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I actually started typing this out in response to a thread “feel good factors vs. feel bad factors” in the Expat Help Forum after I had got about halfway through I realised that well, this is cathartic (if perhaps incoherent at times) in a way and helps to get quiet a lot of “issues” off my chest before I leave.

Due to the topical nature I decided it should rather go into General Chat than Help Forum, as some of my opinions while I think are carefully worded may offend others and I would hate for all forum members to wake up tomorrow with a big “Etisalat – censored” sign where their favourite forum used to be – mod’s if it needs to move, then move it or remove it!

Like I said, these are my views and opinions you don’t have to agree or disagree; personally I’d like to hear other people’s views on the topic(s) as well.

Dubai : Feel Good Factors vs Feel Bad Factors

I’ve been pondering that question for the past 9 months now, and it is partly responsible for the reason I’m leaving Dubai. Over the past year I’ve felt this "undercurrent" for want of a better word, the exact source and nature of the problem still eludes me - possibly a combination of things? Anyway here is my list (for what its worth):

Over the past years I’ve found the following - while costs have generally increased across the entire spectrum of services provided in Dubai - salary packages and the associated benefits have actually been reduced. I suppose this is natural for big/ large business to tighten their belts, but what they have failed to recognise is that there is an increase in the cost of living for "Joe Public". The segment of the population who this mainly affects can be categorised as "middle class Dubai".

To be frank, it doesn't really affect those in the "mega-wealthy" bracket, or the poor sods who have to work outside in the blazing sun as their very basic requirements have not changed over the last 20 years and are still largely provided for by the employers.

Dubai falls very short in providing decent, cost effective housing for its "middle class". Rentals have increased astronomically over the past few years - possibly in reaction to the fact that expatriates can now own their own property. This seems paradoxical, as if you were forced into a position where your rent went up by so much it would actually make it more affordable to buy your own villa/ apartment - additionally when you leave Dubai you get to sell the property and take some of your hard earned cash with you rather than leaving it in the pocket of a landlord. One would have expected landlords to actually drop the rentals to try and keep their buildings occupied!

Speculation is rife in the property market, while it is a free market and I don’t begrudge anyone from making some money off a good investment, the local market has hundreds if not thousands of extremely wealthy people who can afford to buy up 10 or 20 properties at 2 million dollars each so that they can turn a quick buck. In theory this is all good and well, but you can only really stay in one villa at a time, so the obvious thing to do is rent out the others (or sell them on at a profit if you are able to do so). As this is an investment you expect a good return on it, so the rental of the property has to out perform the cost of finance or return a higher rate than if you had simply invested it. Again we come back to “Joe Public” who now has to either fork out more in rental or find alternative accommodations. Quiet simply the local property developers don’t develop properties for the middle class, and if they did and restrictions weren’t placed on the market, you could expect these to also be snapped up in batches of 20 at a time and the cycle would repeat itself.

“Money laundering” through the property market seems to be quiet in fashion, in a society such as Dubai where large sums of hard cash are exchanged without batting and eyelid; it seems to be very easy and lucrative for a person wanting to clean some cash to invest in property. Instead of getting a few cents on a dollar it is actually possible to do clean up the cash and turn a profit at the same time – artificially inflating the property values.

What the “powers that be” fail to recognise is that most of the actual hands on physical work in Dubai is being done by lower and middle classes; high powered executives don’t get their hands dirty they have managers and labour that do it for them. As I see it, the closer and tighter the draw strings are pulled around the purse and the more expensive it becomes to live in Dubai the fewer qualified “management” and labour will make the journey to Dubai and more and more of them will be forced to leave simply because they can’t afford to stay here anymore.

This could have two outcomes, less qualified and cheaper expatriates will be drawn to the area where they can still eek out a meagre existence (staying in labour accommodation for instance) – consequently resulting in the drop of service, maintenance, building and trading standards as well as productivity levels. Or the “middle management/ middle class” will virtually cease to exist in Dubai leaving only the two extremes – labour and executives.

