(Vastgoed in) Dubai

Real estate in Dubai
The theme I’ve chosen, is the one about real estate in Dubai.
I’ve chosen this theme because I find it an interesting theme and because a friend of mine, has started working there this summer, and so, I wanted to know a bit more about this country.
Dubai is situated in the United Arab emirates. The united Arab emirates form a federation of 7 emirates. Those emirates are : Abou Dhabi,… .The territory of the emirates border in the north at Qatar, in the east Oman and in the south Arabia. The capital of Dubai is also called Dubai. Like you can see on the map, Dubai is the second largest emirate in size after Abou Dabie.

Because the oil reserves in Dubai are much lower than those of the other emirates, Dubai has been concentrating more to tourism and trade. Tanks to the position, the stable economy and the low taxes, many foreign companies chose to do their activities there.
But, people do not only go to Dubai to work. Many people go also on holiday there. This for its situation, the hot climate and the big projects.

But, why do we have to invest in Dubai ? In 2002, the sheik mohammed ben rashid had made a decree, where he gives the authorization for foreigners to become owner of a propriety in Dubai. Before that date, it was impossible to have a house or apartment as a foreigner in Dubai. The price in comparison with the quality is very well. When you mix this with a higher offer as a demand and great tax advantages, you see that Dubai is a very attractive market to invest in.

Like you can see here, Dubai is still in full exploitation. Here, you can see the most known projects of Dubai. An advantage of these works, is that there is now a huge demand for workers. You can see the palm islands, le Burj Dubai and the world. Immediately I’ll going to give you more information about these three projects.

When Dubai gets the news, its mostly about their huge real estate projects which were realized, or which are still under construction. Whereas other countries are happy with one big project, Dubai is doing its best to have a big project on each square kilometer. But with the crisis of 2008, the tap has also been turned off here. Before this date, everything seemed possible.
The most known projects are probably the Burj Dubai, the palm islands and the world. Now I’ll going to tell you a little bit about those projects.
First, I’ll going to talk you about the project the world.
Like you can see in the picture, this is a little model of the world, composed by 300 little artificial islands. The world is situated 4 kilometers of the coast of Dubai. The island has a surface of 9 kilometers length and 6 kilometers width.
The islands can be divided into 4 groups : you have got the private properties, the islands with the big hotels and apartments, an island with the stores and an island with all the resorts. The realization of the islands is finished. Now, the owners can start building their houses. The only transport between the islands will be the transport over sea. When you want to buy an island, this will cost you between 6 and 37 million Euros. Now, Brad Pitt and Michael Schumacher have already bought one .

Then, you have also got the palm islands. They are called like this, because they are made in the shape of a palm tree. You have got 3 different islands: palm deira, palm jebel ali and palm jumeirah. One of the three islands is already finished, but the other two islands on the other hand are still under construction. The island jebel ali is being constructed by Jan De Nul, a Belgian company. The realization of the island on the picture took more than 5 years uninterrupted work. They have used 92 million cubic meters of sand and 7 million tons of stones.
The Burj Dubai is a skyscraper of 818 meters high. The construction has cost 850 million Euros. This building has 166 stages, where the first 23 are used as a hotel of Armani. There has been planned to make apartments between flour 37 and 108. All the apartments were sold within 8 hours. The 78 flour is foreseen of a swimming pool. Now, this is the highest building of the world, but there is already a reaction of Kuwait. They have the intention to make a building of 1001 meters height.

Here, you can see a summary of all the highest tours in the world. You can see that the Burj-Dubai is almost two times as big as the second tour in the list

The last couple of years, many people have benefit from the advantages of investing in Dubai. There is no tax on the sale of real estate, no control of the origin of the capital and no property tax. Buying and selling houses has almost become the national sport in Dubai.

But, because of the financial crisis last year, there was a fall of 40% in the activities of real estate in Dubai. Approximately 70% of the investors bought a house or apartment without the capacity to afford it. Now they must sell their apartment or villa at a price much lower than their purchase price.

Last week, it is possible that you have heard about Dubai in the news. Does anyone still remember why Dubai came in the news?
Last week, there was a collapse of the stock market. The reason for this was that Dubai has trouble paying its debts. Dubai World, the holding who coordinates numerous investments of Dubai, has financial problems. The debt of Dubai World is estimated on 60 billion dollars. The holding has now asked its creditors if the following payments can be postponed up to in May 2010. This news has caused disorder because many people are scared that this will also influence other companies and markets. Some analysts feared for a republication of the American credit crisis, but this weekend everything seemed normal again. The stock markets in Asia ended yesterday with profit again. So, it probably won’t going to be as bad as the crisis of 6 months ago.

Questions? Thank you for listening!