jamiestarr

Gosh, off come the gloves. Here are some pictures. Please judge for yourselves.

commander

Gosh, freddie; the pictures of the meadows and springs looks great also, 4 years on, they are beginning to crack, sag and in grave need of an uplift...like your average Jumeriah Jane

So you've bought? Or work for one of the 2 mentioned earlier,

jamiestarr

Hi - neither actually, I walked in last week and had a look until the security guard ushered me away. I took the pictures to show my wife, but it's probably to far out for us. We're new in town, so wanted to see whether it was worth buying. They are definitely budget buildings with corners cut.

commander

I did exactly the same thing. Turn up have a look round. I thought they were shite for the money they are asking. If the top end one was going for around 100K GBP then fair enough (I still would NEVER buy here though)

jamiestarr

I agree - someone who commented on this forum earlier stating that Al Reef were initially designed as budget outfits is definitely telling the truth.

You will not find any "grohe" taps, but just the cheap and nasty stuff.

However, in its defence I will add that an engineer friend (from Germany(!) - and no, he's not Polish), who accompanied me on my visit to Al Reef, did say that, from a purely structural perspective, the building looked rather sound.

Seriously though, I was just trying to answer that ultimate question when we first arrived - is it better to buy or rent?

commander

Rent rent rent. In my opinion of course, too many unknowns. Buy a house, you NEVER own the land its built on. You have an accident or an incident with someone with serious Wasta, and you lose your visa (I.e you get banned) so you have a house that you can't visit.

Your always a visitor here, ALWAYS

jamiestarr

Hey man (I presume you are!)

Thanks - that's true and given the chances of being thrown in jail for defaulting on mortgage payments (or loosing your job) the stakes, in my view, are very high.

We will rent for now, but it's extremely tempting to want to buy after seeing the new shiny villas of our friends in Dubai's Arabia Ranches. Knowing that they're housing allowances are going to pay off a mortgage as opposed to going to a greedy landlord (or lady, in our case) who doesn't want to do any maintenance and simply wants rent.

commander

Arabian ranches, yea I'd have loved to have bought one of the lake view villa's only to find that the lake got filled in....

I see your point regarding using the housing allowance. Still I've had chances to buy over the last 5 years and I haven't.

Prob explains why I'm not rich though!!

busybee2

hey join the club, but as i keep saying would we buy, nope....!

soukie

Totally agree - it's best to travel light here. No debts, return ticket in your drawer and the key to your own front door back home.

Squirty Cream

This is when your brutal honesty is particularly valuable!! I received some other worthwhile advice today which means that I don't have to waste my time going for a viewing.

jamiestarr

The other issue is that we're expected to put down at least 40% (and other conditions paying salary into bank a/c etc.) before getting any finance secured. That's far too many eggs in one basket for my liking.