Last month, Dubai recorded the most property sales in February ever, as off-plan sales still dominate the city’s market, according to a report from Property Monitor on Tuesday.
February sales were up 2.6% monthly to a total of 11,913—92.1% of which were for residential properties, including apartments, townhouses and villas. This new benchmark for February sales surpasses the record set last year by a notable 30.4%.
Dubai’s consistently high sales volume is largely because of the ever-present high demand for off-plan properties, which is keeping apartment sales on a steady incline, according to the report. Villa and townhouse sales, on the other hand, have remained more flat, which Property Monitor attributes more to low supply than to a fall in buyer demand.
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Property prices increased just slightly in February, with prices 0.83% higher than they were in January. This brings prices to an all-time high of AED 1,294 (US$352.31) per square foot, which is almost 5% more than the city’s previous market peak in September 2014, according to the Property Monitor Dynamic Price Index.
The priciest sale of the month was for a villa on Jumeirah Bay Island—a man-made island shaped like a seahorse off the coast of Jumeirah—which sold for AED 160 million, according to the report.
The number of mortgage transactions fell by nearly 5% in February, with a total of 2,868 loans recorded.
