I have some questions that i hope some of you will able to help me with. thankyou in advance for any help.

1. Residency visas. I understand that this is tied to purchasing a property.
I have heard that it only applies if you pay the asking price for a property. is this correct?
What if you buy a resell?
What if you dont buy from one of the government owned developers/

2. Will they unpeg from the US dollar? If they do this they will straight away make purchasing Dubai real estate much more expensive. The AED is artificially low against most currencies whilst it is pegged to the USD. This makes the real estate prices in Dubai bearable for most multinational companies. If the AED is allowed to appreciated say 20% against the other currencies this will translate to an instant 20% price increase. Will they take the risk? Doing so might be the tipping point for many would be investors.

3. property dimensions. What is included in the property dimensions. eg a 350sqm villa- does it include the terrace (covered or uncovered) garage?

Thanks to those who reply

Hi,

To respond to your queries;

1) Residence visas are issued with MOST freehold properties. Obviously if you need the visa make sure that your developer is assuring this. To my knowledge if you buy resale, if you pay under the asking price it doesn't matter. Your Contract of sale of the property entitles you to the visa.

2) Pegging of Dollar!!! This has been a massive debate in the region for the last 2 years. IF they do depeg or revalue then it will not be in the order of 20%. Rumours locally are that it would be 2-3% maximum, for the reasons you mentioned (amongst others).

In my opinion thats why Dubai is a good investment now as you could gain a couple of % if this happens.

But ultimately the honest answer to this one is nobody knows!

3) Dubai's sketchy regulations regarding real estate sales mean that each developer sells his properties with different terminologies.

I have heard the phrases serviced area, carpet area, built up area, saleable area amongst many others. All are different and it needs to be clarified with either the developer or sales agent (usually the sales agent will tell you a lie as they don't know).

But yes the garages terraces etc will be included. Some apartments even divide up the corridor areas and split it between all the units! Ultimately this doesn't appear to matter much in Dubai as noone checks - reason being they are mainly investors who are not really bothered as long as the sales docs state XXsq.ft. If your looking to buy a place to live in though it does matter so check it out.

Thanks for the reply. Bottom line is you have to check everything before you purchase!! re the Visa I thought that perhaps the Visa is a selling point that helps support the developers margin. If you buy a resale from a private person where would the incentive be for anyone to get you a visa- assuming that a private individual would be incapable.

Re the de- peg. If they are only talking about a 2-3% appreciation, then why are they even talking about it, it wont make any difference to the inflation rate.

They will start with 2 or 3 % ,but it will continue periodically and within a year it will be around 20 %.All are expecting this 2 or 3 % in this month.Even though it was clarified last week that they will not change the peg , but it looks like they will have to do it.

You may very well be right but sometimes the obvious is not what ends up happening. I can still remember a conversation in 1998 with a senior European banker who was convinced that the chinese were going to revalue their currency and he was not alone. Fast forward to 2007 and guess what the Chinese are still basically aligned with the USD.
The Chinese motivation was to make their goods super competitive and so stimulate their economy. The US thought this was great because cheap goods allowed them to keep inflation at bay and so keep their interest rates low.

In the case of Dubai, I could speculate that their main priority is to keep sucking foreign investors money in to fund their development and this over rides the issue of inflation, therefore it is in their best interest to keep the peg and thus their real estate more "affordable". Also oil is priced in USD so if the AED appreciates, then they will get less AED per barrel.

Your logic seems to be right.May be that is what holds them behind till now.Anyway lets wait and watch till december end.
Thanks

I'm impressed with the amount of information discussed in this thread! Very intellectual discussion and it's always good to see that.
Sorry I can't comment on the Qs asked, but I'll keep watching this thread and see how things evolve at that front in the months to come.

in Today's newspapers they are talking about revaluation,I feel that they will re value a little bit.