Dubai: The real estate market has experienced a rise in the number of transactions compared to the same time last year, the Dubai Land Department said.

In department figures for the first five months of this year, 3,642 land sales were registered, worth a total Dh25 billion.

The sales comprised a combined area of 62,815 square feet, the department said.

The Reidin.com website’s Dubai Focus section said there were 4,961 residential sales transacted in all of 2009.

The Land Department figures also revealed that in the first five months of this year 3,750 mortgages were registered worth Dh32 billion. The mortgages applied to a total of 95,460 square feet.

The department’s assistant director-general Mohammad Sultan Thani said: “While we may see less value there are many more transactions on a daily basis compared to last year.”

In other figures compiled by the Reidin.com website’s Dubai Focus section, sales of residential properties numbered 3,169 from the beginning of January through May. Slightly more than 10 per cent of these transactions were mortgaged.

Apartments represented 2,927 of these transactions, of which around 10 per cent were mortgaged.

Villas comprised 241 sales, of which about a quarter were mortgaged.

“There are more transactions than last year, the numbers show a bottoming out of the market and a flat trend,” said Reidin.com CEO Ahmet Kayhan.

Residential units

However residential sales figures for this year were not expected to reach the 10,845 of 2007 or the 7,638 of 2008.

Real estate industry experts also said while transactions might be higher, prices were not.
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