Discovery Gardens

dubai expat life

Dubai Rent Guide

Are you planning to rent a property in Dubai? Whether it is a villa, flat or bed space – rent negotiation is a skill every expat must acquire.

Although there is too much supply and low demand but rents in Dubai fluctuate very frequently. Some say falling rents in Dubai is a myth.

Gulf News reports rents in Dubai have surged by more than 10% this year.

Dubai Rent Guide

Dubai Rent Guide:

Business Bay

Rent in March 2011 – Dh87.6 per square foot yearly
Current rent – Dh92.4 per square foot
Current average three-bedroom apartment rental – Dh115,000 to Dh130,000

The Greens

Rent in March 2011 – Dh73.92 per square foot yearly
Current rent – Dh78.6 per square foot.
Current average three-bedroom apartment rental – Dh120,000. to Dh150,000

The Palm Jumeirah apartments

Rent in March 2011 – Dh76.44 per square foot yearly
Current rent – Dh81.84 per square foot
Current average three-bedroom Shoreline apartment – Dh160,000 and Dh170,000 for a street view / Dh200,000 and Dh220,000 for a sea view.

International City

Rent in March 2011- Dh66.96 per square foot yearly
Current rent -Dh72 per square foot
Current average two-bedroom apartment rental – Dh40,000 to Dh50,000

Jumeirah Lakes Tower (JLT)

Rent in March 2011- Dh60.36 per square foot yearly
Current rent – Dh64.92 per square foot
Current average three-bedroom apartment rentals – Dh110,000 to Dh130,000

Arabian Ranches

Rent in March 2011- Dh56.52 per square foot yearly
Current rent – Dh61.2 per square foot
Current average four-bedroom villa rentals – Dh220,000 to Dh250,000

Dubai Marina apartments

Rent in March 2011 2011 – Dh74.76 per square foot per year
Current rent – Dh81.84 per square foot
Current average rentals for a four-bedroom apartment – Dh140,000 to Dh200,000.

The Springs, The Meadows and The Lakes

Rent in March 2011 2011 – Dh53.76 per square foot yearly
Current rent – Dh59.16 per square foot
Current average three-bedroom townhouse rentals in The Lakes – Dh180,000.
Current average four-bedroom villa rental in The Meadows – Dh250,000

Jumeirah Beach Residence (JBR)

Rent in March 2011 — Dh73.92 per square foot yearly
Current rent — Dh82.2 per square foot
Current average rentals for a four-bedroom apartment – Dh180,000 to Dh220,000

Discovery Gardens (DG)

Rent in March 2011 – Dh49.68 per square foot a year.
Current rent – Dh49.8 per square foot.
Current average : two-bedroom rentals – Dh55,000 to Dh70,000 a year

Palm Jumeirah villas

Rent in March 2011 – Dh73.92 per square foot yearly
Current rent – Dh77.28 per square foot
Current average four-bedroom villa rental – Dh350,000

Downtown Dubai

Rent in March 2011 – Dh92.88 per square foot yearly
Current rent – Dh97.44 per square foot
Current average four-bedroom apartment rental – Dh200,000 to Dh240,000

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Dubai Municipality pushing back plans to charge expat housing fees

Dubai expat housing feesDubai Municipality is pushing back its plans to charge all expat housing fees.

Currently, the housing fee is imposed in some residential districts of Dubai. The authorities have planned to roll it out across the emirate by June 2012.

However, a series of delays means only 65 percent of expats are currently being charged.

Housing fees, billed through residents’ monthly utility bills, are calculated at five percent of the tenant’s annual rent. Freehold property owners pay five percent of the annual rental value, as calculated by the RERA index.

Among the areas not yet fully covered include Al Barsha, Discovery Gardens, Palm Jumeirah, Burj Khalifa area and Dubai Marina.

Emiratis do not pay the charge, leading some residents to dub the fee an “expat tax”. This is one of the hidden costs of living in Dubai.