Business/ “the powers that be” seem to forget that Dubai is based largely on an expatriate population who originally come to earn money in a tax free environment, at a decent exchange rate with the sole purpose of repatriating their money and build a better life for themselves in their country of birth. Personally I didn’t come to Dubai for the pristine and unspoilt environment, scenic country drives, long walks in the mountains, crisp, clear air, tropical rain showers and butterflies (for those of you who haven’t yet visited, I’m being sarcastic); I came here to earn money! I now feel that I work just as hard, if not harder as I did when I arrived and have less and lees every year to show for it. There may not be tax (yet) in Dubai, but there are a million ways to make you part with your money.

Double standards in the application of the laws, again to be frank, this exists, one only has to read a selection of the weeks newspapers to confirm this!

Traffic problems, one of the most ludicrous situations I have ever encountered, people (even the government and municipality) are continually complaining about the poor standards of driving as well as the high number of serious and fatal road accidents etc. What course of action is taken to reduce this?

• Install more speed cameras (as these generate more money)
• Don’t empower the traffic police deal strictly and decisively with offenders (see double standards of the law). I constantly see expatriate policemen berated, threatened with deportation or being reported to their superiors etc. by the people they are trying to protect – purely because they are the cousin of someone important
• Have a speed limit of 120km per hour on the roads and then set all the speed cameras to a threshold of 130km per hour and publicise the fact!
• Impose a fine of 500AED (for the first offence) for running a red light, this far too little and of no help if the person concern has killed themselves (and perhaps others) in the process. An offence like this should result in the 2 year suspension of offender’s license and seizure of the vehicle by the state.
• The fine system should be linked or proportionate to the income of the offender! If a person is driving a 500,000AED vehicle they are hardly going to feel the pinch of a 200AED fine for driving over the speed limit.

Unscrupulous labour brokers and employers; again open any newspaper on any given day and see how “labourers” are treated. How can the “system” overlook such unjust behaviour by big business? Is it because they are “big business” that they can get away with practices which border on slavery? I have an interest in the Labour Forum so am always on the look out for articles of interest. This is a typical example of the type of thing I mean. In Sharjah about a year ago, a group of Sri Lankan women employed in a textile factory laid a complaint and eventually went to the newspaper as they had not been paid in about 8 months; after the case was investigated they were all paid a small fee by the employer and deported. They then changed the law so that Sri Lankan’s can no longer be employed in the garment industry in Sharjah as … here comes the punch-line “they get taken advantage of” – I rest my case.

Dubai is a very "copycat" type of society, if someone hits on a winning formula within a few months there are twenty people copying the idea (with varying degrees of success), ultimately diluting and destroying the market! I’ve seen plenty of brilliant ideas squashed by big business men with more money than the original entrepreneur simply out for a quick buck – sadly the restraints and controls that one may have in the “west” to curtail this type of behaviour are lacking.

Over the past months I have noted a very subtle change in Dubai with regards to material wealth, people and businesses seem to be more and more focused of making money quickly - I invest one dirham today and expect two Dirhams tomorrow kind of philosophy. Big business, property developers and retailers seem to all emphasise this "money can buy you happiness" and "money can buy you lifestyle" mentality – sad and superficial! Three other people who have met over the last two weeks agreed with me, they basically summed it up as “Dubai is becoming greedy”.

A wake-up call to the people of Dubai, money cannot buy you health happiness, class or style!

Interesting read that! Thanks for sharing your opinions and feelings. I am fairly new in Dubai (4 months) and get that same feeling of 'how the hell am i gonna be able to survive in a country with such a high cost of living' and damn ive been in traffick for three hours from jebel ali to deira...
but on the other hand i see so many great things happening around me that I cannot help but be optimistic about my future here. The currency here is also slightly stronger than in my country wich means that if Im avble to at least save some money every month, even if that means iI have to live just above the breadline, then so be it. Like you said, most people are here for one reason and that is to make money. And the temptations to spend what you earn is all around us.
Guess one will just have to be strong

And the temptations to spend what you earn is all around us.
Guess one will just have to be strong

i like your sentiments! i think if there is one piece of advice i'd like to leave with everyone is... keep focused on your original reason for moving to dubai, dubai is very seductive and it is very easy to fall into, or be sold a lifestyle that parts you from your hard earned cash

Soul

I have read your post twice over in some hope that i could read more between the lines.

