Author: head dubai

As nearly 100 employees went back to work in the office of a Dubai media company, managers found a way to avoid awkwardness around social distancing — color-coded bracelets indicating how staff want to be greeted.

At the reception of Create Media Group, employees can choose between green bracelets, to show fist bumps are fine, yellow ones to indicate they can chat without touching and red bands to keep a distance from others.

“Anybody can walk into the reception, they pick one of those bands up and they put that on and it gives a very clear signal to anyone else who is interacting with them on how close to get,” said Tom Otton, managing director at Create Media Group.

Individuals may have differing views on how to deal with COVID-19.

The ongoing pandemic has had dramatic impact on property markets. The rental market too has not been left unscathed – current rentals have not just slowed to a crawl, but have in fact ground to a halt and even contracting.

And rents have been falling as tenants struggle to pay their dues. Tenants too are looking to move into similar-sized properties at lower rents.

The landlords are now caught in a rut, unable to find an escape out of the situation. The property market has suffered over the past five years after a period of expansion, as there have been dramatic changes in people’s mindsets and something unprecedented for such a short time period.

Saving grace?
While opting for a holiday home, do not be fooled by unrealistic projections. This category isn’t into magic solutions. But the landlord can be reasonably sure that the property as an asset will not depreciate and still be able to get a high single-digit return.

Most importantly, the possession of the property always remains with the owner – there is no need to worry about cheques not going through or tenants not leaving. On average, expect between 15-40 per cent more than what long-term rentals can fetch.

Check around
Ensure selecting the a management company to work with, do the homework. There are many good ones and each with its own strength. Visit the office and get to know their team, because they will be handling the guests.

Keep in mind managing holiday homes is a hospitality business and not a real estate game. Ask the question that if you are going on a vacation, would this management company be able to make the stay a comfortable one.

Analysts said that the inflow of foreign investments into the emirate’s vital sector could pick up in the near future because the greenback is projected to weaken further.

Since the dirham is pegged to the US dollar, the UAE currency follows any fluctuation in the dollar. The dollar, hence dirham also, has weakened by 12.2 per cent against the euro in the past five months, falling from 1.06 on March 20 to 1.19 on August 18. Similarly, the dollar has lost 15.78 per cent against the UK’s pound. This effectively made buying property or any other assets in the UAE cheaper by over 12 per cent and 15 per cent for European and UK investors.

“Since mid-March, investors from Switzerland, the UK, Germany, and Italy have been able to take advantage of gains made by the Swiss franc, sterling and the euro, as the US dollar weakened over the past four months,” said Sean McCauley, CEO of Devmark.

“Subsequently, development projects in Dubai have, in effect, become 14.8 per cent and 11.2 per cent cheaper depending on whether you are buying in euros or sterling. Indeed, UK investors, for example, buying in pounds could now save over Dh185,000 when buying a one-bedroom luxury apartment, at the Address Jumeirah Resort, once compared with the exchange rates at the beginning of March,” added McCauley.

According to Reidin, the total value of real estate transactions in the Dubai residential market still closed just shy of Dh10 billion in the second quarter of 2020 despite the lockdown. Although transaction value is down by 40 per cent year-on-year, the volume of transactions was marginally up in May and June.

“Many market watchers are predicting that the dollar will soften by a further 1.75 per cent by the end of this year, so it could be fairly safe to assume that Dubai’s property market will benefit from these financial market dynamics, for some time to come,” added McCauley.

Analysts that the uncertainty surrounding US economic recovery and US stimulus package are weighing on the greenback.

“There is a strong momentum for investors to want to sell the dollar,” said Juntaro Morimoto, an analyst at Sony Financial Holdings, pointing that the greenback has been declining since last month.