Villas or Apartments?

A shortage of villas on the market?

With the supply of apartments available for freehold purchase far outstripping the supply of villas, it's no wonder that the Dubai property market is seeing a serious imbalance of demand between the two. While there are large quantities of high-rise buildings appearing all over the place, especially in the Dubai Marina area, the development of villas is a lot lower due to the square footage that houses cover. Basically, villas are less profitable than apartments that are stacked on top of each other twenty stories high.

With a large amount of the expatriate community, villas are more popular. More space, a garden and close to the ground. Living in Jumeirah has always been a favourable option based on the lack of apartments and dominance of low level villas. Applying this idea to the freehold market has resulted in successful villa projects like the Meadows, the Springs and Emirates Hills, but this supply of housing remains dwarfed by residential developments that only offer apartments.

As a result of this, the price per square foot for villas has risen over the past year, over 30 percent in 2006, while apartments have seen very little change in this booming market. Small quantities of villas on offer have seen high levels of interest while shifting apartments has been more of a challenge.

In light of this situation, perhaps developers have learned that investors are not necessarily looking for box standard apartments with limited space to call home, but something different that offers similar features to villas. Some new developments are promoting larger apartments, lofts and penthouses, featuring terraces and even garden space in an effort to attract the people that prefer a villa lifestyle to apartment living.