Dubai’s real estate market recorded its first quarterly fall in prime rents since 2011 in the first three months of 2015, according to the latest Knight Frank’s Prime Global Rental Index, which showed that rental values rose 1.4% over the past 12 months, but a 0.6% drop during Q1.

‘This was broadly in line with the UAE’s non-oil economy which grew at a notably weaker pace in the first quarter of 2015. This is likely to have hit confidence, and thus tenant demand for luxury residential properties in the emirate,’ the Knight Frank report said.

Dubai was ranked the eighth best performing rental market out of 18 covered around the world during the first quarter. A year ago prime rents worldwide were rising on average by 3.5% per annum but this figure has now slipped to 1.3%, its slowest rate of growth since the first quarter of 2010, Knight Frank said.

Tokyo led the annual rankings for the second consecutive quarter in Q1 with prime rents up 8.1% while Africa and North America recorded the strongest rise in prime rents of the world regions, rising on average by 4.3% and 3.2% respectively on an annual basis.