The sale of properties with a value of over Dh5 million and Dh10 million reached a record level but overall sales in the prime and super-prime segments dropped last year.
According to real estate consultancy CBRE, properties with a value of over Dh5 million and Dh10 million saw 10,296 and 3,806 transactions, respectively, in 2023.
This represents an increase of 54.5 per cent and 68.4 per cent, respectively.
It said off-plan sales accounted for 67.2 per cent and 70.8 per cent of total transaction volumes of Dh5 million plus and Dh10 million-plus properties, respectively.
It further added that the level of demand has been such that the vast majority of sales in these two segments have occurred in relatively nascent developments, where many of these developments are still only emerging as prime locations.
Prime and super-prime areas are defined as Downtown Dubai, Emirates Hills, Jumeirah Bay Island, Palm Jumeirah and District One. Prime properties refer to properties sold in these areas for more than Dh5 million, and super-prime properties are those sold for more than Dh10 million.
The total volume of sales transactions within the prime and super-prime segments declined by 15.5 per cent and 3.1 per cent, respectively.
Palm Jumeirah registered the highest volume of transactions in both the prime and super-prime market segments, with the total number of units sold worth more than Dh5 million standing at 963 and the total number of properties sold above Dh10 million reaching 593.
Price growth
Average prices within the prime segment of the market stood at Dh4,604 per square foot in Q4 2023, an increase of 22.5 per cent from a year earlier, led by Jumeirah Bay Island and District One, where average prices grew by 35.6 per cent and 27.2 per cent year-on-year. The average sales value of prime residential assets within the communities that CBRE monitors reached Dh28.3 million.
In the super-prime segment, average prices grew 20.4 per cent in the year to Q4 2023, reaching Dh4,900 per square foot.
Jumeirah Bay Island and District One recorded the most significant increases in their average sales rates of 28.5 per cent and 22.4 per cent, respectively. Super-prime units within selected submarkets monitored by CBRE registered average selling prices of Dh34.1 million in the last quarter of the year, supported by high-value transactions on Emirates Hills and Jumeirah Bay Island.
“In the year ahead, we expect that given the lack of new supply, price growth in the prime and super-prime segments of the market are likely to remain relatively strong, although we do expect the rate of price growth to taper off somewhat slightly,” said Taimur Khan, head of research for Mena at CBRE in Dubai.