I do understand and sympathise with your feeling and to an extent i dont disagree overall.

However as much as i have the highest regard and respect for you, i will if i may put some controvercy into your well written post. You have clearly spoken from "the heart", it is written differntly to all your other posts in expat.

Maybe my post will evoke more discussion, i hope so, but i am sure i will antaganise many. Plese dont take what i say out of context, i want to merely give an alternative viewpoint.

In reading your post Soul you have in a round about way talked about someone like me. I am one of those to which you refer, who saw Dubai as a market ripe for extracting huge amounts of cash from. I feel in a way partly responsible/contrib for your situation

As a man of "property" i watched closely over the years from way back in 1998. People new to Dubai would not believe the difference between the Dubai then and the Dubai of today. I can still clearly remember the day in May when the Khaleej times had on its front page "Dubai Expats to own Property".

This to me was like claxon and reg rag to a bull, i went down the Emaar Sales Centre which was empty, sat in the cinema on my own, then had 5 sales people attending me. Only 10% deposit sir, geez Soul, i was like a kid in a sweet shop. I bought 4 there and then.

I got back in the taxi and went straight over to the Palm and bought a further 2. I wont go into the details of how much money i have made because it is ing and people would either not believe me or hate me.

My point is really Soul, you and every other expat at this time before the boom peaked in 2004 could have done the same. I have posted before in expat about this.

People tend to live in a bubble and do not see further than the end of their nose when it comes to making serious provision for their future. At the end of the day like you correctly pointed out people like you are there to earn money and good money.

To me, this is a allien concept. I have never needed to go anywhere to earn good money, for me it is purely the extra "icing on the cake". If you cant make a good living or earn the money you think you want to earn at home, then going to another country for a short period of time is really only using a sticking plaster in terms of your long term career and future wealth.

To me, what would make the move a "wise move" is what you do with all this extra money in the short term. People will only be fooling themselves that by selling up house and home and going to work in the gulf for 2/3 years and come back with your pockects stuffed with cash.

What people forget, is that the market you have all experienced in Dubai has been echoed not only in Europe but the US as well. Property has seen a global boom since 2002, it is not exclusive to Dubai.

Those expats who either left their home country with nothing or sold their house etc to live in rented accom are the biggest biggest loosers here.

Like you correctly pointed out your salaries have not kept up with inflation in dubai. This has not only had a serious knock on effect to current expats, but future expats too. People have ignored the "underlying rate of inflation in dubai" which i currently estimate at between 15-18 %,the official headline figure is around 7%.

If expats in the "no home anywhere" scenareo factor in the rise in property values say over the last 2 years, and there is an intention to buy a home at some point in their lifetime, then i am sorry to say that expat has in effect worked for nothing.

The amount of money that expat could have saved could not possibly cover the increase in house/home values, whether it be DXB or the UK for example. A house valued in the UK 2 years ago @ £100k is now worth around £160k. So that expat who may has saved 6000 Dhs a month over the same period is now £36k a year short to buy the same property.

Now someone like me would say how wise is that expat. He or she could have taken out a mortgage 2 years ago and 6000Dhs a month could have bought the same house, rented it out, covered the morgage, still saved 6000Dhs a month and made £60k to boot.

Likewise Soul any expat had they had the confidence and means could have replicated what i did in Dubai in 2002/2003/2004 and make bucket loads of cash.

At the end of the day soul its horses for courses. People need to see further than just their time in dubai or anywhere else. People have a jolly when they are there, spend spend spend and maybe save a little. It wont solve your lifes long term issues of settling down with a huge wad of cash and a huge home bought and paid for.

