More than 4,000 people are expected to descend on Next Move Live, the Cityscape spin-off property show this weekend as developers and agents hope to attract more end users into the Dubai property market to buy both existing and off-plan properties.
Next Move includes just 30 exhibitors including developers, estate agents and banks. It hopes to attract the sort of people who buy homes to live in rather than investors.
During the previous boom, Cityscape, which takes place in September, became a byword for crowds of investors pushing and shoving to put down deposit cheques for off-plan properties they expected to soar in value overnight.
“We have made this show small on purpose,” said Wouter Molman, the director of Cityscape Group, which is organising the exhibition. “We wanted to make sure that the majority of exhibitors here were property brokers because consumers want to be able to buy property that is ready to move into.”
Mr Molman added that so far around 4,000 had registered to attend the show – about 20 per cent more than the company had originally expected.
However, when The National visited yesterday few visitors were to be seen and most of those in the exhibition hall were exhibitors.
The attempt to tempt more ordinary people to buy homes in Dubai comes as real estate brokers across the emirate estimate that prices have risen anything between 22 and 60 per cent last year and are expected to return to their pre-crisis levels over the coming months.
It also comes as Dubai has witnessed a return of off-plan selling in the emirate where people put down payments on homes that will not be completed for three or four years.
Earlier this year the Dubai Land Department director general said that he expected house prices in the capital to rise by 35 to 40 per cent this year after climbing 30 per cent last year. He warned that the city was planning new rules to control speculation on properties that were sold off-plan before they were built to prevent Dubai experiencing another property boom and bust.
The Dubai developer Pacific Ventures reported that it had sold 180 of the 500 flats it was marketing since the start of the year – a number which includes secondary sales as well as off-plan flats.
The company is currently marketing around 40 flats at its Burj Pacific scheme in Downtown Dubai as well as between 12 to 14 flats a piece at its Jumeirah Village Triangle projects Pacific Edmonton Elm and Pacific Residencia. It is also about to start marketing its Pacific Village scheme of 167 villas and town houses, which it will also be selling off-plan.
“A lot of our off-plan sales have been to end-users, not to bulk buyers. You’d be surprised,” said Miguel Guadalupe, the chief operating officer of Pacific Ventures.
“People are investing now but they’re doing it cautiously via a construction-based payment plan because they want to wait. They think it’s safer than buying a villa that’s already built because if they change their minds it’s harder to get rid of the already built property than the off-plan one.”
“We have already started organising visits with some of the visitors who have come to the show earlier today,” said Abdulla bin Sulayem, the chief executive of the Dubai-based developer Seven Tides, which opened sales on 64 already built apartments at its block of 442 serviced apartments at its Anantara The Palm Residences during the show.
“We are open to three types of buyers; those who live in Dubai and want to make use of these luxury services, those who want to come and visit Dubai for perhaps one month a year and investors,” Mr bin Sulayem said. “Probably 75 per cent of our buyers are investors who do not plan to live in the property themselves.”
Apartments at the development start at Dh2.6 million.
lbarnard@thenational.ae
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
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Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
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Three-day coronation
Royal purification
The entire coronation ceremony extends over three days from May 4-6, but Saturday is the one to watch. At the time of 10:09am the royal purification ceremony begins. Wearing a white robe, the king will enter a pavilion at the Grand Palace, where he will be doused in sacred water from five rivers and four ponds in Thailand. In the distant past water was collected from specific rivers in India, reflecting the influential blend of Hindu and Buddhist cosmology on the coronation. Hindu Brahmins and the country's most senior Buddhist monks will be present. Coronation practices can be traced back thousands of years to ancient India.
The crown
Not long after royal purification rites, the king proceeds to the Baisal Daksin Throne Hall where he receives sacred water from eight directions. Symbolically that means he has received legitimacy from all directions of the kingdom. He ascends the Bhadrapitha Throne, where in regal robes he sits under a Nine-Tiered Umbrella of State. Brahmins will hand the monarch the royal regalia, including a wooden sceptre inlaid with gold, a precious stone-encrusted sword believed to have been found in a lake in northern Cambodia, slippers, and a whisk made from yak's hair.
The Great Crown of Victory is the centrepiece. Tiered, gold and weighing 7.3 kilograms, it has a diamond from India at the top. Vajiralongkorn will personally place the crown on his own head and then issues his first royal command.
The audience
On Saturday afternoon, the newly-crowned king is set to grant a "grand audience" to members of the royal family, the privy council, the cabinet and senior officials. Two hours later the king will visit the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, the most sacred space in Thailand, which on normal days is thronged with tourists. He then symbolically moves into the Royal Residence.
The procession
The main element of Sunday's ceremonies, streets across Bangkok's historic heart have been blocked off in preparation for this moment. The king will sit on a royal palanquin carried by soldiers dressed in colourful traditional garb. A 21-gun salute will start the procession. Some 200,000 people are expected to line the seven-kilometre route around the city.
Meet the people
On the last day of the ceremony Rama X will appear on the balcony of Suddhaisavarya Prasad Hall in the Grand Palace at 4:30pm "to receive the good wishes of the people". An hour later, diplomats will be given an audience at the Grand Palace. This is the only time during the ceremony that representatives of foreign governments will greet the king.
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Yahya Al Ghassani's bio
Date of birth: April 18, 1998
Playing position: Winger
Clubs: 2015-2017 – Al Ahli Dubai; March-June 2018 – Paris FC; August – Al Wahda
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