Tag Archives: european
Residential property market in Dubai looking stable, says latest report
The residential real estate market in Dubai maintained its stability in the year to April 2016, despite prices falling, according to the latest analysis report on the emirate. Despite a 9% year on year drop across the mainstream market, the General REIDIN sale price index remained relatively flat on a monthly basis, with no noticeable changes in the performance of both apartments and villas, says the report. Dubai’s prime market continued to outperform the market average with the prime price index down 5% in the 12 months to April 2016 compared to the previous 12 month period, the report from international real estate firm Knight Frank. It says that it is encouraging that prices in the prime segment increased 2% on a quarterly basis between the fourth quarter of 2015 and the first quarter of 2016. The performance of prime apartments outweighed that of villas, with the index pointing to a 2% quarterly increase over the same period. In turn, prime villas recorded no significant price change. The Knight Frank report also says that a number of factors have supported this regulation in prices and are set to support the return of confidence to the market including the government commitment to infrastructure spending. It points out that while it is too soon to estimate the impact of the Expo 2020 on the residential sector, continued government spending on infrastructure projects geared towards the event such as Route Metro 2020 and Dubai Parks & Resorts will promote confidence in the market and is expected to draw further inward capital. There is also likely to be some control of supply as there is a general consensus among developers of the need to phase out residential projects in line with demand and strong liquidity with the residential real estate market in Dubai continuing to attract capital from strong liquid markets such as Saudi Arabia and India, two of the traditionally top buyers of real estate in Dubai. In Abu Dhabi, sale prices remained relatively stable on the back of a shortage in quality residential supply with the General REIDIN sale price index recording a 1% increase year on year in the first quarter of 2016. The report says that while demand has declined on the back of corporate restructuring and cutbacks in government spending, this has been balanced by a slowdown in the delivery of projects, thus keeping the market steady. ‘Looking ahead, the residential market in the UAE is expected to soften over the second half of the year. While it’s difficult to predict when the next growth cycle will be, we expect the residential market to level out by the end of 2016 before seeing gradual recovery in 2017. We expect prime residential properties will continue to outperform the market average in the short to medium term,’ the report says. ‘We expect Dubai to continue attracting investments both regionally and globally. However the outlook for the emirate in general and the real estate sector… Continue reading
Property sales in Spain up over 16% year on year
Residential property sales in Spain are continuing to rise but this may be due to sellers accepting lower offers as prices are falling. The latest data from the General Council of Notaries show that sales increased by 16.2% in April year on year and in seasonally adjusted terms were up 18.9%. But prices are not following the growth trend, down 5.1% on average to stand at €1,241 per square metre. Both houses and apartment prices are falling, down 1.6% and 5.9% respectively. The growth is also reflected in lending with the number of mortgages for the purchase of a home rising by 38.3% year on year. The average amount was €120,125, a reduction of 4.9% compared to a year ago, also suggesting that people are paying less for properties. Meanwhile demand for prime property is also rising, especially in the most sought after areas. Well prices properties are being snapped up fast, often in just a matter of days, according to the latest report from Lucas Fox International Properties. Multiple agencies often find themselves competing with each other for the same clients, all of whom are looking to take advantage of the current low prices, according to the Barcelona based firm. ‘We're having to remove around 40 sold properties from our website each week as the market has picked up significantly. We currently have around 40,000 mainly overseas clients actively searching for homes to buy, the majority of whom want to invest in Barcelona, Madrid and key coastal areas such as the Costa Brava,’ said head of listings at Lucas Fox Ivan Belmonte. The report suggests that the lack of supply is due to the fact that new developments are still fairly slow to come onto the market and some owners are still waiting for prices to rise before they sell. According to Rod Jamieson, head of operations, published price data is often based on asking prices rather than actual sales prices so prices paid are not actually rising. ‘Our statistics show very minimal price increases, even in prime districts,’ he said. The firm’s data also shows that 50% of visitors to its website are from overseas and 50% national buyers. This compares to 56% and 44% respectively during the same period in 2015. The British continue to represent the biggest proportion of overseas visitors to the website at 10%, a slight drop from 2015, most likely due to fears over the European Union referendum outcome. After the UK, most overseas demand for Spanish homes comes from France, the United States and then Sweden. Continue reading
More than 50% of UK developers and builders plan to increase construction this year
More than half of developers and builders in the UK are planning to increase housing starts and completions over the next 12 months, according to a new survey report. Some 56% said they were planning to recruit more skilled workers in the next three years but many want to see more resources in local authority planning departments, the House Building Report 2016 from real estate consultants Knight Frank shows. Indeed, some 30% said making the planning process for public sector land more streamlined would help boost development numbers and 57% said they had not seen an increase in access to public sector land. On top of this 73% said the cost and availability of labour will have a negative impact on future housing supply at a time when it is at the centre of the national and local political debate. The expanding UK population, a structural historical undersupply of new housing and a slowdown in movement up and down the housing chain is now injecting a sense of urgency into the need to deliver more new build property, the report points out. . Over the last five years, the UK Government has made significant changes to the planning system, introduced schemes to boost development and put pressure on local authorities and public bodies to sell surplus land. While there has been an increase in housing delivery, but the supply of new build homes is still lagging demand on an annual basis, disregarding the historical shortfall. The country’s largest housebuilders, along with the Home Builders Federation (HBF), have recently pledged to help deliver one million homes by 2020, recognising that there needs to be ‘significant further action from the housebuilding industry’. The report assesses the next steps required to address the need for housing over the coming years. For example, the need to address the increasingly onerous levels of pre-commencement conditions applied in some planning permissions and the length of time taken to sign them off. The report points out that official house building data released each quarter from Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) shows that some 152,440 new homes were completed across the UK in 2014/2015 and Knight Frank estimates that this will rise to around 172,000 in 2015/2016. New quarterly data on English new build completions show a 12% rise in 2015/2016 to just under 140,000. However, separate retrospective data published by the DCLG shows that 155,080 new homes were completed in 2014/2015. ‘This suggests that the quarterly data is underestimating total house building across England,’ said Grainne Gilmore, head of UK residential research at Knight Frank. ‘Whatever data is considered, there has been a significant step up in the delivery of new homes over the last few years and large house builders are now constructing 60% more homes than in 2010,’ she added. She explained that on an annual basis, Knight Frank estimates a 12% rise in new build completions in the last year. However, on both… Continue reading