Soul i have told this story before but i will reprint it. I can remember being in the dow and anchor in JBH with some sale brochures. A huge group of expats asked me what they were like, would i buy one blah blah. Almost every one of them had a total negative about buying property. "ahh one day the Shiek will change his mind you will loose everything", "the rents are so cheap here why would anyone want to buy", "i wouldnt buy one here it will fall down" blah blah.

Just scan back expat forum Soul and look at posts by various people about the construction quality etc. Chocs and others here have all said the same thing. But i have to put it in perspective. Who gives a shit about whether they will fall down in 35 years. On 3 of my properties i made 300% on each

I have to say in being rather blunt Soul, well they wouln't be moaning about it now and neither would you if you had bought an appt in 2003 fro 500k Dhs and just sold it for 1.2million Dhs. This opportunity was available to ALL of us.

Wow what a nice discussion. Arnigang, I admire you for taking the risks with property market back then. I think it is always goes down to how much risks people welling to take and if the negativity of the crowed will ever affect them. Many successful people took a risk and made a choice regardless of how much negativity they faced, risks will not pay every time but I truly believe that if you take risks, you will make it one day. Iam sorry if I have drifted away from the original topic but I always have interest in property and business in general, and I do not think that high paid job or free tax country are the only solution to live finically comfortable.

Wrong Dave, to make money you have to have the bottle to actually take the risk. Everything is achievable even if you have no money, its called borrowing.

It is better to have tried and failed, than not tried at all.

sara_uk wrote:Wow what a nice discussion. Arnigang, I admire you for taking the risks with property market back then. I think it is always goes down to how much risks people welling to take and if the negativity of the crowed will ever affect them. Many successful people took a risk and made a choice regardless of how much negativity they faced, risks will not pay every time but I truly believe that if you take risks, you will make it one day. Iam sorry if I have drifted away from the original topic but I always have interest in property and business in general, and I do not think that high paid job or free tax country are the only solution to live finically comfortable.

You have made your reply simply but very effectively Sara, and you are totally correct in your thinking.

Touché

Brilliant post Arnie, I must admit I did kind of have you in the back of my mind while I was writing .

This is not a knock at the property market, and I distinctly remember one of your first postings taking me to task over this very subject.

I’ll be the very first person to admit that I don't begrudge anyone the opportunity to make money - I mean one of the philosophies in life is "well if I don't, someone else will", and like you say you saw an opportunity where others (myself included) saw shaky ground.

What I was proposing though is the short-sightedness of those omnipresent “powers that be” in providing for middle ground; that while there are genuine opportunities and money to be made by entrepreneurs such as yourself, there also those (perhaps in the vast majority) that don’t have the wherewithal to be able to purchase affordable accommodation.

I can categorically say, that while, my own personal situation would have allowed me to buy (and as you point out I was given the opportunity which I sadly didn’t take), there are many, many others who simply could not even afford the 10% deposit or even the 6,000 AED per month. Now that does not make them any less of an expatriate than me, and I feel that if this “middle ground” opportunity were provided that more of them would make Dubai their second home; simply by not providing this option they are immediately relegated to the ranks of “tenants” and are then at the mercy of a whimsical landlord. The consequence is that they either then pigeon-hole themselves into a small rented apartment with two friends or grow disenchanted and leave.

In my minds-eye I have this mental picture of the “powers that be” sitting around, deciding to build a brand new, perfect city-cum-lifestyle – they then get a horde of labour, engineers, architects and managers in to build their dream. When it’s finished, they try to fill it with the crème dela crème to complete their society, they then tell all the labour and workers to pack up their tents and hit the road so that they can all live happily ever after… the only problem with that is it is not self-sustaining, when the labour and engineers and managers left, they took all the revenue from trade, the tax and rent money with them along with a huge number of the skill set required to operate and maintain the new city …. They don’t have a layered society they only have part of one!

There is one lesson I learnt very early on (in Dubai), don’t try to hard to change things – they are that way for a reason, they won’t change and you will only kill yourself trying!