As one expat said, Dubai is replacing the word tax with fees.

Dubai Residents to be fined for hanging clothes, having barbecue in balconies

Dubai Residents to be fined for hanging clothes, having barbecue in balconies

Residents of Palm Jumeirah, Jumeirah Lakes Tower, International City and Discovery Gardens will start getting fines from March if they are found hanging clothes or having a barbecue on their balcony.

Trakhees, the organisational arm of Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation, supervises residential communities, which also includes Jumeirah Heights, Jumeirah Village and Jebel Ali Downtown, will end its awareness campaign that started in October last year by month-end.

“We will end our awareness campaign by end-February and start issuing fines to those not obeying the law from March,” a company spokesman told this website.

In November, the Community Conformance Division of Trakhees had informed residents not to fix satellite dishes on the facades or balconies of their buildings; not to use balconies as places of storage for any purpose other than seasonal furniture pieces; not to hang sheets, clothes or curtains or rugs or mops or laundry on balconies or railings of homes and not to have barbecues in their balconies.

The authority says it has undertaken a comprehensive community-based awareness campaign that includes a range of awareness-raising posters and brochures in five languages: Arabic, English, Hindi, Urdu, and Chinese. Those failing to follow the rules would face a fine Dh500 per offence.

Separately, tenants breaching the occupancy limit regulation set up Trakhees could face fines of up to Dh50,000. The maximum allowable occupancy limit for apartments is one person per 200 square feet from the total property area.

From: Emirates 24X7

International City rents drop below Dhs 15,000

International City

Rents in the International City area of Dubai have slipped below AED15,000 a year for the first time, as prices in Dubai’s battered property market continue to fall.

Several studios in the Nakheel development are available for as little as AED14,000 a year, although most landlords require potential tenants to pay the full amount in a single cheque.

A series of studios measuring 455 sq ft in size are listed in many of the development’s clusters, including England, China, Italy and Greece.

The prices are more than 50 percent lower than the AED30,000-35,000 bracket recommended in RERA’s first Dubai rental index, published in October 2009.

Dubai, the worst-hit property market in the Gulf, saw house prices more than halve in late-2008 as the financial crash wiped out project funding and brought a halt to its real estate boom.

Nakheel was one of the biggest casualties of the crash, suspending at least 100 projects in the wake of the downturn.
Earlier this month, real estate consultancy Asteco said that rents in International City had fallen by four percent in the second quarter of the year.

The drop was worse in Discovery Gardens, also developed by Nakheel. Asteco said that rents in the development near Jebel Ali had fallen by 11 percent in the last three months.

Both projects have suffered lower values as depressed prices elsewhere in Dubai have led renters to move to other locations.

International City residents have long complained about poor infrastructure, the lack of sufficient access to the development, and the proximity of a nearby sewage processing plant.

From: Arabian Business

relaxing in Dubai

No water at Nakheel run Discovery Gardens buildings

No water at Nakheel run Discovery Gardens buildings

The curse of “managed” properties reappeared as water has been disconnected to some buildings in Nakheel-run Discovery Gardens due to non-payment of Dewa bills.

Emirates 24|7 quote the residents:

“We have had no water for three days now. We called the Nakheel call centre and were told the [Nakheel] management was working to solve the issue,” S Kalyan, a resident of one of the Nakheel-managed buildings, told this website.

“We contacted the Dewa call centre and were told that Dh21,000 is outstanding from our building. Dewa told us that there are a number of buildings where they have already disconnected water supply,” she added.

When contacted, a Nakheel spokesman told this website: “We are currently consolidating all the accounts on the buildings that we manage with Dewa to verify the owners of all the accounts. We are resolving such cases immediately to minimise the impact on residents. This process is important to ensure no disruption in services and utilities to residents in the future.”

Residents of Building No 94 said their water connection had been disconnected three days back and they were finding it difficult to manage their daily chores.

