How's Business Doing in Dubai? News from the Developer World. Interview #3

I run a consulting company. We advise developers building projects in the UAE market, and we also work with investors, funds, family offices, and independent analysts. People come to us when they don't know how to execute a development project — or when they've already run into trouble along the way and need a team to help them out.

Land selection, financial models, market research, product concepts, design briefs, branding, marketing strategies — that's the full scope of what we do for clients.

They're all still in development — we have five active ones. I can name the locations: Dubai Islands, the Satwa district, Ras Al Khaimah, and a plot in Production City.

At first there was shock. Now it's much better than I was estimating back at the end of February. We used to specialize in helping newcomers enter this market — and obviously there are far fewer newcomers now. There are opportunists who say, "finally, my time to get in," but there aren't many of them, and that type of client dried up fast. We quickly realized we had to adapt, so now we focus more on helping those who went in without us and got into trouble find their way out.

The market has genuinely gotten harder — sales are down about 50% from January. But honestly, I think that's partly right and necessary, because the market was heading toward oversupply. We already saw it in the analytics back in December. They jabbed a needle straight into the inflated balloon. And that means it's time for efficiency. A rising market forgave every mistake; now mistakes aren't forgiven.

The key one: they built a product that doesn't fit the market. They got the apartment mix wrong — loaded a project with a huge number of two-bedrooms nobody wants to buy or rent. The bottom line is they don't sell. Second, they built a project that, with the new price levels, became too expensive to deliver, so the economics simply don't add up — and they come to us to optimize it. And third, the market just doesn't know they exist, so again, no sales.

The market is gradually recovering, but it won't be a fast process. We'll probably get back to January levels no sooner than a year and a half, maybe two. But it's still a huge market — even significantly reduced, it's bigger than the Moscow market, for example. And you can still operate successfully here; you just have to change your strategy now. There are investors saying this is exactly the time to buy — to hunt for assets, ready buildings, or plots at good discounts. They see it as an opportunity.

There's nothing like walking into a supermarket and grabbing a plot at 50% off — that doesn't exist. But sellers have at least become more willing to talk. Where in January they'd ignore you and constantly push prices up, now they'll call you themselves and ask, "remember you were interested in our property? Maybe we can get back to the table."

The key thing here is relationships — they matter enormously. It doesn't matter whether you're negotiating to buy a plot, or working with your lead designer, or your general contractor. If you build a genuine human relationship — meet for dinner, bring a gift, even a matryoshka, sincerely take an interest in his family and his kids — you always end up with some leverage. That's the one secret 90% of Russian developers and investors ignore. They think that because they have 10, 20, 30 million dollars, the whole market should instantly bend to them.

I haven't really noticed that — but when it's convenient, I mention that I'm 25% Chechen. We instantly become Eastern brothers. That's a joke, of course, but the truth is I'm rarely taken for a Slav anyway. People usually assume I'm either European or from the Caucasus.

As a former urban planner, I'd advise looking at the whole choice through the lens of city development. Assess the urban anchors that could genuinely improve quality of life in a given location, study the district master plans, and look at how the building itself is designed for quality of life and its unit economics — not just the price per square meter. In Dubai there are five centers that development is focused around, and each has its own specialization:
— Marina and the Palm — the tourist center;
— Downtown and Business Bay — the business center;
— Dubai Silicon Oasis — the innovation center (still taking shape);
— Dubai South, the zone around Expo;
— and Deira — the historic center, where Dubai's development actually began.

Deira, by the way, is my favorite district in Dubai. Its new waterfront is Dubai Islands — formerly Deira Islands — which is basically the new face of that part of the city.

It is. They introduced freehold there back in 2023, and now there's a wave of new projects, prices have climbed, and some of the historic cafés that had been running since the 80s are closing. It started as a locals' area, then the locals moved out toward Jumeirah and it became a workers' district — and now those residents are gradually being pushed out as old buildings and villas get renovated, because the location is genuinely top-tier. A classic case of gentrification.

Sheikh Zayed Road, running straight through the center of the city. There's this concept of "urban fabric," and here that fabric is torn apart by the road — it's very hard to get from one side to the other, only through the pedestrian crossings at the metro. We actually worked on a concept with architect partners: cover the road with a pedestrian podium, stitch the two sides back together, maybe even build on top of it, and leave the road running underneath like a tunnel — you could even run a tram up there. So the concepts exist. It's capital-intensive and expensive, but it can be fixed.

Dubai Walk — the whole idea of making all of Dubai more walkable. That's a really cool initiative. They're building special elevated pedestrian paths on a second level, starting from the World Trade Center, and some of them will be air-conditioned with retail built in. It's essentially an extra layer of infrastructure that makes Dubai walkable above the hot roads below.

Deira and Satwa, for sure. Dubai Creek Harbour. Dubai Marina too, though there you feel like you're walking through IKEA — down one set corridor with arrows on the floor telling you where to go. And Dubai Canal — the canal is stunning. The part I mean isn't Business Bay, it's the Dubai Canal stretch after Sheikh Zayed. It's beautiful there.