Chinese investors turning to UAE property market for value appreciation

Chinese investors turning to UAE property market for value appreciation

With China dropping its Zero-COVID policy and permitting its citizens to travel and invest overseas, Chinese investors seeking value appreciation find the UAE property market an excellent avenue to park their money.

Farhad Azizi, CEO of Azizi Developments, told Zawya Projects that Chinese investors were major buyers of Dubai real estate in the first quarter.

"Chinese investors accounted for 12 percent of all Dubai property transactions [in the first quarter], which marks a significant rise from eight percent recorded during the same period last year," he said.

"We are seeing this surge in interest firsthand in our property sales, with a similar figure being reflected in our transactions," he said, adding that the company is selling substantially more units per day than it did in the peak year of 2019.

In the first quarter of 2023, real estate sales transactions in Dubai grew 50 percent year-on-year (YOY) in volume to touch 30,852 units. In terms of value, the growth was 60 percent YOY to touch 88.56 billion UAE dirhams ($24 billion), according to Dubai Land Department (DLD) data.

Developers upbeat

Azizi's sentiment reverberates with developers and consultants across the sector. "There are over AED1 billion worth of real estate transactions per day. It is the first