Jumeirah Lakes Towers 60% Complete

About 60 per cent of the Jumeirah Lake Towers (JLT) development has been completed, Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC), the community's master developer and operator, said on Monday.

This milestone was achieved after Armada Group, a sub-developer, completed the third tower in its mixed-use cluster.

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Service Fee Defaulters Face Losing Their Homes

Dubai homeowners who have failed to pay off the service fee will now have to wash their hands off from their property.

The Dubai Land Department will repossess and auction off the homes of those who fail to pay maintenance fees as part of the emirate’s new strata law, according to an official notice issued yesterday.

As developers hand over the maintenance of shared buildings and communities to homeowners associations, hundreds of owners who owe thousands of dirhams in service charges risk losing their properties.


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Egypt’s Amer Group Invites GCC Investors

Egypt’s leading developer and operator of luxury destination resorts, the Amer Group, has launched a special ‘Triple 10 Offer’ for GCC and Middle Eastern investors to celebrate the holy month of Ramadan. The unique offer provides customers with the opportunity to own an apartment at the Group’s flagship resorts – ‘Porto Marina’ and ‘Porto Golf Marina’ by paying only ten per cent in advance with the outstanding balance paid over ten quarterly installments. The third aspect of the offer is ten days free accommodation at the Porto World Egyptian resort of the purchaser’s choice. Real Estate prices at the resort start from US$255,000.

Porto Marina is Egypt’s premier destination resort, providing 885 luxurious homes, a 379 room 5-star standard hotel, shops, restaurants, cinema, health spa, gymnasium, marina and private beach.

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Ramadan Kareem Wishes!!!!

Buy A Dubai Property

Dubai Municipality To Use RERA Index

Dubai Municipality has come up with a new set of rules for the house owners of Dubai. The owners will now have to pay 5% Dubai Municipality (DM) housing fee, even if the property is vacant, provided there is a DEWA connection.

The Dubai Municipality has also mentioned that it is not ready to withstand any kind of cheating the residents are showcasing by listing rents which are very much below the prevailing market rates for the specific region. According to municipality, it will be forced to use RERA, the Real Estate Regulatory Agency, rent index if any kind of malpractice is witnessed.

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Jumeirah To Manage Egyptian Luxury Resort

Dubai-based luxury hospitality firm, Jumeriah Group, has disclosed on Monday, 02.08.2010, that it will be overseeing a new deluxe resort located in Egypt. The luxury hospitality organization has mentioned that a deal has been struck with Egypt’s leading development company, Palm Hills Development for the management of Jumeirah Gamsha Bay Resort. The Jumeriah Resort is situated in the Palm Gamsha resort constructed by PHD on Red Sea, Egypt.

Jumeriah will be managing 250-room multi-purpose hotel of Palm Gamsha. It is a comprehensive community and has 20 artificial islands designed as a sea horse. The resort is situated to the north west of Hurghada airport at a distance of 47 km.

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REIDIN.com index reveals 6.99% increase in Dubai villa sales price between Q2 2009 and Q2 2010

REIDIN.com, the leading real estate information company covering emerging markets has today announced the June figures of its Sales Price Index for Dubai (SPID) part of its INDEXFocus-UAE product, an online database of proprietary real estate indices for UAE designed to accurately track price fluctuations in the residential real estate market.

INDEXFocus is a service dedicated to providing real estate indicies and other benchmark data. Sales Price Index for Dubai (SPID) is launched by REIDIN.com based on the actual transactions in an exclusive partnership with the Real Estate Regulatory Agency (RERA) and the Dubai Land Department (DLD). The service provides the Dubai market with a series of indices and data sets that can help improve transparency across the market and help real estate professionals to benchmark and analyse residential price trends.

Power and water cut from 1,654 Dubai homes in H1

Nearly 4,400 houses in Dubai have been found violating building and construction rules during the first half of 2010 as part of the One Villa, One Family campaign, a senior official has said. Omar AbdulRahman, head of Building Inspection Section at Dubai Municipality, said that 40,707 houses in Dubai had been inspected since start of the initiative aimed at reducing overcrowding in properties in the emirate.

AbdulRahman said about 1,654 houses had had its power and water cut off as a result of violations. He added that surprise visits in coordination with various government departments would continue and fines would be imposed. He said violations included bachelors staying in family areas, and multiple families staying in one house.

