Real Estate

Egyptians show sudden interest in Dubai property

March 11, 2025, 2:54 PM

A water taxi on Dubai Creek. The number of Egyptian buyers of Dubai property increased by 61% in 2025

Egyptian buyers up 150% in 2025
Indians still top overall list
Value of Dubai sales rises 40%

Egyptians are leading the way in the Dubai property market in terms of the rate of increase of buyers by nationality.

In the first two months of this year, the number of Egyptians buying in the Dubai property market more than doubled – up 150 percent – over the same two-month period in 2024, according to real estate agency Better Homes.

That built on a 61 percent surge in Egyptian nationals across all of 2024 compared with the year before, according to Dubai-based rival Allsopp & Allsopp.

The most populous Arab country and the third-largest Arab economy, Egypt devalued its currency by more than 60 percent last March and raised interest rates by six percentage points. The currency has just about held its value since, with borrowing rates at little over 28 percent.

By contrast, the UAE dirham has long been pegged to the US dollar and the Emirates interbank offered rate hovers at around 4.3 percent.

Among foreign nationals, Egyptians are the fifth-biggest buyers of Dubai property after Indians, Saudis, Britons and Pakistanis, according to Global Property Guide. Egyptian nationals account for about 4 percent of the UAE population of 11 million. Close to 4 million people live in Dubai.

The number of US nationals buying in the Dubai property market doubled in 2024.

Last month, the number of Dubai property sales jumped by more than a third to 16,000 compared with the same month last year, according to developer Fäm Properties, while the total value of sales was up almost 40 percent at AED51 billion ($14 billion) over the same period.

Property prices fell in January, by 0.6 percent, for the first time since mid-2022.

Egypt might lower its borrowing rates as soon as next month, according to economic insight company Capital Economics, following a sharp decline in inflation to under 13 percent in February from almost double that in January.