Property & Investment in Dubai: Your questions about the market

[UAE Investor]

Global village website ....i think a few years ago GV was,nt up to much ,but when i went in January 2010 it was great so...

http://www.globalvillage.ae/

[True Blue]

Originally Posted by UAE Investor

TB please do your home work..Global village is great and always full of poeple..!

I have done my homework! I've been to global village, it does not come close to amusement parks around the world. It may have a large footfall in Dubai but that is more to do with the lack of choice than the quality of the entertainment.

How many people are attracted to Dubai as a tourist destination soley due to GV? Next to zero I suspect!

[UAE Investor]

Originally Posted by True Blue

I have done my homework! I've been to global village, it does not come close to amusement parks around the world. It may have a large footfall in Dubai but that is more to do with the lack of choice than the quality of the entertainment.

How many people are attracted to Dubai as a tourist destination solely due to GV? Next to zero I suspect!

i have no knowledge of the origins of Gv but yes it seems to be a busy place for families to go to ..local and tourists

My family had made quite a few holidays to Dubai yet never heard of this place, i found it by accident ....

As a place, its just a melting pot of different cultures of middle / far east origins ...it was never meant to be a (failed ?) disneyfied amusement park as you portrait ..therefor never intended for the mass world tourism, altho placed in the Dubai-land footprint admittedly

My point is Gv is not a failure but a celebration of Arab culture for those in the know who wish to enjoy it ....but in an understated way..

Not a failure in my eyes ,can,t wait to take the family there when we get our apartment in DSC .

[Josau]

Believe me GV was intended to become the likes of Disneland or Universal Studios. Back in 2007 I was approached by them as an entertainment professional to develop concepts for a parade similar to those at Disney parks. The vision then was to develop GV into a main tourist attraction and to export the GV brand to other places in the world, like Singapore or even Europe. Needles to say this never happened, imo not only because of the downturn, but due to the lack of understanding of the complexity of such an undertaking by the people in charge.

[UAE Investor]

Originally Posted by Josau

Believe me GV was intended to become the likes of Disneland or Universal Studios. Back in 2007 I was approached by them as an entertainment professional to develop concepts for a parade similar to those at Disney parks. The vision then was to develop GV into a main tourist attraction and to export the GV brand to other places in the world, like Singapore or even Europe. Needles to say this never happened, imo not only because of the downturn, but due to the lack of understanding of the complexity of such an undertaking by the people in charge.

As i said i don,t know the origins of GV ...but what ever the end result ,i went there and took it for what it is

People can,t see past the disneyland orgins so its a failure in there eyes...so

i just take it on face value, that its probally the most fun place to take the family in Dubai, in the evening , after 4 pm when it opens.

[Dubai_Steve]

A four-wheel-drive vehicle encrusted with silver and gold coins glints in the winter sun at a national day parade in Dubai. This is not a city with any qualms about appearing ostentatious. However, after its humbling debt crisis and subsequent bailout by the federal government, the emirate – one of seven that make up the United Arab Emirates – has been forced to rein in some of its natural extravagance over the past three years.


But now the headline-grabbing mega-projects that defined its boom years are back. In the past fortnight, the emirate has unveiled an array of grand development plans, including a new "city" which will rise from the sands just outside central Dubai and contain 100 new hotels and green space a third bigger than London's Hyde Park.

Breaking records is a favourite pastime for Dubai. The emirate is already home to the world's tallest building –the 829.8m (2,722ft) Burj Khalifa – which dwarfs the dozens of gleaming towers that would, in any other city, be a dizzying skyline on their own. In the Burj Khalifa's shadow sits Dubai Mall, the world's biggest by area, where after browsing designer shops, visitors can go scuba diving in a shark tank.

The new city, to be named after the emirate's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, will include the even larger Mall of the World, with the capacity to welcome 80 million shoppers a year. Attached to it will be a Universal Studios branded "entertainment centre".

The mammoth project, which will also contain art galleries and a golf course, was announced by Sheikh Mohammed with typical bombast. "The future does not wait for those who are hesitant. We do not anticipate the future. We build it," he declared.

