Rera Delays Rent Index Update

The Real Estate Regulatory Agency (Rera) has delayed publishing an updated index of rents for Dubai, due in April, because of delays in gathering data.An agency spokesperson said the index would now be published at a later date, after a survey to be carried out sometime in summer. Dubai’s first rent index was issued in January, aimed at providing more transparency to the rental market and to replace a rent cap issued annually. The January index reflects figures from the latter half of 2008 when rental prices were at their peak. It has drawn fire from real estate agents and residents alike for giving numbers way above averages in the market today. The updated index was expected to help tenants by providing a more accurate picture of average rent prices. A spokeswoman for the authority said that data was not available yet. “It is not ready at the moment, but they are working on it,” she added. According to another Rera official Karim Awwad, a new survey will be carried out on the market in the summer.

We are not making any changes to the existing figures, we are just going to be updating the areas that were not mentioned in the last index,” he was quoted as saying by AME Info. Vincent Easton, an independent property analyst, said that Rera may be trying to draw a more accurate picture of the market. “They got a lot of bad press last time they released the rent index so they might just be waiting now to see if they can get it right this time. Speaking in February, CEO of Rera Marwan bin Ghalita said that rents had fallen by up to 50 per cent in some areas of Dubai from figures published in the index. “If we needed to replace the current rent index we needed an alternative. The new rent index should be released by April but it could be sooner,” he said at the time. Further, he had said that the new index will be populated by figures from the Ejari website — through which estate agents have been required to register new contracts. According to industry insiders however, there has been a low take up of the scheme, which could explain the delay.