better it gets for the eventual person moving in.

But Cityscape Global wasn’t just about what Dubai’s developers were out to do next. Or what they managed to sell over the three days. Abu Dhabi and Sharjah developers were able to make their presence felt, and with the kind of property offerings the market and its buyers were waiting for the two emirates to create for a long time. And when developers from there — Aldar and Arada to be specific — were finally able to come up with the right mix of property and pricing, the response was just the momentum creation those markets needed.

That is what Cityscape Global 2020 has delivered — a strong message that Dubai’s property market wasn’t the single driver of the real estate dynamic in the country. It meant that Abu Dhabi and Sharjah were back to claim their rightful share of the rapidly expanding property investment universe in the country.

Cityscape Global 2017 was a truly UAE show. And that spells only good takeaways for the UAE property market.