www.dubaipropertycrash.com

Shown on ITV1 Thursday, 29 January 2009, 9:00PM

Having just watched the Piers Morgan documentary about Dubai on ITV1, I can report that overall it was a worthwhile one hour of viewing and a welcome break from all the doom and gloom to be found on the box lately.

There was nothing particularly new that we haven’t all seen many times before, yet when you watch any footage of Dubai, you cannot help to be wowed by the sheer grand scale of the Dubai project. After all the negatives we are hearing lately, even on this website(!) it makes you remember that somehow Dubai is something special after all. There is something to it. However its not all bright lights and glitter, for the city is still very young and has a lot of growing up yet to do. The laws often change overnight and you get the nagging doubt that its perhaps too good to be true. Like a Hollywood set that looks great at the front, but is just cardboard cutout, behind which is just desert. Wait, it IS just desert behind Dubai!

Piers Morgan for his part, was trying to give a balanced account of life out there from an expat point of view. However he succeeded only in showing Dubai as a place of excess, where greed is good. The expats he spoke to were only the uber-successful entrepreneurs, who all knew how to ‘work hard’ and ‘play hard’. There was the secretary from the home counties who has become a wealthy estate agent in four years with her own polo team complete with horses and trainer, and another girl from equally humble beginnings in the UK who runs her own magazine out there and frequents the polo get-togethers on the weekends at Arabian Ranches. The expats we met on the programme seemed to spend every night partying down at Barista bar and the rest of their spare time at the shopping malls. What was shown was a glitzy lifestyle and a very alluring one – I bet there’s going to be plenty of secretaries tonight going to sleep dreaming of moving out to Dubai to make their fortunes and sport permanent tans. However we didn’t meet the more middle of the road Brits, the bog-standard employees working out there. It would have been good to hear some of their views and opinions of life in Dubai.

In an attempt to inject a little bit of reality (!) into the mix we did get to hear from a computer magazine journalist who’d had his office shut down about 10 years ago because he’d dared to publish an article about an emirati with high contacts about how his computers didn’t work. Thankfully we are told, nowadays such censorship is unlikely. Still, Piers tells us, there seems to be a pervasive fear amongst the expat community that if you put a foot wrong or say the wrong thing, you could get deported at the stroke of a pen with precious little notice and no recourse to appeal. On the other hand Piers found it impossible to find anyone who had actually been deported so he concluded it was probably more an urban myth. Errrm…hello…thats because they’ve been deported so you’re not going to find them in Dubai!

Anyway the upshot of the urban myth is that there is very little crime in Dubai. The camp fashion photographer who had been expelled from the USA due to jewel thefts and subsequently allowed entry into Dubai positively adored the place. He felt that the strict rules were a small price to pay for the security of knowing you could leave your doors unlocked or your car window down and no-one would dare to steal.

We are shown that there are several strands of society, which never really mix on a social level. Piers literally skims over the majority of expats from the Indian Subcontinent who do the manual labour including most of the manual construction jobs. We don’t get to hear from even one. Perhaps part of the contract for being allowed to film there? On the other end of the spectrum we see some of the wealthy sheikhs, the actual rulers of the land who are all fabulously wealthy and can spend millions on anything they desire. Yet for them its more about showing capability rather than spending money. We meet Dr Sulaiman Al Fahim, one of the men behind the recent takeover of Manchester City Football Club, aboard his private plane as he explains
“It’s not about the egos, it’s about showing capability. We want to show the royal family that we can do it, and what they’re looking for is to build something unique, something extraordinary.”

Dr Al Fahim does not let money distract him from his true source of happiness, which is spending most of his social time with family. Of course having the cash to buy your family anything they desire probably helps! Dr Al Fahim shows us his one of a kind lamborghini with number plate “93″, worth $2 million. Why “93″? because its the year his wife graduated. How cool is that!
Piers wonders whether he can join the family by getting to know any of the single ladies. However he doesn’t get round to posing the question out loud!

We also got to meet Patty Parfitt, ex-wife of Status Quo band member Rick Parfitt. She lives with her son in a quiet expat gated community some miles inland, at least half an hour’s drive from main downtown Dubai. Yet her villa cost her £32,000 to rent last year, all of which had to be paid up front. For the coming year the rent had almost doubled! Anyone coming to Dubai she told us, must seriously weigh up whether the lifestyle is actually all its made out to be. Certainly you would need to be on pretty good money to afford those kinds of rents. Reading between the lines we also get the feeling that she is rather lonely. It seems getting to know people is not easy, especially for an older person who doesn’t have a job of sorts. She tells us that most people tend to stick with their families. Piers twigs and describes how it is apparent that she has fallen “out of love” with the Dubai dream. Patty gives a resigned sigh and a sad smile.

Despite these contemplative time-outs though, by the end of the programme we are left in no doubt that Piers Morgan cannot help but be impressed by the magnitude, grandeur and sheer scale of ambition that surrounds Dubai and its ruling Sheikh, Sheikh Mohammed. The latest ultra massive project on the go is Dubai Land, which is a theme park bigger in area than Birmingham, and with full scale replicas of the Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower, the Las Vegas Strip and the Pyramids. It is apparent that what is happening here is the modern day equivalent of the Great Wall of China being built, and it’s happening before us, in our lifetime.

“As for the credit crunch,” says Piers, “everyone I have met here says the same thing, Dubai won’t just survive, it will thrive and that’s because it’s bursting with ambition and drive all lead by one man’s extraordinary vision and utter determination to turn this place into the biggest and most successful city in the world.”

To conclude his programme, Piers Morgan sums it all up in the words of any british builder – “It’ll be alright when its finished!”

Our thoughts after watching the programme? On the balance of it, just because of the grand scale and world leading vision of the place, it is certainly a contender for investment . However it is cetainly not immune to the credit crunch by any stretch. What is needed is a natural cooling down over the next year or two. After that without doubt there is every likelihood that we will continue to see sparkling gains from Dubai property, although hopefully on a more sustainable and gradual pace. Looking out 10 to 15 years, anyone who is able to afford to invest in Dubai as part of a balanced portfolio, should see solid gains. As with any investment though, spread your risk, diversify and don’t gamble with money you cannot afford to lose.

Links:

Watch the programme online at ITV catch-up (expires 26/02/09)


Piers Morgan on Dubai : The programme website