Dubai’s Nakheel Sells Land Worth Aed419 Mln; Sees High End Demand

Dubai-based real estate developer Nakheel PJSC said demand for high end properties in the emirate remains strong as the builder of the city’s showpiece artificial islands ringed up sales of more than 419 million U.A.E. dirhams ($114 million) over the past few days.

The deals for land plots in Nakheel ‘s man-made Palm Jumeirah island and Jumeirah Village Circle developments were concluded in “less than a week,” the company’s chairman Ali Rashid Lootah told Zawya Dow Jones in a telephone call. “We received interest regarding some plots in Jumeirah Village, for example, last Wednesday, and concluded the negotiations with successful sales in less than a week.”

The company sold a 72,000 square foot residential villa plot for AED104.4 million and a 155,000 sqft residential plot on the Palm trunk for AED202 million. It also sold 122 residential villa plots in Jumeirah Village Circle, with transactions there exceeding AED113 million.

“The high-end property market is strongly bouncing back,” said Mr. Lootah adding he is “very optimistic” when it comes to Dubai’s property sector for the coming months as investor confidence rises.

Mr. Lootah’s upbeat outlook of the Dubai real estate market is backed up by industry analysts.

Market sentiment in Dubai “is becoming increasingly positive and that is likely to foster growing interest levels as we move into 2013,” Matthew Green, an analyst at CBRE said earlier this month.

Dow Jones