After qualifying for a mortgage, you have to arrange the up-front payment and registration charges

There is a property for every income bracket in Dubai. The lower sales prices and attractive payment plans offered by developers in Dubai are resulting in more first-time home buyers hopping on the property bandwagon. The introduction of new innovative mortgage products by some local banks has also contributed towards this increased activity.

Even someone with a salary of Dh10,000 can climb onto the property ladder today, provided they can arrange for the up-front payment and registration charges.

“There are enough properties available to cater across a wide range of salary brackets. Prices and accessibility criteria for a home mortgage, traditionally the two biggest barriers for new entrants to the property market, have been lowered, thus resulting in an uptick in market activity,” says Lynnette Abad, partner and head of Property Monitor/Cavendish Maxwell.

Apartments are the achievable properties for salaries between Dh10,000 to Dh15,000.

“The average one-bedroom apartment in new residential areas such as Dubai Silicon Oasis, Liwan, etc., is worth about Dh600,000 with a down payment of Dh150,000 and Dh30,000 in registration expenses. The buyer has to pay about Dh2,200 a month. This is easily achievable for most people earning Dh15000+ a month. This is much less than their rent,” suggests Sanjay Chimnani, managing director, Raine & Horne Dubai.

This year, the top areas for affordable properties to one with a monthly salary of Dh10,000 are (in order) International City, Jumeirah Village Circle (JVC), Al Furjan and Dubai South, estimates Property Monitor, a real estate intelligence platform.

For someone with a monthly salary of Dh15,000, the top areas with affordable properties are Dubai South, JVC, Business Bay and Dubai Sports City, the consultancy adds.

However, if you are looking to buy a villa or a townhouse, it would require a monthly salary of Dh25,000. “It will fetch you a townhouse in master-planned communities such as Town Square and Reem, Mira. Some of the other top areas in this salary bracket are Dubai Marina, Business Bay and The Lagoons,” informs Abad.

The challenge for most buyers is to arrange for the down payment plus registration costs of about 30 per cent. “If this was to be reduced to 15 per cent, we would see an even greater shift to ownership in this market,” suggests Chimnani.

However, the moot question is whether a person earning Dh10,000 a month is eligible for a mortgage. Provided the customer does not have any major loans (personal, credit card and auto), s/he would be eligible for a house loan of up to 25 years, subject to age criteria which restricts payments to the age of 65.

“People earning Dh10,000 and above can apply for a mortgage. The minimum salary requirement for a mortgage is Dh10,000. However, there are only a few banks who do mortgages for clients with Dh10,000 income and, therefore, options for these clients are limited. Majority of the banks require a minimum salary of Dh15,000 and above,” says Carol Monis, head of mortgages, MortgageMe.ae, a group of mortgage brokers in Dubai.

She adds that “most of our mortgage clients are end-users who fall into an income bracket of Dh20,000 to Dh25,000”.

Dhiren Gupta, managing director, 4C Mortgage Consultancy, adds in the same vein that the average income group buying property in Dubai is around Dh25,000 to Dh35,000 and they are primarily buying mid-priced property worth of Dh1.5 million to Dh2 million.

“With such income, they can easily qualify for a loan, barring they do not have pre-existing liabilities and age limitation is not a barrier. Moreover, banks are more comfortable to funding such profiles wherein the property will be utilised for self-use,” concludes Gupta.

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Collected and published by Arms &McGregor International Realty editorial team.