Super prime for half the price: is now the time to invest in Dubai property?
For years, the cranes tangling Dubai’s skyline have stood idle. After a frenzied period of construction flooded the market with homes, some developments struggled to sell even half their properties. Interest, and work, quickly dried up.
Yet now, finally, the cranes are creaking back into action. The arrival of the World Expo in 2020, estimated to bring in more than 20 million visitors, has renewed building mania in the city and highlights Dubai’s rapid transformation from a fishing village into a global centre of wealth. After all, its name is derived from an Arabic proverb meaning “they came with a lot of money”.
“‘Luxury’ is the most overused word in Dubai,” says Maria Morris of Knight Frank. “The city’s property market took a severe hit a few years ago and prices dropped significantly, but since then there’s been more different styles and trends emerging as developers begin to realise what buyers really want.”
So how is luxury being redefined in the Gulf? With sweeping views over the mangrove-covered lagoons of a new wildlife sanctuary and miniature tropical rainforests filling garden squares, Sobha Realty’s Hartland hardly fits the glass-and-steel stereotypes you’d expect from Dubai’s prime property market.
Yet the new development of waterside villas, townhouses and apartments along the Dubai canal has piqued international interest. “Until recently, the thinking here was: how glitzy can you make it? How much glass can you put on it?” explains Tirthankar Ganguly of Sobha. “But we believe what people really want is different.”
Sobha Hartland shuns the towering apartment blocks so typical of the city − the development’s tallest building stands at just 29 storeys (tiny by the UAE’s standards) − and around 30 per cent of the site will be green space.
“For a long time, Dubai has lacked that sense of community you find in places in Europe,” explains Ganguly. “In high-rise developments it’s hard for people to know their neighbours. That’s why we’ve chosen to create fewer intimidating buildings; when you’re on a level plain it’s easier for people to connect with one another.”
The prices are friendly, too: buyers pay from £170,000 for a studio apartment, although the six-bedroom canalside villas with private yacht mooring are available by invitation only.
The more European style of old-school luxury touted at Sobha Hartland chimes with the general drive in Dubai at the moment to attract more expat buyers. Over the past year, the UAE’s government has introduced a raft of legislation to make life easier for foreign buyers, such as new expat retirement visas and five and 10-year residencies for investors and highly skilled workers. There is also increased support for those wanting to start a business in the country.
“Brits have always been among the largest groups of expats in Dubai,” says Morris. “The new visas, the more mature offering in the property market, and the fact there’s no additional tax for foreign buyers, all help to make Dubai very appealing at the moment.”
The estate agency is selling residences in what it is styling as the city’s first ever “super-prime” development, the Royal Atlantis, where around one in five buyers is from the UK.
Sitting on the tip of Dubai’s man-made Palm Island, the Royal Atlantis will offer every service the discerning expat could desire, including private jet bookings and dinner by Heston Blumenthal. Prices for a two-bedroom apartment start from around £1.4 million; garden villas and vast apartments cost considerably more.
“We’re seeing more of the sophistication that buyers are used to in the prime property markets of Europe and America,” explains Morris. “It’s not just the size and scale but the lifestyle that matters. You’ve got to create a space that is phenomenal on the inside as well as outside.”
And while the Gulf is fast catching up with the West in terms of choice, prices remain relatively affordable. Research by Savills shows that $1 million (£798,550) will buy 1,600 sq ft of prime property in Dubai, around triple the space you get could get in New York or London, and almost seven times more than what it would buy in Monaco.
With a new opera house and plans to transform the Mina Rashid port into a sailing destination worthy of any in Monte Carlo, Dubai is also shaping up to be a great place for adventurous European retirees. “Previously, people would come here with a two-year mindset,” says Ganguly. “Now they are looking to it as a permanent home.”
An article by Marianna Hunt, 29 JULY 2019, Daily Telegraph UK