Dubai Land Department (DLD), in cooperation with Middle East’s top real estate site, Property Finder, has launched Dubai’s first-ever official Residential Rental Performance Index (RRPI), to analyze the emirate’s rental market.
In January 2022, the overall monthly Index recorded 0.938 and an index price of $13,912. The monthly Index of apartments recorded 0.943 and an index price of $12,794, while villas or townhouses monthly Index posted 0.868 and an index price of $35,904.
The base year for RPPI is 2013 and the base month for the monthly index is January 2013, with the base quarter for the quarterly index being the first quarter of 2013. According to the index, 51,452 leases were recorded in January 2022, 52 percent of which were new contracts, and 48 percent were renewed contracts, while 81 percent of them were annual contracts, and 19 percent were non-annual.
For the first time ever, the Dubai RPPI has been released in partnership between DLD and Property Finder. Within this insightful data, there is a plethora of information that is quite notable. Last year, 564,036 leases broke a 12-year record in terms of volume for real estate rental contracts.
Annual leases grew by 50.3 percent and non-annual leases increased by 75.5 percent in 2021 compared to 2020. When comparing the data over the last few years, it is interesting to note that, on average, the annual number of leases have increased by approximately 7 percent over the past 5 years but in 2021 it increased by 56 percent compared to 2020.
However, in 2020, annual leases grow by 2 percent compared to 2019 and non-annual leases increased by 115.2 percent. Data beats opinion and there are a lot of facts to uncover and release into the market for full transparency.
In January 2022, the Dubai market saw over 51,452 rental contracts with an even split between new and renewal contracts. The most popular rental contracts in January were for two-bedroom apartments followed by one-bedroom properties. The most popular villa or townhouse rental contracts were for three bedrooms, according to the data.
The top areas that witnessed the registration of the most rental contract in January 2022 according to Ejari Registrations were Jabal Ali First with 1,811 registrations followed by Naif with 1,760. Al Karama (1,754), Al Warsan First (1,601) and Al Suq Al Kabeer (1,457) were also part of the top 5 areas in 2021. These were followed by Business Bay, Al Nahda Second, Barsha South, Marsa Dubai and Nadd Hessa. In total the top 10 areas accounted for 28 percent of all rental transactions in January 2022.
According to proprietary Property Finder residential search data for rental searches on the platform in 2021, Dubai Marina was the highest searched area, accounting for more than 11 percent of all searches. This was followed by Downtown Dubai, Business Bay, Jumeirah Village Circle and Jumeirah Lakes Towers.
For rental villas or townhouses, the searches in 2021 were dominated in Jumeirah, Dubai Hills Estate and The Springs, accounting for approximately 18 percent of all searches.
