The Dean

The Shed's place is nicknamed Southfork...........

Meow

Some places we saw could have been North, South, East & Westfork! I did rather like a brand new massive seven bedroom place that had a sort of sunken marble divan area in the main living area. It had a glass floor which they were going to have a fishtank under, with coloured lights, so you'd walk on that to get to your seat.

The Dean

How much are those places???

Meow

The last one was apparently available for 250k which would have been a bargain considering it was brand new, well fitted out with the lovliest pool and pool house. Too big for us and out of budget, although we did think about it for a few minutes.

You can get a huge villa in Barsha for 200k.

Kix

So much cheaper than Doha then....

al dente

and Abu Dhabi! Crikey.

Miss Anne Thrope

Sorry, aside from being snarky, my questions were really to Meow to understand why you would be leaving (what some other indiscreet posters have previously and now recently described as) a great place. And then to ascertain whether there was a frenzy to rent it given the comments about the market and the scarcity of truly nice villas in Umm Suqueim/Jumeirah.

First question answered already. On the second one you mention some viewings but will the rent be going up do you know/think? I'm sure I would love the place but I'm equally sure it's more than I would be prepared to pay and anyway I'm not in the market having recently handed over a couple of cheques to greedy landlord....

Meow

The landlord is asking for the same amount we paid when we moved here three years ago. Seems reasonable compared to others in this area. Two viewings today and one tomorrow. It'll go easily.

The place we're moving to is a more local place, but it'll work for us. It's not one of those big lumps of a mansion, but a reasonable sized house with a load of outbuildings. And it's cheaper

Patsy Stoned

Please don't tell everybody darling... the rents will start to go up again!!

jackthehat

Agreed! - What a 'Load of Old Cock!' Tanya Stubbs appears to have just arrived from Canada! - Yesterday perhaps? Still believing that the streets of Dubai are paved with Gold?

Eeyore

And are they all hiring Western expats on huge packages, or are they mostly employing people from the subcontinent or the Philippines on much smaller deals? Three guesses, if you need them.

I don't see any noticeable difference in either of those compared to the last few years. Roads are still nothing like as bad as they were pre-slump.

Why the smiley? You're a landlord yourself?

It's inevitable that landlords will try and push rents as hard as they can, especially since so many people bought to let at the peak of the market and so have a massive disparity between the size of their mortgage and the amount they can bring in through rent. But while banks here are still so careful about how much they loan (before the crash, rent loans were a major profit centre for all banks) and many of those companies that still provide fully-paid housing have cut back the amounts dramatically, any hopes of pushing rents back to pre-crash levels are just fantasy.

auzdafluff

Exactly. I know from speaking to many high level figures in companies (CEO/CFOs and so on), they have absolutely no intention of allowing prices to get that high again.

Which means that landlords can push all they want; pay won't go up, and people will simply not be able to afford the ridiculous prices they would love.