Dubai property faces short-term Brexit effects

Astraw poll by Dubai’s leading real estate portal — propertyfinder.ae — of several of the emirate’s top real estate agencies, has indicated that the anticipated ‘Brexit effect’ has reached the local market.

Although still early days after the controversial referendum in June which saw the United Kingdom vote to withdraw from the European Union, international markets have been waiting anxiously to see what the larger implications will be.

And according to an early gathering of feedback from propertyfinder.ae’s closest partners, there are already two distinct short term effects being felt in Dubai.

On the one hand, a small but noticeable number of UK owners with property for sale in the emirate have reduced their asking prices – taking advantage of the weak pound against the dollar/dirham.

On the other hand, a number of UK investors that had expressed interest in buying here are now apparently holding back. “We always keep close tabs on the

We would predict that this UK seller/buyer shift is temporary Lukman Hajje, chief commercial officer at propertyfinder.ae

performance of the local market, so postBrexit we have been putting out feelers with the leading agencies to see what the mood is — and they have reported these parallel trends, which were to be expected,” said Lukman Hajje, chief commercial officer at propertyfinder.ae.

“But we would predict that this UK seller/buyer shift is temporary — it is yet to be seen what the true effect of Brexit will be on the Dubai real estate market, indeed we could be in for a few surprises.” — business@khaleejtimes.com