Just days later came the news that a £1.7bn plan for five new theme parks had also been approved. A Bollywood park offering live theatre shows will cater to affluent Indian visitors. While in town they will also be able to visit a replica of their beloved Taj Mahal, four times the size of the original, which will contain a five-star hotel. A Hollywood adventure park, children's park, night safari and marine park are also planned.

Timed neatly to coincide with the third anniversary of Dubai's £6bn bailout from Abu Dhabi, and its subsequent property market crash, it is clear that the country is keen to stress that the narrative that it has come full circle. The stock market surged on the news and the local press jumped on the announcements as evidence of a recovery. "Dubai on a white-knuckle ride to revival," read a headline in the English-language newspaper The National.

All the indicators are positive, particularly when it comes to tourism. Dubai's hotel occupancy is at a healthy 82 per cent and the number of foreign visitors grew by 10 per cent in the first half of the year. Over the past decade, the city has managed to position itself as a tourist playground, despite a steady drip of stories of Britons and other foreigners who have fallen foul of the strict laws on sex and alcohol.

Its bars and restaurants, many of them offshoots of familiar overseas establishments, remained thronged with expatriates and tourists in search of a good time.

While Lebanon and Egypt have seen their tourism industries badly hit by recent unrest, the United Arab Emirates has benefited by remaining an insulated safe haven – in part due to a no-tolerance approach towards dealing with dissent.

After diving in the wake of Dubai's debt crisis, the property market is also showing signs of recovery; rental prices have risen by 17 per cent over the past year. In scenes reminiscent of Dubai's headiest days, speculators can once more be seen queuing outside sales offices to invest in new developments.

"Dubai has turned a corner," said Simon Williams, a senior economist at HSBC. "Those who rushed to dismiss the emirate as nothing more than a bust real-estate story back in 2009 have been proved wrong."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...ors_picks=true

[metlofts123]

Originally Posted by Dubai_Steve

Dubai, buy, buy: Gulf state starts to build again A four-wheel-drive vehicle encrusted with silver and gold coins…..

How come you only copied half the article? Not sure the thousands upon thousands of people who collectively had billions of dirhams effectively stolen from them by hundreds of rogue developers (from the very smallest to the largest developer), have such a short memory??

Anyway, the rest of that article from yesterday's Independent:


'But some question if it is too much too soon. The costs of Mohammed bin Rashid City have not been announced, but are expected to comfortably run into billions of dollars – raising concerns about financing when banks are still so cautious to lend.

"It is a hell of a statement to make in a pretty subdued international market," said a Dubai-based partner at an international property firm, who pointed out that investors in previous pie-in-the-sky projects that have since been shelved indefinitely may not be happy about the announcements.

The emirate is yet to fully disentangle itself from the fallout of the 2009 crash. A special tribunal set up to resolve disputes related to the bailout of Dubai World and subsidiaries, including Nakheel – the developer of the artificial palm-tree shaped island off the Dubai coast – is still sifting through claims. Lofty projects such as a new palm-tree island near Jebel Ali, 50 per cent bigger than the first and containing four theme parks, have stalled and look unlikely to be revived. A quarter of the city's residential units are empty, yet new building continues.

"Given the ongoing debt structuring and the emirate's various other problems, it seems to me the best evidence available of the ruler's ego, his lack of grasp on reality and the real need for sustainable economic development," said Dr Christopher Davidson, a lecturer at Durham University and author of Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success.

At the time of Dubai's bailout, there was widespread expectation that there would be strings attached by Abu Dhabi's rulers as the capital attempted to rein in its boisterous brother to the north, and the ambitious new plans are likely to be raising some eyebrows in the capital, where development has progressed with more prudence.

"The challenge isn't to generate growth but to ensure that the pace of growth is sustainable; some of the people I hear already seem to have forgotten the excesses that built up last time around and the damaging bust that they triggered," added Mr Williams.
You don't have to look far in Dubai to see the consequences of dreaming too big. An archipelago of artificial islands, shaped like a world map, is slowly being reclaimed by the sea.

