we're giving the UK the fingers up.Selling UK property before UK goes to the dogs

Very interesting documentary (Piers Morgan notwithstanding) tonight on Dubai. It looks a bit like Marbella on steroids. Loadsamoney, the Land of Opportunity maybe? They're building - among other things - the worlds largest theme park (the size of Birmingham) which will include a replica of Las Vegas, only 4 times the size of the original. Now don't get me wrong, I loved Vegas when we visited (for one night) but would I want to live there? Hell, no! I also loved Dubai when we visited 10 years ago, and everyone loves a bit of a splurge once in a while (we were excited to stay in the Ramada back then!) but from what I saw, I'd no sooner want to live in todays Dubai, than I would in Vegas. The divorcee of a (former?) rock star pays £27,000 for six months rent in a 4 bed house, ½ hour from the coast (so, that would be in the desert?) Just think of all the beautiful fantastic places in the world you could live with that kind of budget! Shall we start a dream list? Sydney? San Fransisco? New York? Cape Town? Lake Geneva? Torremolinos?

P.S. looking forward to Pitbys comments!

Just seen Irene & Alan's posts & would like to add our best wishes to you. I know we had planned to meet up during our September or October trips & I was ill & it didn't happen but one day, Irene, one day. I know your faces, you know ours & we'll bump into each other somewhere I'm sure.

Have a wonderful life.

Piers Morgan and Dubai...neither for the faint hearted I think!!!!

Roberto, I'm just about to "youtube" for that programme!  Would really like to see it!!  And your comments  -  spot on!  I would leave here tomorrow if circumstances allowed!  Would move back to Singapore in a flash if the opportunity arose!  And would definitely have no problem living in Spain.

If we had to move out of our three bedroom, independent, villa right now and find the equivalent as a "new tenant, new market rent" we could not afford to live here - in fact, for what we are paying now we would be hard pushed to find a one bed apartment!! A three-bed terrace is now about 50,000 POUNDS a year!!  A one bed apartment is about 20,000 pounds a year!

And it is really "tackyville"!  Everything has to be the biggest and the best - and, basically - it may turn out to be the biggest, but will never be the best!!  There is very little of quality!  Anyone famous even mentions Dubai and it's in the press here!!  Desperate comes to mind!  The property market here is much the same as in the costas!  May even be worse - many projects put on hold/cancelled/delayed due to lack of funds - but then time will tell.

Give me Spain any day!  I'm off to google Piers now!!

I'd like to assure you Motherfirth, that we have not taken this decision lightly. We have owned our Spanish home for a couple of years, have spent around 8 years deciding where to buy and we're pretty confident that we know what we're getting into.

We just want a new life in a kinder climate out of the rat race. We'll have time to explore Spain, Europe and perhaps even further afield.

Even if things cost the same in Spain as they do in the UK, we'd still be going, although that isn't true in our experience.

We love the fact that everyone is friendly in our village: strangers don't talk to us in the UK and if we say hello to someone we don't know here, we get looked at as if we're nutters.

Thank you Morerosado and BDP for your good wishes.

We KNOW we're doing the right thing.

Irene

Good luck with your move Irene and Alan. I hope all goes smoothly for you.

We haven't been here very long and have no regrets apart from wishing we had managed to sell our UK house and get the money over before the slump.

Laury

wonder why Piers always looked a little on edge!!!! or did I imagine that

yes, the dubai programme last night seemed 'out of this world'....  whilst you feel safe in Dubai and live in its opulent suroundings its totally opposite to the way of life in Spain & UK but I am not going to say anymore than that.

I stayed at the 'Jumera beach hotel' few yrs ago, was wonderful each day sunbathing at the foot of the  'Burj al Arab' ... BUT,.. i didnt feel relaxed when venturing out.

The people in Dubai are very well mannered in the shopping centers the ladies are served first, men step aside.. you dont see security guards pacing up and down, they are not needed.

I know people who purchased on 'Palm Island' one being a 'sales rep' here in the UK who I would never want as a neighbour sure the 'Beckhams' wouldnt either.. 

we chose between Palm Island and Spain... 'Gods on my side'   its not all about money !   Spain & its culture sells itself.

 I prefer 'Egypt', the locals are so much fun & carefree plus it costs peanuts!

Oh and by the way......   

anyone visited 'wild Wadi' water park linked to 'Jumera Beach/Burj'  ??

I remember females laying in  their traditional attire  ...didnt wear swimsuites.  

FLORIDA errrrrr   .............the computer says ......'NO' 

To Alan & Irene,

All the very best wishes for your new life. Your reasons for moving are similar to our own and we have never regreted our decision for a minute. The pace of life, the weather and the people have all lived up to expectation and I feel so much safer here walking the streets at night than I ever did in the UK. I hope it all works out well for you.

Have a good trip.

Jacqui

IRENE & ALAN

I wish you both all the luck in the world, you have obviously given careful thought to your move. 

You have so much to look forward to in Spain... onwards & upwards!!

best wishes   .. Debbie ( hacienda del alamo/ nottingham)

Pitby, did you find it on Google ? I found this which you may like to watch, it's Ed Byrne chatting to Piers about Dubai.

Click picture & have sound on, of course.

Thanks, More, I did find it, in segments, on youtube.  Interesting! 

