Buyers return but Dubai real estate faces long road to recovery

Buyers return but Dubai real estate faces long road to recovery

Dubai's economy - reliant on trade, tourism and its international reputation as a regional hub for business services - was hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic last year as firms slashed jobs. Many foreign workers, needed to support demand in a real estate sector that contributed 7.2% of GDP in 2019, left.Yet market activity has picked up in the last six months, after lockdowns and curfews were lifted, estate agents say, helping to stabilise prices for family villas and high-end beach and golf course properties.Realtor Matthew Bate, whose agency Nest deals mainly in high-end villas, says business has become much busier in the past few months as nationals, residents and foreign visitors took the opportunity to buy."We did have some distressed assets coming out of the COVID-19 lockdown. Now I would say we are back up into early 2020, 2019 prices," he said.While much of the world re-imposed coronavirus restrictions this winter tourist season, Dubai welcomed visitors and the UAE started one of the world's fastest vaccination campaigns."We had a huge influx of tourists... it exposed a lot of people to Dubai ... The last 2-3 clients we had, dealing with properties over 15 million AED ($4.08 million), they have