Jammy_Dodgers

Just to steer this thread slightly back on track,

A question for you guys.....

We have all seen the figures for the amount of properties being released over the next few years, and the amount of high earning expats required to fill them.

However, with the process of nationalising the jobs, there will will less and less high paid roles being offered to expats and a subsequent lack of demand for apartments.
So with the training of local people, there will be less jobs for expats year on year.

Lets be honest, I cant see many locals wanting to live in a tower block, allowing there wife and daughters to use communial gyms and swimming pools etc.
Its also a status thing. Locals like their villa's and privacy, i cant see them buying tiny pokey apartments.

Surely this factor will also have an effect on the long term value of apartments

Miss Eck

The intriguing results of a fascinating survey have just been released by Dubai events organisers DSL Exhibitions – ahead of the company’s Resale and Rental Property Show they sought to question a broad and representative demographic mix of local residents and expatriates already living in the emirate about the property market in Dubai and also the construction industry and the future for the emirate in terms of its real estate industry.

The findings are really interesting - they reveal some anomalies, they reinforce some concerns and overall they paint an honest picture of the property market in Dubai and how it really is right now. In this article we summarise and analyse the results.

The initial section of the survey focused on supply of and demand for property in Dubai and ironically, the majority of respondents said that they felt there was over supply and a shortage of current demand for luxury apartments – and yet that is the vast majority of real estate stock waiting to come to the market and it is still the type of stock that most developers are planning on producing in the near term.

It’s not just a question of apartments being oversupplied but luxury apartments…those surveyed understood the need for high density building of residential property but advised that there was a lack, as far as they were concerned, of mid range apartments to buy and to let. Additionally mid range two and three bedroom villa homes were in demand with supply not sufficient to meet the current buying and renting market interest according to the respondents.

Ideally survey respondents felt the government should take action and guide constructors and developers to consider lower ends of the affordability bracket when it comes to the creation of new homes…luxury is not what everyone wants, demands and can afford.

When asked about the general effect the construction boom is having on life in Dubai 72% of all those surveyed stated categorically that the construction works have had a directly negative effect on quality of life because of congestion on the roads, damages to infrastructure caused etc., and that all in all the most worrying concern among all those questioned was the fact that rental rates in the emirate are now soaring as stock is late to the market and demand for housing is so intense.

These concerns may be allayed somewhat in light of the fact that for the second time in a row there have been rental rate increase caps announced for Dubai.

Those who were more upbeat about property in Dubai were those surveyed who were already on the property ladder in the emirate.

In terms of anomalies that the survey highlighted, there was a huge division of opinion about whether personal direct experience of and exposure to the property market in Dubai was positive or negative. Of those who said their experience was negative it was largely because of poor customer service encountered and of those who said their experience was positive the majority said it was because of good customer service encountered! This suggests that standards are not the same across all constructors, developers and agents and that there is the possibility of positive or negative prejudice in the property market.

92% of those surveyed demanded better regulation in the construction industry and a majority voted in favour of decentralisation of urban planning to take the strain of critical road arteries and real estate markets with almost everyone in favour of the government taking decisive action to improve the property market, ease traffic congestion, make rental rates more accessible and to make the whole property market safer to invest in.

Confucius

You had me at "intriguing"...

Madam Medusa

there's some interesting stuff there but geez, you do wish these companies would learn to write better press releases...i hate ploughing through to get to the salient points.

MM, xx

Miss Eck

Absolutely ... the reader just loses interest.

Eeyore

Not only that, but we're starting to get reports of high-paid Western expats being fired specifically so that their companies could replace them with cheaper staff, usually from the subcontinent. Okay, these people were often long-term expats who were on the expensive old-style feather-bed packages with everything paid for, but it could just be the thin end of the wedge, especially while Dubai continues to become an ever-more expensive place for companies to do business.

IndieG

But we already have low quality housing - JBR, Jumeirah islands, springs, meadows......so luxury is what I now demand (and affordable ).

Eeyore

That won't be a problem. Since landlords will have to rent their apartments out for whatever they can get, as opposed to what they would actually want to charge, lots of luxury apartments will become mid-range through simple market forces

diablo

So many of you to quote. But let's start with this one...if you invest 1,100,000 and get 180,00 per year what is the annual return? If it was 110,000 it would be 10%? Surely 180,000 is greater than 110,000 therefore return shopuld be greater than 10%?? Are you sure in your maths? You should calculate it like this - 180,000 : 1,100,000 = 0.1636 x 100 = 16.36%. Hmmmm what do you think?

By the way don't call me expat brat or any names. You have an argument - say it; no names no offences. I have a vested interest indeed. I bought 2 apartments in Marina at AED 580,000 and 630,000. One rented for a 3 year contract at AED 65,000 another just started for AED 80,000 per year. Both of them financed at around AED 40,000 per year. You do calculations - they pay for themselves. I thought that was smart. I bought 4 bed in JBR - 1,100,000 back in 2004 - it's home. Whether the price goes up or down - don't really care...it's home and for me is priceless. Some still want to buy it today for AED 2,500,000. Obviously there are still fools around who think it's worth it. So I hope in 10 years I'll pay them all. Whatever the value. That's my pension. Get the rent allowance from the company; I pay my apartment rather than you guys in Springs / Greens / Everywhere with those b#$&%@ who charge you through your nose.

