Despite overall declining property prices, there are many communities in Dubai that have been outperforming most global yields, such as International City which has an average 9.9 per cent gross yield and IMPZ at 8.7 per cent, based on asking prices from the last three months for both apartments and villas, said a report by leading real estate portal Property Finder Group.

Newly completed residential supply for December saw 482 villas added to the communities in Nad Al Sheba area of Dubai. Additionally, Dubailand and IMPZ added 203 and 128 apartments, respectively, to their ever growing roster, stated the report.

Property Finder research calculated that 14,707 residential units had a completion status of at least 95 per cent in October 2018 and were expected by the end of the year. However, of that figure, only 2,792 have been completed, pushing the remainder of that expected supply for 2019 completion.

Looking forward to 2019, projects with a 65 per cent completion status and 2019 completion date amount to 33,982 residential units, stated the report.

Lynnette Abad, the director for research and data, at Property Finder Group, said: "2019 is going to be an interesting year when it comes to completion of projects and new supply."

"As we have seen this year, the amount of total new completed supply has increased by about 30 per cent compared to the last few years where new supply hovered in the 15,000 range each year," explained Abad.

"Also, the materialisation rate increased in 2018 which we are expecting to see again in 2019 due to continued pressure to have projects completed gearing up towards 2020," she added.

Elsewhere, in the northern emirate of Ajman, a total of 1,139 apartments were added on the corniche. Ajman is actually the emirate that provides the highest yields in the UAE at an average of 8.4 per cent for apartments, stated the report.

Off-plan transferred sales for apartments, villas and townhouses amounted to 1,412 for the last month of the year. The secondary market saw 1,123 residential property sales and 62 commercial property sales for December.

Overall, the top five transacted communities were International City, Business Bay, Mohammed Bin Rashid City, Jumeirah Village Circle and Downtown Dubai, said the portal.

As per the data from Property Finder, the Dubai Marina and Downtown Dubai emerged as the top searched communities in Dubai, considering buy and rent searches for all property types, while Abu Dhabi’s most searched communities were Al Reem Island and Khalifa City.

For the Northern Emirates, Ajman Downtown and Al Majaz, Sharjah topped the list with the former being the focus of both one and two bedroom searches, it added.-TradeArabia News Service