Portals Around The World Report on Spring Moving Season

The UAE-based horizontal marketplace Dubizzle has reported a significant year-on-year increase in the number of visits to its property pages. In the 12 months to March 2024, the Emirati marketplace saw 43.5% more page views in its real estate category than in the previous year.

Last year the UAE market experienced a mini-boom with a CBRE report claiming that average residential prices increased by 20.1% in the year to December 2023.

Dubizzle is part of the Dubizzle Group which also includes the specialist real estate vertical platform Bayut where pageviews have likely been increasing at a similar rate. Despite the buoyant Emirati market, the group's Pakistani portal (Zameen) has been experiencing the harsh effects of political and economic turmoil.

Below: a recent PPW Podcast episode with Dubizzle Group CEO and co-founder, Imran Ali Khan.
In The UK, real estate portal operator Zoopla says that the housing market improved "across all key metrics" in the first three months of 2024. The number of sales agreed increased 9% year-on-year while sellers are accepting an average £10,000 (3.9%) discount to the asking price to secure a sale.

The signs augur well for a more balanced market in 2024 according to Richard Donnell, Executive Director at Zoopla.

“Rising wages and falling mortgage rates have boosted consumer confidence and this is feeding into improving levels of housing market activity over the first quarter of 2024. House prices are falling at a slower rate but it remains a buyers market where there is much greater choice of homes for sale.

We don't believe that house prices are about to increase more quickly but there is more buyer interest. Sellers need to remain realistic on where they set the asking price if they are to take advantage of improving market conditions to secure a sale and move home in 2024”

In Denmark, leading real estate portal Boligsiden reports that the number of homes for sale is at its highest level since November 2019.

A report published by the agent-owned portal showed that for the first time since the beginning of December last year, the monthly supply of apartments has increased. At the beginning of April, there were 7,696 owner-occupied apartments for sale, 1.6% more than in March.

Although the supply of all types of housing was up at the start of April, the supply of holiday homes was up a whopping 32% compared to last year.

"Spring is starting to warm up on the housing market, which shows, among other things, in the form of a budding desire to sell. More homes also usually come up for sale during the spring months, but an increase of just under five percent for the houses is definitely on the high end when we compare with recent years," says Birgit Daetz, housing economist and communications director at Boligsiden.

The picture isn't so rosy in Spain where idealista reports that it saw 55% more contacts per rental listing in the first quarter of 2024 than in the comparison period of 2023.

The Madrid-based portal operator says that it has seen rental supply decrease and prices rise by 12.6% in the last year and puts the blame squarely on controversial government policy-

Francisco Iñareta, idealista spokesperson said, "These figures show that the destruction of supply caused by rental policies continues to worsen the possibilities of accessing housing, with a special impact on young people and vulnerable families.”

Idealista's figures show that the problem is especially pronounced in Madrid and Barcelona where the average rental listing receives at least 40 leads.