UAE tenants are less confident that they are likely to win further rent concessions from their landlords when their current lease expires.

Investors seizing the opportunity in the current real estate market are behind the improved sentiment in the UAE real estate market, said a chief economist.

The real estate market has been at a low as coronavirus wiped out markets globally, but while prices remain low now, there is an expected boom ahead.

Christopher Payne, chief economist at investment and research company Peninsula, explained that it is “not unreasonable” to think the market cycle has reached near bottom, given prices have fallen by around 10 percent in 2020.

Peninsula’s Home Sentiment Survey, which measured consumer sentiment towards the residential property market at the end of Q4 2020, indicated that 53 percent of respondents said they are expecting prices and rents to stabilise or go up in the next year, a sharp turnaround from October when only 31 percent were bullish on price increases.

Only 27 percent of respondents reported expecting prices to continue to decline, with 30 percent expecting price stability. The largest group, 43 percent, expect prices to rise in the coming 12 months.