Cobalt news
Middle Eastern Promise
Timothy Rowe
04/07/2008
With the market in Europe continuing to be uncertain, more and more real estate professionals are looking to the opportunities in the Middle East. The career choices in the region are compelling and the appetite for real estate professionals to join in on the development boom is gathering pace.
The market has been developing at a frenetic pace for the last decade and the issues of high demand and low supply are still acute, so the future in the region looks rosy, both for developers, investors and service providers.
Back in 2002 when the Dubai government authorities announced that foreigners would have the right to freehold ownership of immovable residential property in certain areas of the Emirate, no one could have predicted just how successful a decision that would be.
But now those looking to diversify their property investments throughout the Gulf region have a number of other markets and market sectors to tap into and an increasing number of property experts agree that Dubai commercial property investment may actually be the best way forward.
Since Dubai’s property market exploded and significant sums of money from professional expatriates and international investors poured into the Emirate, governments throughout the Gulf region decided to follow suit. Nowadays investors have a massive choice of property investment opportunities - from Abu Dhabi to Qatar.
Because the emphasis for property developments throughout Dubai and the Gulf region has been on the creation of luxury, iconic, lifestyle experiences, the majority of the projects under construction or in the planning stages in Dubai are for luxurious real estate developments. However, many have overlooked the commercial side of property demand in Dubai and only recently developers have begun to consider that of those moving to live in Dubai annually, a large percentage are manual workers and lower paid professionals, who simply cannot afford to buy or rent high grade property. This is being dealt with so the range of developments now encompasses the needs of all socio-economic groups in the region.
The numbers of small, medium and large commercial companies, multi-nationals and corporations establishing significant bases in Dubai and subsequently the number of companies servicing these clients is rising at a staggering rate. So much so that the amount of office, retail and commercial property space available in Dubai cannot sustain the demand for it, hence the positive outlook for the future.
The demand for professionals encompasses Chartered Surveyors, Town Planners, Quantity Surveyors, Project Managers and Asset Managers. The attraction, over and above the tax free income, sunshine and luxurious living is the quality of work that is available. The projects are, without exaggeration, the biggest, tallest most iconic projects in the world and therefore the excellence and the challenges of the work is attracting people from across the globe.
At Cobalt we are sourcing professionals from 6 continents and lifting the lid on the dynamic and fast moving world of the Middle East property market.