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The Nation Investor Planning Two Private Equity Deals

Abu Dhabi-based investment service provider, The National Investor, has plans for closing two “substantial” private equity deals by 2010 end. “We have capital to invest; we generally do about two deals a year and we will do the same this year”, said the TNI private equity director Yahya Jalil.

He also mentioned that TNI was honing on ‘something substantial’ at present, but declined to disclose the details of the massive transactions.

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Abu Dhabi To Have 73,000 New Homes By 2013

According to reports from the UAE newspaper, The National, 20% of the new residential properties being developed in Abu Dhabi, the capital of UAE, will be set aside to meet the housing requirements of middle income group while the rent of a studio will be as minimum as Dh 25,200 per annum. Michael White, who is a senior planning manager at Urban Planning Council, Abu Dhabi, has mentioned that the initial set of homes which are being developed in sync with the new rules will be launched in the real estate market “probably within the next year or two”.

According to the council, out of the 73,000 homes slated to be constructed by 2013, 15,000 will be earmarked for middle income group. The rents will be somewhere around 35% of the income of the household. For those who want to enjoy reduced rent rates, the income should be within the upper ceiling of Dh 252,000.

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Drake & Scull Wins Dohaland Flagship Cooling Project

The 182-million-Qatari-riyal worth design and development contract for the two cooling plants at Dohaland’s Musheireb project has been awarded to Drake & Scull International’s arm, Drake & Scull Water and Power. The firm will be responsible for the comprehensive design and development of these cooling plants which have cooling towers and chiller plants. The district cooling has a refrigeration capacity of 29,250 tonnes.

According to Mohammad Masoud Al Merri, Director-Projects, Dohaland, “We are delighted to award the design and build contract to Drake and Scull for the district cooling plants for the Musheireb project”. According to the contract, the designing and building of hilled water reticulation network having valves and valve chambers, the mechanical electrical and plumbing services, testing and commissioning of the plants will all be taken care of by Drake & Scull.

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Dubai Properties Group Sees Surge in Demand Following Leasing Campaign

Dubai Properties Group (DPG), a member of Dubai Holding, today announced a significant increase in demand for its built-to-lease communities throughout Dubai as UAE residents opt for quality and location at excellent value for money.

The increased demand is the direct result of DPG’s comprehensive six-week-long campaign to promote its built-to-lease communities across Dubai. DPG has received thousands of calls each week driving hundreds of visits to the community’s site offices daily. The comprehensive campaign was rolled out earlier this month across various marketing channels including the radio, print, digital, online and outdoor platforms.

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Dubai Green Buiding's to receive incentives

According to reports from a Dubai government official, the Government is formulating a scheme for providing the green buildings having “green building code” with certain incentives. The plan is expected to be disclosed over the next two months.

“The government is working on an incentive plan for green buildings. Dubai has been on the forefront of introducing green concepts… now the code has gone into printing and will be released in two months”, said Essa Al Mai door, Assistant Director-General for Planning and Engineering, Dubai Municipality.


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Saadiyat Beach Apartment Construction Gets A Nod

The first phase of Saadiyat Beach Apartments will soon kick off as The Tourism Development and Investment Company, which is the prime constructor of tourism, cultural, and residential destinations in Abu Dhabi, has assigned the development work to Abu Dhabi-based Dhabi Contracting Establishment. About 495 apartments will be constructed in the first phase.

Located in the centre of a Saadiyat Beach community, the plans have been deciphered with Arabian and Mediterranean elements. The first phase is expected to be ready by 2011 Q4.

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Qatar World Trade Centre Construction Commences

The development work of Qatar's World Trade Centre tower in Doha has commenced. The work is expected to take at least two years for completion. This was disclosed to the publicon Monday, 28.06.10, during a press conference which was held on the event of signing the agreement between Qatar General Insurance and Reinsurance Company, which owns theproject and the main contractor, the Arabtec Construction Company.

The blueprint of this building showcases latest technology with a very distinct architecture. The Qatar WTC will be a 50-storey tower which will be the abode of 42 levels of offices, a podium of four floors for conferences, four basement car parking and services and a Sphere Structure, housing a multi-purpose auditorium.