I might be a fool but nobody screws me and increase my rent as they wish. I paid my own visa in Dubai so nobody tells me who to work for and what to do. My freedom is worth every dirham I invested. What's you argument? That I should wait to traffic in JBR?? Well I see traffic in Greens, Springs, Deira, Sharjah, etc etc. How worse can that be? How long do you travel to your happy places. What if thyere is a bomb, well I did some work in the UK AND THERE WAS A BOMB. I did work in Saudi. And there were many bombs and still people work there. Some companies have however moved to Dubai with their staff and do work from here.

Who said that Haliburton is not moving?? I did not know that...pitty. But other will come.

For those of you who think that JBR is not a nice place to live in, I am sorry for you; for those who like JBR but cannot afford or just missed it - give me a buzz and we'll get together to our private JBR beach and have a few drinks BECAUSE THE CLUBS WILL HAVE ALCOHOL! Yeah baby yeah. I love this forum. It makes me realize that I dd something that many are still afraid of but only hope that we will fail so they can say 'I told you so'. I'd like to hear what did you do? Can you guys share what have you achieved? Is any of you sorry that yuo did not buy a few of these a few years back? Because I a sure that your story was the same in 2005 - I heard it back then too.

Jammy_Dodgers

So which developer do you work for??

or is it AMEInfo??

shiva

see post 186

couple of questions though.
have you actually moved into JBR yet?
do you actually have your residency permit from your house and does that also entitle you to a work visa?
if there is a bomb/incident here where do you think companies will relocate to then?

and no im not pissed that i "missed out", had i been here at the right time i would have bought, i wasnt so who cares, would i buy now, no.

will i buy when chicken little does eventually show up, maybe, maybe not

Eeyore

And yet you don't quote anyone. Neither do you engage directly with any of the very pertinent issues related directly to the demographics of Dubai (they *always* terrify the property owners here, so they always ignore them and pretend they don't exist).

Total insanity. They could buy two apartments there for that much, just by walking into the sales centre. In fact, they'd get their hand bitten off (you do realise that the number of unsold apartments remaining at JBR measures in the thousands, don't you?)

Getting in and out of the Springs was a nightmare until they started rebuilding IC5 last year - it could easily take 40 minutes just to get across the flyover. Of course, they could and should have constructed the "proper" IC5 at the same time as they were building the Meadows/Springs, but that would have required forward planning, which doesn't happen here.

Hence the reason why Hashim Mohammed Al Hashmi, Head of Roads Planning Section (pause for ironic laugh), admitted *two years ago* that the road system around the Marina and JBR was completely inadequate, but that it was too late to do anything about it since the buildings had already gone up and there was no room to extend the roads. You can already get caught in regular traffic jams in the area *now*, never mind when there are actually people living in JBR.

It'll be fun for you, really it will.

If you can't comprehend the difference between the economic stability of the UK and the economic stability of Dubai in respect of terrorist activity, then... oh dear.

Only because there is still serious money to be made in Saudi, far more than in Dubai or elsewhere in the Middle East. And why is there still serious money to be made in Saudi? Because if they didn't offer it, nobody in their right mind would go there. Indeed, you'd have to be pretty bloody avaricious to take yourself off to Saudi voluntarily. It's danger money, basically.

And where is the expat property boom in Saudi, out of interest? Where is the Saudi tourist boom, for that matter?

You do get "booms" in Saudi, but they're a different sort. They're very loud and they last for a few seconds.

There's plenty of unsold property at JBR, so nobody who wants to live there need miss out.

NorthernLad

What can I say, I'm going to go and jump out of the office window, life seems pointless now...if I knew they would have a club selling alcohol I would have bought an apartment in a development that is universally recognised as a monstrosity, with no infrastructure to cope with the high volume of traffic (if they actually populate the apartments).

Regarding the bombs - I lived in Bahrain when Khobar had a compound attacked in 2004, and that had a big impact on housing prices in Bahrain as so many people either moved there (along with sending families back to home countries).

I'm not bitter about people making money from property, but I would recommend that anyone buying property in JBR goes to see a head doctor first.

Confucius

Gareth,if that is the case about unsold apartments in JBR,why aren't they advertising it???

Eeyore

Because that would project completely the wrong message, as well as affect resale prices of the apartments that have already been sold. Why would anyone buy second-hand when they could buy new?

The Dubai property market relies on smoke and mirrors to maintain the facade - hence the reason why, as W10 has previously pointed out, people are being offered huge discounts to buy, on condition that they keep quiet about it and put the full "official" selling price on the contract. It's all about maintaining the illusion that there's nothing wrong, that the correction hasn't already started. You wouldn't be able to get away with it in a properly-regulated, transparent market.

FWIW, JBR is probably going to become something of a rental bargain once it opens and it becomes clear to everyone just how badly-planned the infrastructure is. It'll require a bit of fortitude to cope with the traffic - I'll probably still be able to get from DMC to Springs 15 faster than I'll be able to get from DMC to any of the towers at the far end JBR - but if you're willing to put up with that, then there'll be a lot of people desperate to rent their places out just to get something, *anything* coming in.