My Own Home takes you inside a reader-owned property to ask how much they paid, why they decided to buy and what they have done with it since moving in
When British-Cypriot entrepreneur Michelle Pursey isn’t busy running her two businesses chartering and selling super yachts and private jets, she’s working a side hustle, flipping houses with her partner, Dutch-Singaporean businessman Syarif Hertog.
While Mr Hertog grew up in Dubai, Ms Pursey moved to the city four years ago. They’ve already renovated and sold five houses together, but the one they bought for Dh5.9 million in Dubai Hills is where they plan to stay for at least five years.
The National takes a look around.
When did you buy your property?
Ms Pursey: We bought it in December last year. We bought this one just for ourselves.
Mr Hertog: We started renovating in Damac Hills with a three-bedroom, converting it into four beds, and then did a few there. We wanted to expand a little bit and move into Dubai Hills. We just found the area and location fit for us and was a better fit for the investors.
We first did it for ourselves, spending a lot of time engineering, designing it and putting a lot of our blood, sweat and tears into it. Then we decided we'd come up with such a fantastic footprint, now we’re buying other houses in Dubai Hills and applying the same cookie-cutter concept.
How much is the property worth now?
Mr Hertog: When we bought this house just over a year ago it was Dh5.96 million and I remember we thought at that price, it was really high. But now. they're already going for Dh7.4 million to Dh7.5 million.
Ms Pursey: We've fully renovated it from top to bottom, but obviously the market's gone up a lot since we purchased it. We’ve bought the house next door, and we've renovated that to look the same as this. Same material, same layout, same size, same colour, same furniture, everything. It is listed on the market right now for Dh10.9 million.
What renovations have you done?
Ms Pursey: Originally, there was a huge hole in the middle of the house where the courtyard is. We wanted to make it as open plan as possible. The kitchen, living room and dining room are one big area.
It’s also indoor-outdoor living. When you open the doors, everything feels like it's in the same area. We do that by making the indoor tiles and outdoor tiles the same material and colour so that it all looks like one big area. You double your space by doing that. We live outside when the weather is nice.
We haven't really made huge changes, but the changes we have made have significantly improved the space in the house, such as adding a big walk-in wardrobe and extending the bedroom to make it almost double the size.
Mr Hertog: We’ve tried to optimise the layout as much as possible, because Sidra, or at least most of the Sidra homes, whether that's a three or a four-bed, they're all quite inefficient in terms of layout. They have large balconies, which you don't end up using, so we've extended the master bedroom and balcony by two metres, then there's a courtyard, which was three metres, which was a waste of space, so we've extended out on that side.
How much have you spent on renovations?
Ms Pursey: We spent about Dh1 million to Dh1.1 million on it and on the other houses you're looking at up to Dh1.25 million to Dh1.3 million.
How was the renovation process?
Ms Pursey: Now we've done five house renovations in a couple of years, we've learnt a lot along the way. We’re not using one contractor to do everything. We use a lot of different suppliers for a lot of different things, which gives us a lot of power on the timetable and the quality.
I like and enjoy managing the teams, and it's challenging sometimes, but we live in a country where things happen really quickly. At any point in time, we walked into a project and 25 people were working on site, and things do go really fast.
How would you describe your interior design style?
Mr Hertog: Michelle and I have always wanted to go for the Santorini mixed with Bali kind of vibe, so that's the kind of feel you're getting here with the light colours, the light tones. Then outside, you’ve got the blue pool, with all the white pergolas and the white touches, but then with all the greenery and the plants, so more tropical like Bali.
Ms Pursey: Everything is very white because we love living in a space that feels really clean. While we don't have any kids, it's perfect. However, when you start having children and you've got white sofas and white bar stools and white carpets, that would be a bit disastrous.
Mr Hertog: We like to generally stick to three colours. In this house, it's white, a beige colour and then black as well. We do a lot of the finishes in black, like the bar stool legs, the frames, bath sanitary stuff like the towel holders and the sinks.
Why did you choose Dubai Hills?
Ms Pursey: I've personally always been attached to Dubai Hills. When I first moved to Dubai, I rented a villa and my dream was always to buy and renovate here.
I don't think you can get a better location for a standard villa in Dubai at these kinds of prices. I still think that they're undervalued. In five years, we're never going to see these prices again. If you compare it to Europe, they're still undervalued.
Mr Hertog: It’s a nice community. Everything's modern, but the most important thing is definitely location. Within 15 to 20 minutes, you can be anywhere in Dubai – the beach, the airport, your office, everywhere.
What facilities do you have?
Ms Pursey: There’s a gym, there's a swimming pool, there's a kids’ park, a dog park. If you go into Dubai Hills, you've got the pub, you've got the golf course and tennis courts.
Mr Hertog: You have all the facilities, which you would have in most of the communities. It’s all easy walking distance, because in each area, whether Sidra 1, 2 or 3, you have your individual ones.
How long will you stay in this house?
Ms Pursey: I wouldn't call it our forever home, because I don't believe in forever homes, but it's our home for the next five years until we grow out of it and want to upgrade to a bigger one. If we grow the family, we're going to want to get a bigger house.