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Dubai Real Estate Market Overview

‘Dubai Real Estate Market Overview – Q2 2010: June 2010’ covering the Dubai office, residential, retail and hospitality market segments from Jones Lang LaSalle, the world's leading real estate investment and advisory firm. It reports that tenants have greater opportunities due to increasing availability of space, declining rents, and improved lease terms as the property market begins to bottom out.

Highlights of the overview:

Dubai Real Estate Market Overview
Q2 2010
Market Highlights – Q2 / 2010

• The Dubai office market continues to fragment with a further decoupling between the overall market(which is experiencing increasing vacancies) and good quality buildings in the CBD (where there remainselective shortages). While average city-wide vacancies have increased further (to around 38%), only12% of the 7.5 million sq ft of completed space in single ownership within the CBD is currently vacant.
  

• Retail vacancies have increased to between 8% and 10% as competition intensifies and retailers haveclosed poorer performing stores. This is resulting in a flight to quality and increasing problems (brokentooth phenomenon) in poorer quality centres. The more enlightened centre managers are responding tochanging circumstances by seeking to proactively engage and offer more attractive and flexible terms totheir tenants.
  

• Supply in the residential sector continues to complete, with fewer delays being experienced than in theoffice market. While sales activity has increased and average prices have remained relatively stable,rentals have continued to decline significantly across Q2, particularly in respect of luxury / high end villaand apartment projects.

• The hotel market is the closest to the bottom of the cycle. Increased demand has resulted in a growth ofoccupancies during 2010, but average room rates and RevPAR continue to decline, especially in respectof city hotels.

Dubai Rental Clock – June 2010



















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Luxurious Bahrain Properties Facing Price Fall

Asking prices for high-end apartments in Bahrain have dropped 20 per cent compared to 2009 as sales of freehold villas and apartments remain almost non-existent over the last two years, Knight Frank, the global real estate consultancy, said.
Sales of freehold villas and apartments have been almost non-existent in Bahrain over the last two years, which is indicative of the fact that investors are wary in these uncertain economic times and owner occupier demand for luxury property appears to have been satisfied at least in the short term, the report said. Also, the boom times of speculative purchasers enjoying healthy returns on investments by flipping off-plan properties for a profit are a distant phenomenon.
As many of the mixed-use schemes are experiencing construction delays, investors looking to generate rental returns on completed projects are similarly staying away.

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Dubai is still a key investor’s destination

A report from Moody's Investment Service asks the investors to be optimistic about Dubai and reap out of the lower property costs in the city as it still is one among the most preferred investment choices of investors. According to Faisal Hijazi, Business Development Manager, Rating Services and Islamic Finance at Moody's Dubai, revamping Dubai is not an easy and short process. The investors should keep this in mind and then invest in the city.
"But I think the investors should now take advantage of the available opportunities, which are numerous. Dubai still enjoys a good position in this respect and I think there are good investment opportunities in some sectors," Hijazi said.

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Absconding developers in the eye of law

Absconding developers will soon have to face harsh law for their inability to fulfill their obligations. The Ajman Real Estate Regulatory Agency (Arra) has taken the step to file cases, complaining to the police about some absconding developers. Emirate has now turned to law to make developers pay for their frailty. Soon there will be a spree of arrests made for developers failing their contractual commitment. The motive behind such a step is to resolve disputes through intervention.
Arra chief insists on resolving the problem between developer and the investor by encouraging mutual talks and this is providing ample time for considerations for the developers. The agency also seek to help t he investors who have invested in projects without opting for carefulness when choosing the developer and his project.

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Arabtec awarded AED 500m contract to build DAMAC Heights at Dubai Marina

DAMAC Properties has announced that it has awarded the main construction contract for its DAMAC Heights project at Dubai Marina to Arabtec. The AED 500million contract was signed this week and work is expected to commence on site as soon as Zetas complete the enabling works.
DAMAC Heights will be one of the company’s most iconic supertall projects and will occupy a prime position overlooking the Palm Jumeirah. It is within walking distance of another of DAMAC’s flagship projects, Ocean Heights, also being constructed by Arabtec. Work on Ocean Heights is due to be completed later this year.
In announcing the contract award, Chairman of DAMAC Properties Hussain Sajwani said: ‘We are delighted to announce that main construction work will be underway soon at one of our most significant projects in Dubai. We are pleased to work once again with Arabtec who are known for their ability to deliver architecturally challenging buildings and their consistent and solid reputation in the construction industry.

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