<a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/tags/my-own-home/"><b>My Own Home</b></a><b> 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</b> Long-term UAE resident Akther Arkate invested in his family's future by buying an off-plan property in <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/tags/dubai/" target="_blank">Dubai</a> after many years of renting. The engineer, who works for air traffic control in the emirate, lives in a three-bedroom apartment in Midtown community, in <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/2023/10/18/my-own-home-dog-lovers-pay-off-mortgage-for-dh900000-dubai-production-city-apartment/" target="_blank">Dubai Production City</a>, with his wife and three children – two of whom study abroad during term. The couple bought their home in 2017 and moved in during 2020, at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. While the family have settled in well, and they love the neighbourhood, they have bought a town house, again off-plan, and will move when it is ready, by 2028. Meanwhile, they plan to enjoy the only place in the UAE that has truly felt like home. <i>The National </i>takes a look around. It’s a three-bedroom apartment with a good layout. It's a compact layout, but it’s not too small. It’s perfect for us. We have a living room, which is quite huge, where we can accommodate a lot of visitors or friends. The three bedrooms are just the right size for us. We enjoy living here. We had bought a house in India and we had spent a lot of money over there. Then something struck my mind: we have spent so much money in India, and we stay in that house once a year, yet we stay over here for the majority of our time. So, we thought: let's look at some places over here that we can call our own home, rather than a rented home. Deyaar [the developer] was running a fantastic payment plan at that time. Construction had just begun, so you could pay Dh10,000 per month until the completion, which was around three years away, and at the time of handover you could go into a mortgage. We paid it for around 33 months, and then we did the mortgage. The total price was around Dh1.6 million, all inclusive, with all the government charges and everything. Because the community opened in Covid, nobody really knew Dubai Production City. It's a wonderful community, but it has not appreciated on regular Dubai levels. It might fetch around Dh1.8 million or Dh1.9 million now. As long as it doesn’t depreciate, it’s good. If you consider you’re paying whatever you were paying as rent before, and it was going down the drain, at least now the property is yours, the asset is yours. The payment plan was what attracted us, but then we saw the layout of the community. It’s a 1km-long community with one level full of amenities. It's like resort-style living. The community has grown. It’s well maintained, with lots of amenities. There are three swimming pools, three gyms. Anybody who has kids below 12, this is a perfect place for them to grow up, because you have a 1km podium, which is secure, so you drop your kids on level one and it's a closed environment. They cannot go anywhere. It's also adjacent to Jumeirah Golf Estates, which is one of the top-notch communities in Dubai. The reason it’s called Dubai Production City is there is a production free zone in the middle of the community, so there are a lot of printing or storage warehouses and facilities. Then there is a City Centre mall as well. Before we moved in we’d wanted to renovate it as per our aspirations. But then during Covid everything was bust, so we were not able to do what we wanted to do. It’s very difficult to renovate when you are occupying the house. We did some minor modifications, but nothing major. If I were to do it, I'd renew the kitchen, but otherwise there is not much renovation that is required. The space is underutilised. The NOC (no objection certificate) process is a pain, so that’s what’s kept us from doing it. Modern with a classical touch. It’s a modern layout, with classical furniture. During Covid, we also bought a town house in Villanova and we thought we would move there when it was ready. But we got so used to this community and this place, that we didn’t end up moving. Now we’ve sold that property and taken another property in Athlon by Aldar, just across from Global Village. It’s our goal to move over there when it’s ready in 2028, because the kids are growing. <i>Do you want to see your home featured in our series? Email kgillett@thenationalnews.com for more information.</i>
