massemiv

Hey Guys,

I work for a management consulting firm in Toronto, Canada. A team that includes me is working for a client in Riyadh and we expect to be in the city for the next six months or so. In the interest of leading a slightly "normal" lifestyle, we've decided to live in a compound, instead of a hotel. I've read a lot of the posts put up by the Riyadh members here and it seems like most compounds are very full.

Our client has managed to secure four 1-bedroom units run by this company:
http://www.expatrealty.com/main.htm

We have the choice of accepting these units or finding something ourselves. One person on our team speaks Arabic, so we would be able to negotiate with landlords and such.

If any of you have experience with these "Expat Realty" compounds, please let me know what you think of them. Also, since most of the demand is usually for larger 2 and 3 bedroom units, would we be able to find 1-bedroom units in the higher demand compounds (Kingdom, Al-Hamra, Jadawel, Arizona etc.)

Thanks a lot for reading. Please let me know your thoughts.

I don't know how much of a social life most people have there, but as fun loving guys in our mid to late 20s, we're totally up for meeting up with the members here and hanging out, doing whatever it is that people do without access to beer.

highlander393

who says no access to beer!

The Dean

Blimey massemiv (crazy name, crazy guy!),

Those are VERY well located, central and near anything that passes for entertainment in this town - I've never heard of those places.....

Worth checking security levels, especially if it's known to the locals (as its name suggests) as an expat residential facility.

Enjoy - and don't worry about your lifestyle. Riyadh's fine..... wait and see......

The Dean

Interesting map on that website.........

.......... clever how they have managed to get the Sheraton moved.......

massemiv

Thanks for the reassuring posts. I guess I'll check the security and if all is OK, plop the 6-months rent down.

But could you, Dean (I think you're the oldest Riyadh hand here) tell me how likely it is that we would be able to find 4 1-Bedroom units in a high end compound, like Arizona Ranch. Also, what might that cost?

I also have a completely unrelated question. Could one of you PM me a VPN service that is fast in Riyadh? There are a LOT of them available on the net, but I have no way of telling which ones would have the best bandwidth in Riyadh. We get relatively fast (6-8 Mbps) connections where we live. I want a VPN that can keep up with that. I would ideally like to sign up before I get there.

About my nick: massemiv = Sam Vimes (kinda backwards). Its a Terry Pratchett reference, for anybody who cares

nottmbantam

When I was in Riyadh,one of the senior management lived on Arizona compound,which I think will be high end, and although I know where it was, I don't know if there will be 1 bed apartments, as I suspect it will be mainly large sized accommodation there, for the senior exec types.

The Dean is more familiar with Kingdom compound, so perhaps he is better placed to answer that. Al Hamra is close to Exit 8 on the ring road - one of big junctions there,so its close to one of the big shopping malls ( Granada centre ) and pretty near to the centre of Riyadh.

My own limited knowledge led me to assume that there wouldn't be much in the way of one bed apartments , certainly to get four on one compound sounds a good bet. It might due to the fact that larger accommodation is more sought after, then the 1 beds might be more available?

In terms of a VPN, I used to use Hot Spot Shield which was free and easy to set up on my Mac. Its a US based one.

typical

I saw a couple of these smaller "compounds" a while back and found them quite run-down and depressing. I don't think they were run by this company, though.

Great location, as The Dean says, and possibly suspect security, again as he says.

Do you have any colleagues already in-Kingdom who could check them out for you?

still.unsure

did you have any joy? am now in the hunt for very similar sort of accommodation. (any hints/war stories greatly appreciated!)

cheers,

still.unsure