It was very glammed up - obviously - and even though he mentioned Abu Dhabi bailing Dubai out a bit and Emaar and Nakheel (the two major, government owned, developers) laying off people, he really didn't go into detail.  Like how Dubai's debt is around $90 billion and how many of the projects - including the big theme park he was astounded by - have been and will be delayed by years, if they go ahead at all in this climate.  And he also didn't mention that alot of properties on the Palm have reduced in value to half what they were selling for last year.  What you saw were not the majority - those partying at the Barasti beach bar, etc.  We don't all have maids (I've certainly never embraced the maid culture and prefer not to outsource my life!).  As a friend of mine said when she saw one of the fronds on the Palm, "it's like Coronation Street by the sea"!  As he said, the "names" that are here are mostly only here because they've been paid to be here!  And as Roberto has said, if you had mega money to spend, why on earth would you want to live on a building site, when there are a thousand more beautiful, cultural, historic, etc., ec., places you could be!? All those that were here for the Atlantis opening were here because they had been paid to attend!  I could go on and on about the "negative" things about living here, but there's too much and it would take up too much valuable space on EOS!

Obviously, had we bought in 2003 here in Dubai, we probably would have made a nice little packet (although difficult to sell now, if we had wanted to) but - as Willoughby stated - there's more to life than money and we too chose culture over all this tat, when we decided to buy in Spain.

Give me Spain any day!!

(You can tell I've lived here far too long!!)

pitby

nobody has a valid voice more than yours... its a pity Piers didnt get to interview someone like yourself 

I cant figure out what market Dubai are aiming at?

has to be 'NEW MONEY' which is here today gone tomorrow.. footballers celebs etc .   they like to party hard and what happens during ramadam when alcohol is forbidden at certain times.. as I recall my hubby & I had to consume alcohol in our room from the mini bar,  Fine by us 'when in Rome' & all that, but surely that an area alone asking for trouble.  Dubai is aiming at vast numbers of people heading in their direction for a 'champagne & whatever else' good time.

those with 'OLD MONEY' i feel would not be comfortable with all that 'bling'

I remember the building alongside Mena Salam hotel... it looked like a Set from a biblical film with millions of labourers (who were not from Dubai) working in the blistering heat...

Pitby remind me, how much do those labourers earn ?

Correct me if I am out of touch here...

the "names" that are here are mostly only here because they've been paid to be here! 

Surely you're mistaken? I heard Gary Rhodes explain very clearly it wasn't about the money. Rather, he was there to spread the word about British cuisine.

Damn, I think I just peed myself laughing

Roberto, I know!!    He had to seriously stand back and think before he made that "if I were cooking just for the money ....." remark!!!

Willoughby, Dubai want's ANY money!!  They're not fussy, really!!  Although, personally, I believe you are right when you say "old money" wouldnt be comfortable with this sort of "bling"!  But even "new money" with taste wouldn't really invest here - well, my opinion!!  And those labourers earn about 200-250 US$ per month!  To work 6 days a week, 12 hours a day mostly.  And they live in not so appealing conditions, generally.  We drove though the Al Quoz industrial district this afternoon (just up the road from the Burj Dubai) and had to swerve through thousands of males, on their afternoon off, coming out of their labour camps for some recreation and relaxation.  It is really mind blowing - where do you see this sort of scene other than the middle east?  Thousands of men drawn by the promise of "prosperity" living in bunkbeds in overcrowded labour camps, working their butts off to send home about $150 a month?  And these guys make up a large percentage of the population of Dubai!!

As I've said, I've been here too long!!

But I suppose it is true, that they are there out of choice, and they couldn't earn that kind of money back in their own countries - or Spain!

Sadly, such contrasts exist in too many parts of the world. I stopped over in Brunei many years ago, and saw the oppulence of the rulers palace, along side the wooden kampongs, stilt villages, built over fetid malarial swamps where the majority of the population live. I have been to Camps Bay, a wealthy suburb of Cape Town, where some of the hill top mansions have their own funicular railways to carry their wealthy inhabitants up the hill rather than have to sweat their way up some steps, and half an hour later been in the midst of the Cape Flats Townships (Capetowns Soweto) where people have no running water or electricity in their makeshift corrugated tin shacks. In fact, you only have to cross the bridge over the Rio Grande from somewhere like El Paso, to Ciudad Juarez, to see the extremes of society, the haves and have nots, living side by side.

Mmmm.......makes you thankful to be sitting here in a comfortable home, with internet etc. Crisis or no, things could be a lot worse.

Roberto, I think the difference is that in other parts of the world you see the immense gap between poor and rich - like in India, heart wrenching in places - but they are all nationals to that country.  Here, they are foreign workers - and I know you say they are here "by choice" but alot of them have been lured by the promise of far better salaries and conditions and have paid agents in their home countries vast sums of money on the back of that promise.  So they get here, realise it's not what was promised to them, but can't do anything because they now have to work, primarily, to pay off the agent who got them the job here first, before working to at least get some money to send home, and then working more so they can leave!!  And believe me, not all of them actually get paid!  There are some who go for months without pay, and this was happening long before the "credit crunch" set in!!

Oh, it's a long story ......

Edited to say:  Roberto, are you saying that labourers couldn't earn 200 US a month in Spain???  Asian or otherwise? (Just looked back and saw your remark about that!)

OK, slight exaggeration, but wages are pathetic especially in Andalucia.

I  know, maybe wages are pathetic there, but still, all considerations in place, you can't really compare to these guys who come out here and work their butts off - especially during the summer, in temperatures reaching over 45c!! - for about, what 300 euros per month??  I think in most civilised places 300 euros a month would be considered a pretty dismal amount!!

PITBY... i agree with everything you say.

unlike Dubai, most countries simply cant afford to pay high wages.

What i struggle with, is that in Dubai 'the whealth' is thrust under your nose..  as was clearly pointed out last night indirectly with the blessing of 'peirs' ....

What kind of people can be worth many millions/billions and be proud of his empire built by slave labour. Be a drop in the ocean to provide decent accomodation to those poor individuals forced to work away from their loved ones.

Should be ashamed of themselves!!!

 what kind of message do we send out to the world if we embrace all that... it will backfire on the UAE which is a shame as I think Dubai always had that 'edge'.....   note     'had'

deb