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Dubai: Residents have breathed a collective sigh of relief after hearing that annual rent increases in Dubai are being limited to seven per cent.
Those living in rental property have said they feared they would have to bring in extra tenants, cut down on leisure activities such as shopping trips or even move into a smaller place if they had been faced with an increase on rent this year of as much as 15 per cent.
Instead, most Dubai residents Gulf News spoke to yesterday after the news had become widely known said rental rises of up to seven per cent would be manageable.
Rajan Ayyappan said he thought many people who live in Dubai with their family would have been forced to send them back had bigger increases been on the cards.
"Already rents have increased a lot. Rent is too much. [If rents continued to increase rapidly] it would have affected my savings. I save about 40 per cent of my income 60 per cent goes on expenses," he said.
Syrian interior designer Firas Kasar, 26, said he would have considered downsizing his accommodation.
"If you take Dh10,000 a month you might not take a villa, you might take a studio," he said.
Stuart Bonner, 31, a property consultant from the United Kingdom, has already taken steps to address the increase in rental costs by moving from Dubai to Sharjah.
"At the moment we are paying Dh55,000. For the same property in Dubai, we would be paying Dh140,000. As long as landlords take notice of the ruling and it's a legal requirement, it will be useful," he said.
Gary Toombs, 34, a government employee also from the United Kingdom, said continued high rent rises could have forced him to move back to his home country.
"My employer pays a part of my rent, but even so it was getting very expensive. Last year it went up 15 per cent and if it had gone up 15 per cent again we would probably have moved. We would've probably gone back to the UK. Seven per cent is good for us," he said.
Priya Sujeet, 35, from India, who works as HR manager for Nissan Middle East, said high rental costs "affect every aspect of your life".
"I would have had to have looked for a change of job or a move to another emirate [if rents had continued to go up rapidly]," she said.
Similarly, Mohammad Khan, 28, an IT worker from India, said he would have considered moving outside Dubai if his rent had gone up again.
"I couldn't afford to stay in Dubai. Fifteen per cent would have been really too much," he said.
Danish operations manager Bob Boersen, 31, said another 15 per cent increase would have had a "quite harsh" effect on him. "I was getting into the situation where I would've had to have moved out or had another person living with us.
"My rent renewal is coming up in April and I thought I was going to get hammered. I'm very pleased with it [the new ruling]. I am glad it was released instantly on January 1," he said.
Customer assurance worker Shakir Uddin Ahmad, 43, from Pakistan, said further big rental increases would have affected his lifestyle.
"There would have been less frequent visits to the malls. However, with seven per cent, that is manageable," he said.
Architect Eric Cuna, 26, from the Philippines, said a rental increase of 15 per cent would have "greatly affected" him.
"I was worried. Fifteen per cent is a big thing as your salary doesn't increase in line with it. I would've gone back [to the Philippines] I guess. Seven per cent is much better," he said.
Erin Schenk, 28, an air stewardess from Australia, said she and her partner currently pay Dh65,000 to rent a property in The Greens.
"I was happy when I read that [report on the seven per cent limit]. If it had gone up a large amount, I think we would have economised bought fewer luxuries but we wouldn't moved because we like the place we are in.
"Maybe we would've got fewer clothes dry-cleaned and done more at home, and perhaps we would've eaten out less," she said.
Fellow air stewardess Kyong Hyun Park, 28, from South Korea, lives in company accommodation so she does not have to worry about rent increases. However, like many others she too was pleased to see the ruling.
"I think it's good in the long term. I am from Korea and there the property market has increased very dramatically. I think this cap on rents will be effective to stop that happening here. It's a good idea," she said.
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