Dubai property sales prices will not see a decrease this year as demand remains strong across the luxury property market, said Sanjay Sachdev, managing director of sales and marketing, Sobha Group.

The UAE-based developer recently launched its latest offering, the Hartland Estates Forest Villas, as part of the $4bn Sobha Hartland development, which features four- and five-bedroom L-shaped villas within an exclusive mixed-use freehold community.

“The property market is fickle, every year it is up and down, and in my opinion, every month it changes,” he said.

Sachdev believes there is still a demand for property as nearly 270,000 “white collar” jobs were added last year, giving rise to greater demand in the coming year.

And with around 15,000 new units set to come into the market this year, Sachdev believes demand is still ripe.

“The government has done its job at looking at supply and demand,” he said, explaining that prices for some Sobha developments have been reduced for the summer, but that prices have not gone down because of difficulty in selling.

It is instead a promotion on registration fees, which he said is purely a limited offer till the end of July for investors and end-users only.

“Anything in the centre of town will always sell. We are in the centre fortunately and have already sold 70% of Phase 1 and 2 of the development.

The first phase of the Hartland Greens apartments will be handed over by the end of the year and completion of the Hartland Estates Villas is expected by December 2018.

“[The adjustment] is just because we have brought in a new product to the market,” he said of the decrease in pricing recently.

Earlier this month, property consultancy CBRE reported that residential sales values in Dubai have shown modest declines in a trend expected to continue in H2 2017.

Despite reports of a slowdown in the city’s property market, Sachdev said that the market is still going strong and that it will only improve towards the end of the year.

“It is always slow at this time of the year,” he said, referring to the summer months in Dubai. “But the first five months of the year were good, and we are expecting it to pick up again by August.

“When 270,000 new dwellings are needed in a year, and only 15,000 units are being produced, I don’t think there would be an oversupply. There is still a demand,” he said.

JLL reported in April that the property market will not see a recovery before late 2017 in its Q1 2017 Dubai Real Estate Market Overview report.

Sachdev echoed these sentiments, saying he expects the market to pick up by the end of the year and does not believe that prices will fall any further.

“You can live in Sohbha Hartland community from around $197,495 (AED 725,400) all the way up to $9.5m (AED35m). We are trying to cater to everyone. All of these are luxury products, but we are trying to fit everyone’s price points,” he added.

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