In the desert outside the city stands the shell of the last large-scale leisure development – a 107-square-mile entertainment complex called Dubailand which was meant to house the world's largest array of theme parks. The signs for what would have been Universal Studios are whipped by the sand, and its gate leads nowhere.

Pie in the sky: Problem Projects

Palm Jebel Ali

Work to reclaim the huge palm-shaped island from the sea was completed in 2007, but the project was shelved in 2008 with building yet to begin. Fifty per cent larger than the Palm Jumeirah, the island was meant to contain theme parks and six marinas. A third palm island at Deira, which is five times larger, has also been mothballed.

The World

Another of Dubai's grand reclamation projects, the archipelago is in the shape of a world map, and two-thirds of its 255 man-made islands have been sold. The only one developed is Lebanon; its owners opened a beach club in the summer.

Dubai City Tower

At 1.5 miles high, the Dubai City Tower never made it off the drawing board. The 400-floor building would have been three times higher than the Burj Khalifa and seven times taller than the Empire State Building. Its lifts were based on a vertical 125mph bullet train.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...ors_picks=true

[Dubai_Steve]

Originally Posted by metlofts123

How come you only copied half the article?

I only usually post the first part or small part with a link to the rest as per the forum rules.

[True Blue]

If you say so

It really is quite insulting to read these stories about new projects when so many people have been hung out to dry on all the previous grand schemes.

Any sane action would be to complete the "Pie in the sky" developments and restore faith rather that try and bury them under new press releases like they never happened! I think the terminology is Ostrich Management.

Anyone fancy a villa overlooking the Tiger Woods world class golf course or perhaps a Water Home built on stilts at the amazing Palm Jebel Ali? Not everyone who rides a horse is a jockey

[unknownpleasures]

Originally Posted by True Blue

If you say so

It really is quite insulting to read these stories about new projects when so many people have been hung out to dry on all the previous grand schemes.

Any sane action would be to complete the "Pie in the sky" developments and restore faith rather that try and bury them under new press releases like they never happened! I think the terminology is Ostrich Management.

Anyone fancy a villa overlooking the Tiger Woods world class golf course or perhaps a Water Home built on stilts at the amazing Palm Jebel Ali? Not everyone who rides a horse is a jockey

Sounds logical....if only they could pick up the mess and finish what they started...my thoughts also, did I write them somewhere here?!

[AppleMac]

Originally Posted by Dubai_Steve

A four-wheel-drive vehicle encrusted with silver and gold coins glints in the winter sun at a national day parade in Dubai.

Hmm, I was at the National Day Parade and I dont recall any cars (and there were a lot) being encrusted with silver and gold - newspaper hyperbole perhaps?

[Pleth]

Originally Posted by True Blue

It really is quite insulting to read these stories about new projects when so many people have been hung out to dry on all the previous grand schemes.

Any sane action would be to complete the "Pie in the sky" developments and restore faith rather that try and bury them under new press releases like they never happened! I think the terminology is Ostrich Management.

Anyone fancy a villa overlooking the Tiger Woods world class golf course or perhaps a Water Home built on stilts at the amazing Palm Jebel Ali? Not everyone who rides a horse is a jockey

Totally agree.

[noir-dresses]

I guess with launching new projects they think they will keep getting more FDI coming in. Finishing old projects makes them caugh up cash, that simple.

[Mistermark]

Originally Posted by True Blue

If you say so

It really is quite insulting to read these stories about new projects when so many people have been hung out to dry on all the previous grand schemes.

Any sane action would be to complete the "Pie in the sky" developments and restore faith rather that try and bury them under new press releases like they never happened! I think the terminology is Ostrich Management.