Like I said this is cathartic, even if it’s meaningless ramblings

And lastly I'm not bitter and twisted, I had quiet a good time in Dubai over all (I have a wife and daughter to testify for that), I just wanted to share some views

Soul

thank you for respecting my viewpoint as i have always done so with yours and i found it difficult to respond without the risk of offending you.

Mate, i still agree even with your well written reply. I think we would probably agree on the level of "expat" to which we both refer.

I probably should have made this more clear in my first post. My viewpoint was mainly pointed at the average "western" expat earning around 10-20k Dhs per month.

If their sole aim was to work in Dubai for the money, then that group has got it wrong and totally lost the plot. If they want to take large amounts of cash home with them, they wont in this salary bracket unless compromises to their lifestyle are made.

Simple things like the £ to AED exchange rate has scuppered that. In 2002/3 Brits were gets 5.1/3 Dhs to the £ now its hovering around 6.5 - 7. I am affraid thats a lot less pounds to bring back home but brill for the holiday maker.

To me its simple, either live the life, enjoy it and blow it or save a bit or, use that time to really make money. I am sure people go there with the latter intention, but human nature dictates in never actually transpires.

People think wow tax free lots of money blah blah it really isnt like that, its just an illusion.

I am sure my mate Zooter wont mind me sighting him as a really good example. He is a professional in the UK earning realatively good money with a fairly good standard of living. He has tried to equate this to working in Dubai and we have privately discussed his options as friends.

We have both come to the conclusion that unless someone offers him stupid money, it really isnt an option for him at the moment. He knows that he needs to enter the property market now before it leaves him behind. Secure his position and become even more qualified and then and only then he will move forward.

It would be very easy for him had he talked to other expats to have been drawn and sucked into the "good life in Dubai". We talked frankly about his options and i made him aware of things that didnt even cross his mind.

Anyone earning about 12000 Dhs a month in DXB ( with all the extras like accom thown in) , should in theory be able to live and buy a propery even now. I bet you though, we are talking a very very small minority that actually does. If they want the new car, drinkys out, mixing and keeping up with the jones then bam.

This is very interesting but is the post now about money and property? Arnie yoiu say that earning b/t 10-20K per month is not a good reason to come to Dubai.
But what about moving here for the whole experience? The new culture, the learning of different life experiences. To me this was a big factor in the decision to come to Dubai.

Now with costs of living aside and everything else - the money earned here allows me to buy property in my own country and afford to make repayments even if I have no tenants. This is a good safety net to still be able to live and meet commitments if so required.

It is hard to save though when you first come out, spending the entire salary each month is required to set yourself up. It is only now 5 months in that I can start naking some headway.

Apart from bs traffic and rents it is still an amazing place to live.

Scarlet

Apologies, my only intention was to sight those expats other than those like yourself in working and living for "the experience". Respect to those that do.

As a caveat to you post though Scarlet 12k in Dhs is a fairly below average wage in the UK for a professional, i cannot speak for other countries.

For example a newly qualified teacher with no experience now starts @ £21k pa, that equates to 11,500 AED per month. I see the average wage for the same in Dubai is 6-9k per month. These expat teachers cannot be doing it for the money.

Hi Arnie, no offence taken I promise - I appreciate the candour, as from past experience I know you to speak your mind. I was really trying to elicit some response to my (current) personal perspective on Dubai.

A lot of what you said makes perfect sense.

I agree with you 100% regarding the fluctuating exchange rate, I have (well had) fallen victim to this myself – but, once the books were balanced still my personal circumstances were better here than back home.

Scarlet … this is a free for all – feel free to prod holes if you feel like it.

"For example a newly qualified teacher with no experience now starts @ £21k pa, that equates to 11,500 AED per month. I see the average wage for the same in Dubai is 6-9k per month. These expat teachers cannot be doing it for the money."

Arnie, this is exactly what I was getting at, the loss of skill-set. For 11,500AED a school would rather hire two or three cheaper, less experienced teachers than one good one

I feel i have hijacked this post for which i humbly apologise so i will change direction and cover some other points you raised.

