What update?

What update?

Rera officials indicated in February that the rental index will be updated and published in early April. It’s not happening.

March 31, 2009 3:11 by Dana El Baltaji

An official at the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (Rera) has said that the authority has no plans of reviewing the rental index, in spite of statements issued by Rera’s CEO, Marwan bin Ghalita, of the contrary, reports AME Info.

“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,” said Karim Awwad, “we will be conducting a new survey in summer of this year.”

However, Rera indicated at a press conference in February that due to drastic changes in the rental market, the index will be updated. The authority advised the media that the index would be published at the beginning of April.

‘We will know [the updates] from the beginning of April, because people have just started registering on ejari and it is from this that we will know the drop,’ Marwan bin Ghalita, Rera’s CEO told reporters. Ejari is the website where landlords must register tenancy contracts.

The much anticipated rental index was released in January, but was criticized heavily by Dubai’s residents for ignoring the falls in rents and reflecting market conditions in mid 2008, when Dubai’s prices reached their peaks.

According to the rental index, yearly fees that fall below the average charge for a particular district can be increased by landlords up to 20 percent.

Media reports suggest rental prices have fallen 40-60 percent since the financial crisis hit Dubai’s market; and a report by Egyptian investment bank EFG-Hermes indicated that rents are likely to fall between 20 and 50 percent in 2009 compared with a 15 percent increase during the same period in 2008, reports Arabian Business.

‘Everyone recognizes that rental rates are falling in Dubai,’ Better Homes MD Ryan Mahoney told AME Info. ‘As a result I would encourage Rera to regularly update the index, because if it’s not updated and kept in line with this fast-moving market people will simply stop referring to it.’