Discovery Gardens consists of 26 million square feet and more than 26,000 apartments of various sizes. It is one of the most popular affordable housing communities across Dubai with one bedroom apartments now available for Dh38,000 per year.

Dewa mixes-up Discovery Gardens’ bills

DEWA Discovery Gardens Bills

Residents of two apartment blocks in Discovery Gardens have been receiving Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) bills that actually belong to someone else.

The Dewa bills in question have the wrong building number, wrong premise number and even wrong water and electricity meter numbers.

Thus, a tenant receives a bill each month with his name on it, but with someone else’s building number, premise number and water and electricity meter numbers.

Tenants of Buildings 13 and 14 are most affected by this slip-up.

Speaking to this website, Arif AbdulKarim Julfar, Manager, Media & Marketing, Dewa, said, “Regarding the cases, we discussed it with our billing services department, they are following them but will require site verification for Building 13 and 14 where they have to check each customer account number, meter number, premise number etc. It will be completed within 7 working days.”

However, Discovery Gardens service staff in the know (and on condition of anonymity) said, “The necessary Dewa details of tenants of building number 13 have got interchanged with that of corresponding flats of building number 14. The error is believed to have occurred because of wrong addresses recorded.”

When tenants figured out that their bills and usage was not adding up, in some cases since August last year, they decided to dig deeper.

“When I checked with property manager Asteco to confirm my premise number, I was told that Dubai Municipality and Dewa have a different numbering system. Hence, the building number is different on the bill,” says one resident who did not wish to be named.

“I was not satisfied with his answer and hence, took the matter up with his superior, who admitted that the numbers had in fact got jumbled,” adds the resident.

Another resident who also spoke on condition of anonymity said, “The current system in which we are paying the bill is dangerous. If the person, to whom my bill is being sent, fails to clear it by the due date, electricity at my house will be cut off!”

Sure enough one resident got a letter from Dewa last month asking them to clear the unpaid bills amounting to Dh2,000.

When contacted issue, Asteco through its public relations channel said it will not be able to comment on this as the tenants have their own meters operated by Dewa.

From: Emirates 24|7

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Honey, there are rats in JBR!

rat trap in jbr

Jumeirah Beach Residence (also known as JBR) is a 1.7 kilometre long, 2 million square metre gross floor area waterfront community located in Dubai Marina. It is the largest single phase residential development in the world and contains 40 towers (36 are residential and 4 are hotels) . JBR’s capacity is about 10.000 people living in its apartments and hotel rooms.

The developer, Dubai Properties (a subsidiary of Dubai Holding), launched JBR in August 2002. This 6 billion dirham project was completed in 2007.

Living in JBR is any expat’s dream, the architecture, environment and lifestyle being few of the many reasons. However, all is not that glossy at JBR. A report by Emirates 24|7 sheds some light on how residents of JBR are experiencing one of the most basic household nuisance, rats.

While hundreds of rat traps have been installed in Jumeirah Beach Residences (JBR), the rodents are not sparing residents in newer communities such as Discovery Gardens.

Suhail S, a JBR resident, said: “The traps have been there for some months now. Fortunately, I haven’t seen rats out here.”

Earlier postings on JBR community blog reveal the community was facing a rodent menace and authorities are well aware about it.

Madhura P, a resident of Discovery Gardens, said: “At a certain time of the day, we can hear noises in our air-conditioning duct… one can clearly make out that it’s a rat out there.”

“While we got the duct clean, rodent droppings could be seen everywhere… unfortunately, the traps and the poison did not help. There is no action taken by Nakheel… their call centre personnel just tell us to solve our problems on our own.”

Another resident said: “I stay on the top floor and am fed up with rats. I don’t know where they come from, but they can be found on the ceiling. Although I’ve reported the issue many times to the pest control company, but there has been no relief yet.”

A thread here tells of rats at Choithram’s in JBR.

Image: Miqel.com

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