Many investors, potential investors and casual observers seem to still have doubts concerning the safety of buying property in Dubai, even as the property market continues to expand through its fifth year. At the same time, the most recent Cityscape Dubai event (4-6 December), which showcased both future and current projects, was once more a testament to the unprecedented scale of activity and amount of enthusiasm in the industry. It had been without a doubt a grand display flats for sale in dubai of where in actuality the property markets in Dubai and the Gulf are and to where they aim to go.
Beyond the glitz and hype, however, the fundamental questions for investors remain:
* Will property on offer actually make it to completion even once construction has commenced?
* Will the quality standards promised be achieved?
* Will delays plague the project?
...and not least,
* Will one's investment be guaranteed, at the least around the full time of hand-over, and beyond?
The Dubai Marina site of Damac's Ocean Heights tower (8-Dec-06), launched in Oct. 2004. Originally slated for completion in 2007, now estimated by some for a 2009-10 completion.
The short response to these questions is that results will vary by project and developer. The broader picture, since it were, is hard to comment upon with the relatively limited amount of properties that have made it to completion and, even much more, with the limited amount of scrutiny paid by both the media and the federal government to problems and conditions that attended up.
That being said, anecdotal evidence is available. One source may be the Gulf News'archives along with those of other local publications, where search queries can pull up news, good and bad, on both specific properties and the industry-at-large. The web forums of Skyscrapercity.com also give you a wealth of insight to the the real goings on in the property scene-it requires considerable sifting to get through the innumerable exchanges among forumers.
My own take is founded on a personal, albeit perhaps biased, scrutiny over the year and a half that I have taken steps being an investor. The skinny, as I view it, is the following:
* Emaar, among the large developers, shines. Its projects get built-in a timely fashion and are of both satisfactory design and quality. This record may placate some of these who balk at higher purchase costs. While there were complaints about construction, there seemingly have been no real disasters. By contrast, however, property management fees seem exhorbitant in comparison to other properties and what one gets for them.
* Nakheel has a combined record, including a disaster or two, and it has in certain measure yet to prove itself. The verdict on Nakheel should remain pending until handover of its Jumeirah Palm properties over the following half-year, should that highly-anticipated move in fact take place.
* One other large developers, including Dubai Properties, Sama Dubai, Damac and others, have yet to prove themselves, even much more than Nakheel. For many, significant delays be seemingly the order of the day. Reassuringly, however, if the record of Dubai Properties, builder of the 40-tower Jumeirah Beach Residences complex, is anything to pass by, then ambitious projects can and is likely to be delivered, even when late.
* The mid- to small-size developers are a harder lot to classify, not just because of the fact that they are many in number, but many of these projects are yet in early phases of build or development. There's, for instance, Tameer with a 107-story tower and a 91-story tower under development in Dubai Marina, along with several other major projects on the drawing board. This perhaps wannabe major developer does not have any existing record of delivered as well as half-constructed projects to evaluate.
Although Dubai Marina is really a master-planned project of Emaar and contains numerous Emaar properties, it is in large part being built-up by mid- to small-size developers. This means that to essentially evaluate the merits of the development-at-large or any specific project, the reputation and record of the particular developer in question must be examined. Usually the one generalization that certain will make, however, is that excluding the JBR project, fewer than half the Marina towers have yet been constructed with all the largest ones not yet started or in early stages of construction.
The big picture must consider a few of the dynamics of the Dubai and larger Gulf property and construction industries, which substantially impact the success or insufficient success in each project. These dynamics include,
* a large unskilled, poorly trained and poorly paid construction workforce,
* intense competition for skilled and experienced managers, consultants, contractors and such, and similarly
* tight way to obtain equipment and materials.
Added up, it is hard and will remain hard to get things right. The powerful, like Emaar, may have more leverage but likewise they will be less accountable to any individual client. The smaller players will struggle to get what they should pull the job off, but it is more essential to their survival they do, even on small jobs.That being said enough work has been carried out within the last 5 years that the has begun to enter a middle stage where there is a significant amount of expertise locally. Even the underpaid, overworked laborers in time get a large amount of skills on the job. As this happens, getting the job right increasingly becomes an attainable goal.
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