Egyptian cities are growing rapidly, with an average annual national population growth rate of 2-3% over the past decades. As a result, the country has approximately 1 million new citizens to house every 8 months, says a recent report issued by OLX.
The report also presented insightful data on the property market trends by comparing two of the major cities in the Middle East.
OLX chose Cairo, a historical bustling city, and Dubai, an ideal representative of modern organized cities, to provide indicative data for property seekers.
The comparative review highlights the property prices for the rent and sale of a 1-bedroom apartment in Cairo vs. Dubai, taking into consideration up-market communities in both cities.
OLX Egypt 2016 data showed the top locations searched for in Cairo are Nasr City, Al Maadi, Sheikh Zayed, Heliopolis, and the Fifth Settlement.
These results demonstrate the Egyptian property trend moving towards urbanisation, as property seekers are on the look-out for areas such as the Fifth Settlement and Sheikh Zayed, where the long-term investment is worthwhile as prices are always on the rise.
Moreover, these areas are usually associated with a higher social-economic class of residents. On the other hand, areas such as Nasr City, Al Maadi, and Heliopolis remain a preference for people who are looking for proximity to the downtown area where governmental services are available.
In Dubai, the average median rent for a 1-bedroom apartment per month for a property in a prime district costs around EGP 28,500. While in Cairo, renting a 1-bedroom apartment would require a budget of EGP 5,000 per month.
The median price for a 1-bedroom apartment in Dubai is EGP 7,800,000, which is over seven times the price of a 1-bedroom apartment in Cairo, which costs EGP 1,000,000.
Commenting on these market insights, Momtaz Moussa, OLX’s general manager of Egypt, said, “Egypt is a massive market with substantial potential for growth, not only for local investors, but also for Egyptians who live outside of Egypt and are interested in investing.”
“The recent EGP flotation has contributed to increasing the investments in residential real estate. This confirms our findings from our study that was presented during Cityscape Egypt 2017 and showed a 51% increase in traffic from the GCC,” he added.
The cost-of-living index in Dubai is approximately 186.15% higher than in Cairo, with the city ranked 196 out of 517 cities in the world, with an index of 72.61.
Local Purchasing power in Cairo is 76.92% lower than in Dubai, with the cost of living ranked 511 in the world, with an index of 25.37.
According to the report, last year witnessed substantial economic changes due to currency fluctuations in Cairo.
This shifted the users’ preference from reaching out to brokers for the next property purchase or rental, towards online search on OLX Property in Egypt where they have an overall view on the market prices. Therefore, their decision on the next property for sale or rent is built upon extensive research and comparisons, as users tend to spend an average of 14 minutes each visit on OLX Property.
When it comes to buying and selling apartments, OLX Property received an average of 3.4 million visits per month in 2016.
It is also worth mentioning that each user visited the OLX Property four times per month in 2016. Egyptians spent a total of +63m minutes browsing OLX Property in 2016.