I can do nothing but agree with your observations re life in general Soul. Law enforcement sucks in my opinion too. There is hardly any police presence regards "traffic police". The only real time you see them is attending accidents.

If you remenber a while ago, Chocs went out with them on a mission to patrol the SZR in unmarked cars. The results were amazing. With the money and resouces the goverment have, why they dont increase this to a daily task unit consisting of 20-30 police cars amazes me.

The same goes with camera's. We are blighted in the UK with them and it does work, people generally are shit scared of them. The cost - bugger all compared to the amount of revenue they produce, which in turn could fund more patrols etc.

On the M4 near where i live in the summer 2 cameras, one each side were put up while the road works were completed. Two cameras netted the force 1/2 million pounds in 3 months

Again regards the worker and civil/employment rights situation.Again i totally agree with you Soul. I dont believe this will ever change. However unlike the UK, there is no one prepared to speak out for them without fear of recrimination. I find this very sad indeed.

However, this is a double edged sword and the powers that be are dammed if they do and dammed if they dont. If they were to be paid and treated for their actual worth, can you imagine what the cost of living would be like in Dubai. It doesnt bear thinking about.

Again in the UK the average labourer working on a building site earns £10000 a month thats near on 6500 Dhs. Now translate that wage for all the construction workers/taxi drivers etc etc etc. The middle class expats wouldnt survive 6 months and they would all be flying out by the plane load. Dubai's economy is based on this cheap labour it wouldnt survive otherwise.

dbxsoul wrote:"For example a newly qualified teacher with no experience now starts @ £21k pa, that equates to 11,500 AED per month. I see the average wage for the same in Dubai is 6-9k per month. These expat teachers cannot be doing it for the money."

Arnie, this is exactly what I was getting at, the loss of skill-set. For 11,500AED a school would rather hire two or three cheaper, less experienced teachers than one good one

Soul i am not talking experienced teachers in the UK, i am quoting a salary for those newly qualifed out of Uni. They are not even paying the basic UK rate for teachers in dubai, let alone highly experienced ones.

VERY refreshing posts arnie and soul........ While soul was discussin gabout basic conditions faced by average joe in Dubai , arnie you were putting more emphasis on business oppurtunities in Dubai. You see back in 1998 , I guess you were really experienced real estate agent by then who knew the way s the market worked and you knew ways to analyse the market which most of the working class ppl lacked so they didnt take advantage of that..........

Soul did stress on some points like inflation, dubai becoming city of elite and poor human rights which i have often read in newspapers and heard form my friends. Irrespective of this Dubai is still really good place for business if you know your ways. It's responsiblity of th egovernment officials to make sure thye make the city sustainable and buildings last more than 35 yrs....

Soul i am not talking experienced teachers in the UK, i am quoting a salary for those newly qualifed out of Uni. They are not even paying the basic UK rate for teachers in dubai, let alone highly experienced ones.

if that's the case - what is the drawcard for dubai? international experience?

I know I'm on a much better wage than I would be at home. As a postgrad with only 1 years experience, back in the UK I was continuously told I had to do another year's work experience before I would find paid work for £18k. I looked in Dubai and was offered a job on 12k Dhms a month.

As for labourers earning £1k a month in the UK is standard due to the cost of living in the UK. But labourers in India perhaps get paid even less and that is even if the opportunity exsists for these men in their home country. I believe it's all relative at the end of the day. There are 'middle class' properties, but perhaps they do not exsist in Jumeirah or in the marina... However in Jebel Ali and Mirdif, they do. It's the same as London. Live in London, pay a fortune, live in Slough and the prices drop. The only benefit in the UK is the infrastructure. For example a direct A road to central London and public transport. Dubai does not think about this which causes the jams. Saying this, the traffic here can be nothing compared to London.

I'm not on a fantastic wage, but I am comforted by the fact I can save and have saved in Dubai if I really want to.