Anyone fancy a villa overlooking the Tiger Woods world class golf course or perhaps a Water Home built on stilts at the amazing Palm Jebel Ali? Not everyone who rides a horse is a jockey

I couldn't agree more. As that shining intellectual George W Bush once (almost) said, 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.' Those of us who got fleeced in Dubai's first property boom can rightfully blame Sheikh Mo for lying to us when he said nobody would ever lose money on property in Dubai and for running a court system that bases its decisions on who you know (ie protecting those with close connections to the ruling family). But anyone who buys into an off-plan development in Dubai this time round, with the evidence already writ large that contracts are unenforceable in that jurisdiction is, frankly, a lobotomy case who deserves to be parted from his or her money.

[Dubai_Steve]

DUBAI (Reuters) - The average apartment price in Dubai rose by 13 percent this year and is expected to grow at the same rate next year as speculative buyers prop up demand, a study released on Sunday showed.

Prices rose despite expectations of around 36,000 new units forecast to enter the market in the next two years, a study by property consultancy CBRE showed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/10563993

[Pleth]

Originally Posted by Mistermark

As that shining intellectual George W Bush once (almost) said, 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.'
Those of us who got fleeced in Dubai's first property boom can rightfully blame Sheikh Mo for lying to us when he said nobody would ever lose money on property in Dubai and for running a court system that bases its decisions on who you know (ie protecting those with close connections to the ruling family). But anyone who buys into an off-plan development in Dubai this time round, with the evidence already writ large that contracts are unenforceable in that jurisdiction is, frankly, a lobotomy case who deserves to be parted from his or her money.

Exactly.
Not to mention Rera who are passive and all the money missing on the Escrow accounts!
No, an Escrow account is not a secure account!

[Al shali]

Originally Posted by Mistermark

I couldn't agree more. As that shining intellectual George W Bush once (almost) said, 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.' Those of us who got fleeced in Dubai's first property boom can rightfully blame Sheikh Mo for lying to us when he said nobody would ever lose money on property in Dubai and for running a court system that bases its decisions on who you know (ie protecting those with close connections to the ruling family). But anyone who buys into an off-plan development in Dubai this time round, with the evidence already writ large that contracts are unenforceable in that jurisdiction is, frankly, a lobotomy case who deserves to be parted from his or her money.

Spot on TB and MisterM, couldn't agree more. Dubai's regulatory and judicial framework weak to nonexistent, investing in Dubai compares to the casino, fun but highly risky ! Buyer beware.

[OmarPERU]

Originally Posted by AppleMac

Hmm, I was at the National Day Parade and I dont recall any cars (and there were a lot) being encrusted with silver and gold - newspaper hyperbole perhaps?

Totally agree with most of comments, we were all hit by the bubble one way or another and it some of the statements are ridiculous.

For tye sake of truth, though, there was a range rover with what appeared to be gold and silver coins all over, in downtown boulevard parade

[Dubai_Steve]

"Buying off-plan property is still a risky business. Many investors cannot wait to get back to the good old days of 2002 to 2008 and another upward cycle. However, if the past has taught us anything, it is that price rises on the back of multiple trades of paper (i.e. off-plan secondary market sales) can lead to a cliff edge if the projects are not delivered," Hadef & Partners said in its 2012 report on the legal state of the Dubai real estate market.

"Therefore, whilst investors should be cautious particularly in relation to off-plan property... It remains to be seen whether the laws and more importantly the regulators can effectively manage this new activity to avoid the pitfalls of the recent past. However, it seems certain, that if these issues are managed and Dubai can deliver on investors' desires for certainty, transparency and delivery against promises, then the future looks bright for the Dubai real estate sector."

http://www.zawya.com/story/Offplan_p...0121214045815/

[xingu]

Originally Posted by Impy

Residential rents in Dubai rose 17 percent on average amid population growth and limited supply in certain areas, according to CBRE Group Inc.

“Dubai is seeing higher rental growth this year due to a sustained period of population growth, positive economic performance, increased occupier demand and limited availability of quality units in the most desirable locations,” Matthew Green, head of United Arab Emirates’ research at CBRE Middle East, wrote in a report today.

Is this why the RERA rental increase calculator is 'under updating'?

Just tweaking the averages a bit higher?