DUBAI: Dubai will double the registration fee charged on real estate transactions in an effort to prevent excessive speculation in its property market, a top official said yesterday.
The fee will increase to 4 percent from 2 percent on October 6, Sultan Butti bin Mejren, Director General of the government’s Land Department, said. Warehouses and industrial property will be excluded from the increase.
“It will affect the quick selling of property,” he said. “It will limit the flipping of property and protect the market.”
“Flipping” is buying and selling properties in quick succession to make speculative profits.
Apartment prices are up about 20 percent this year, helped by an influx of foreign money. Sultan Butti said he did not believe a new bubble was forming.
Sultan Butti said real estate transactions in Dubai totalled Dh162bn ($44bn) so far this year, up from Dh90bn in the same period a year earlier.
Reuters
