Fancy living with a supercar in your living room or watching fish swim past your bedroom window?
On the eve of Dubai's annual property exhibition, Cityscape Global, developers are showcasing some of their more novel housing proposals for the city – undeterred by a marked decline in home sales across the city.
Yesterday Damac Properties unveiled the world’s first homes designed around the Bugatti sports car. The seven-bedroom villas, which will be built at Damac’s Akoya Oxygen project on the Umm Suqeim Road on the outskirts of Dubai, will be literally built around the classic European sports car.
Not only will the homes be built to mirror the curved Bugatti Veyron design, but each home will include “an indoor vehicle display area” where glass panels between the living room and garage will mean that owners can admire their cars from the comfort of their own sofa.
Prices for the villas, which will overlook the planned Tiger Woods-designed Trump World Golf Club and will be showcased at the Cityscape Global property show this week, will be in the region of Dh36 million. “With hundreds of other projects out there all competing, developers have to think how can they make them stand out from the crowd, and that’s where the creativity comes in,” said Sean McCauley, the director of agency at Asteco.
“What we have been seeing is a slowdown in transactional activity just at a time when there has been a huge influx of new entrants into the market.”
Built by Damac, the project has been christened Ettore 971. It is named after Ettore Bugatti, the founder of the renowned luxury super sports car brand, and 971 is the international code for the UAE.
“The added touch of being able to see your car from many areas of the living quarters adds to the immersive design incorporated throughout these truly luxurious homes,” said Ziad El Chaar, the managing director of Damac Properties.
The project is just the latest in a series of weird and wonderful housing plans to be displayed at Cityscape, which is a key test of confidence for the property sector in the emirate.
These include Kleindienst Group’s plans to build 42 so- called Floating Seahorses – a cross between a villa and a boat – to be located off the World Islands in Dubai.
Each villa, designed and manufactured in Dubai, will have three levels – one underwater, one at sea level and an upper deck – with a completely submerged master bedroom and bathroom. They will also be equipped with a kitchen, a dining area and a glass-bottomed Jacuzzi.
The unusual developments are being marketed at a time when property prices in Dubai are falling.
According to Knight Frank’s Global House Prices Index, mainstream residential prices were some of the fastest-falling in the world in the second quarter of this year, retreating 12.2 per cent in the year to June and by 2.8 per cent quarter on quarter.
Knight Frank ranked the city’s house price performance bottom of a list of 56 global cities for the period, saying the Dubai market had performed worse than those of the hard-hit economies of Greece, China, Cyprus and Ukraine.
lbarnard@thenational.ae
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, Leon.
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
How to come clean about financial infidelity
- Be honest and transparent: It is always better to own up than be found out. Tell your partner everything they want to know. Show remorse. Inform them of the extent of the situation so they know what they are dealing with.
- Work on yourself: Be honest with yourself and your partner and figure out why you did it. Don’t be ashamed to ask for professional help.
- Give it time: Like any breach of trust, it requires time to rebuild. So be consistent, communicate often and be patient with your partner and yourself.
- Discuss your financial situation regularly: Ensure your spouse is involved in financial matters and decisions. Your ability to consistently follow through with what you say you are going to do when it comes to money can make all the difference in your partner’s willingness to trust you again.
- Work on a plan to resolve the problem together: If there is a lot of debt, for example, create a budget and financial plan together and ensure your partner is fully informed, involved and supported.
Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching