Ramadan rush for properties

No online appointments for completing property registration are available until August 14 at the Dubai Land Department (DLD), real estate agents have told Emirates 24|7.

“We went to take an appointment and got dates from August 14,” a senior official of a top property brokerage firm said. “There is a huge rush at the department which is generally not the case during Ramadan. We even hear that banks are not getting appointments despite being allocated a certain quota,” he added.

A senior DLD official, who requested anonymity, admitted there has been a rush with online appointments booked for weeks. He, however, added the department had appointed a ‘registration trustees’ service, that allows the completion of customer transactions outside official working hours through licensed legal offices.

“We have opened new registration offices and people can use them to complete their transactions.”

There are currently four registration centres with the department planning to increase the number to 10 by September.

Registration trustees will initially be handling sales, mortgages and leasing by accepting customer applications and sending them to the DLD for processing and printing. These will then be returned the next day by office or courier.

According to DLD, the total value of property transactions in the emirate rose by over 30 per cent to reach Dh108 billion compared to Dh80 billion registered in first half of 2012.

Total number of transactions reached 30,469, a 30 per cent increase when compared to the same period last year.

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

The emirate is ranked fourth in the list of 29 global cities. 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.

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