About 70% of UAE residents prefer to rent rather than buy property, despite half of them having resided in the country for five years or more, revealed a survey by UAE real estate website propertyfinder.ae. The findings come in spite of decreasing property prices in the past two years. They are also contrary to those of European counterparts such as England and Wales, where 64% of residents own property and only 36% rent it, Arabian Business reported. The main reason for 69% of residents in the UAE is high prices, inability to raise necessary deposit, or inability to qualify for the loan amount required to borrow, according to the survey. However, property enquiries on the propertyfinder.ae website are the highest they have been since 2014 as 54% of UAE residents are staying in the country longer than they had initially expected. The UAE introduced a mortgage cap regulation in January 2014 that requires expats to pay a 25% minimum deposit for properties under AED 5 million ($1.3 million) and 35% minimum deposit for properties above AED 5 million.
