My Own Home takes you inside a reader-owned property to ask how much they paid, why they decided to buy and what they have done with it since moving in
Cyba Audi, a communications strategist, award-winning business news anchor and founder of Saba Consultants, bought her first home in Dubai back in 2015.
She’d spent 15 years in rented accommodation, but after getting married she and her husband wanted somewhere to call their own.
It was just after the city had won the bid for Expo 2020 and it had become a race to find the perfect location before it got snapped up.
She eventually fell in love with a Dh10 million space in Al Bada’a, which they have spent almost three years renovating through the pandemic, working hard to make the house a home.
The National takes a tour.
Please tell us about your home
It’s a beautiful house in the sense that it has this fantastic energy and everybody feels that when they walk through the front gate and into the garden. It’s very uplifting, very positive, you immediately feel oxygenated.
We saw the house about three times before we chose it … and the nice thing about it, which I didn’t actually think was nice when I first saw it, is that the garden is at the front, so the house is pushed to the back of the plot.
It has these massive, mature ghaf trees in the front – they look very romantic. And we’ve added some palm trees as well alongside a walkway down the middle of the garden. It really gives the house character.
It was probably built in around 2000, but it’s a solid house.
How did you choose your area?
It’s an independent house on a short street with only four other houses on it.
We’re right in the middle of the city, just opposite City Walk and behind Shangri-La Dubai, but you wouldn’t know it because it’s so quiet and so lush and green.
I walk to work every day – it’s a half-hour walk to DIFC and the airport is 20 minutes away.
Why did you want to own your own home?
I lived in the Dusit Thani for a good 15 years before I moved here.
We wanted to have a space to call our own. We wanted it to be ours, we wanted the security and familiarity, something to grow in and grow with. The permanency of owning that gives you a bit of comfort and grounds you.
I have friends who have spent 20 to 25 years in rented accommodation and I do not understand that. For me, it’s knowing that I have a base that gives me the opportunity to build a life.
And also being on the ground – we lived in a flat before in a tower and now we’re on the ground and that makes a world of difference.
What renovations have you done inside the house?
When we bought it, it had four bedrooms upstairs and a bedroom downstairs. We turned two of those rooms and bathrooms into the master bedroom, which is gigantic. Downstairs, I started using the bedroom as a gym, but now it’s more of a quiet room.
We’ve basically opened up the whole house, tore down a lot of internal walls and there are very few doors in this house that shut completely.
There was also a massive staircase that went across the whole centre of the house. It was a very old fashioned, sweeping staircase with a very ornate bannister. It was horrible. So, the first thing we did was to take it out and we gained all this space underneath it. We put in this Z-shaped staircase on the side and now we have a sitting area here.
The windows were also quite small, so we opened them up and now it’s very light. We wanted to bring the outside in.
What changes did you make outside?
We had this small, almost kidney-shaped pool up front, but we took that out and put in a lap pool – or perhaps a dipping pool is a better description. It’s 11 metres long, so we can get a few strokes in there.
How much did the renovations cost?
We did it in the pandemic, so it took longer than it could have, I think it took us maybe three years to finish, so it ended up costing up to Dh4 million.
What was your experience with the contractors?
It was a difficult one, to be honest. Back then, not a lot of renovations were happening in Dubai.
It was hard to find contractors that did medium-sized jobs, so we had difficulty finding a company that could do it.
We also had to stop the project one or two times and find new people to do the job with us. We didn't get to the point of courts, but it was pretty close.
What interior design choices have you made?
Overall, it's a little bit of Art Deco, a lot of old-world elegance and modern functionality.
I wanted somewhere we could hang up our art and enjoy it, somewhere we can entertain family and friends. We found the dining table long before construction was finished, because we found it in an antique place in Al Quoz.
It seats 12 and we have a large family and we wanted them to be able to come for dinners with their future partners and future children.
That’s what we had in mind when we were selecting furniture and decorating the house.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Like a Fading Shadow
Antonio Muñoz Molina
Translated from the Spanish by Camilo A. Ramirez
Tuskar Rock Press (pp. 310)
VEZEETA PROFILE
Date started: 2012
Founder: Amir Barsoum
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: HealthTech / MedTech
Size: 300 employees
Funding: $22.6 million (as of September 2018)
Investors: Technology Development Fund, Silicon Badia, Beco Capital, Vostok New Ventures, Endeavour Catalyst, Crescent Enterprises’ CE-Ventures, Saudi Technology Ventures and IFC
'Shakuntala Devi'
Starring: Vidya Balan, Sanya Malhotra
Director: Anu Menon
Rating: Three out of five stars
MATCH INFO
UAE Division 1
Abu Dhabi Harlequins 12-24 Abu Dhabi Saracens
Sly%20Cooper%20and%20the%20Thievius%20Raccoonus
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDeveloper%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Sucker%20Punch%20Productions%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPublisher%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Sony%20Computer%20Entertainment%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EConsole%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20PlayStation%202%20to%205%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%205%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Key findings of Jenkins report
- Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna, "accepted the political utility of violence"
- Views of key Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, have “consistently been understood” as permitting “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” and “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
- Muslim Brotherhood at all levels has repeatedly defended Hamas attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.
- Laying out the report in the House of Commons, David Cameron told MPs: "The main findings of the review support the conclusion that membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism."
Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
Read more from Johann Chacko
Countries offering golden visas
UK
Innovator Founder Visa is aimed at those who can demonstrate relevant experience in business and sufficient investment funds to set up and scale up a new business in the UK. It offers permanent residence after three years.
Germany
Investing or establishing a business in Germany offers you a residence permit, which eventually leads to citizenship. The investment must meet an economic need and you have to have lived in Germany for five years to become a citizen.
Italy
The scheme is designed for foreign investors committed to making a significant contribution to the economy. Requires a minimum investment of €250,000 which can rise to €2 million.
Switzerland
Residence Programme offers residence to applicants and their families through economic contributions. The applicant must agree to pay an annual lump sum in tax.
Canada
Start-Up Visa Programme allows foreign entrepreneurs the opportunity to create a business in Canada and apply for permanent residence.
