World's best-performing rental market: Dubai

Dubai has topped the list of best performing rental markets in the world, according to Knight Frank.

The latest Prime Global Rental Index report by UK-based consultancy reveals rents in the emirate rose by 18.3 per cent in the year to March.
Rental values in Dubai are up 10.1 per cent in the last six months while it rose by 3.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2013.

National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) said last week that average rents in Dubai rose by three per cent in June alone to Dh74.2 per square foot, taking the annual increase to 16.35 per cent.

Reidin.com’s residential property lease index, however, registered a rise of 1.80 per cent in May and 11.9 per cent annual increase.
Hong Kong, New York and London were listed among the weakest performers, registering falls of 2.3 per cent, 2.6 per cent and 3.1 per cent, respectively, the report said.

Nairobi and Beijing rose 13.9 per cent and 12.3 per cent, respectively, and were ranked second and third best performing rental markets in the world.

Globally, the prime global rental index rose by 0.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2013 and by 3.8 per cent in the year to March.

The index has risen for 15 consecutive quarters and stands 20.3 per cent above its low in the second quarter of 2009.
The Middle East was the best performer with prime rents rising 13.1 per cent and North America the weakest, falling 0.7 per cent.

"Prime rents are rising strongly in many emerging markets, but this growth is being overshadowed by weakening rents in some of the world’s more established financial centres such as Hong Kong, New York and London," Knight Frank said in its report.

"Global mobility is on the rise as companies look to plug their skills gap but the latest figures suggest it is increasingly a west to east shift with many multinationals relocating a growing portion of their key talent to growth markets in Africa, China and the Middle East," the consultancy said.

In May, Knight Frank's first quarter 2013 Prime Global Cities Index revealed that property prices in Dubai had risen 18.3 per cent in the past one year (March 2012 to March 2013), with the emirate maintaining it's position among the top five best performing real estate markets in the world.

Prices rose 5.4 per cent in the last three months (December 2012 to March 2013), the third highest in among the global cities compared.

Ranked higher than prime markets such as Monaco, London, Hong Kong and Moscow, Dubai is to the only city from the Middle East on the list.
 

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