My Own Home: Bachelor turns Dh2.35 million Dubai Marina flat into a co-living space

Jack Sellers transformed his three-bedroom property into a five-bedroom space and now lives there with four friends

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  Jack Sellers owns a five-bedroom flat in Dubai Marina, which he shares with four other people. All photos: Antonie Robertson / The National

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  Mr Sellers moved to the UAE in 2021 and started online property valuation company YallaValue, which he modelled on the UK's Zoopla

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  The view from Mr Sellers' home

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  The kitchen and dining space

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  One of five bedrooms

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  Another of the bedrooms

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  The balcony

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  Mr Sellers likes being able to walk everywhere in Dubai Marina

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  Another bedroom

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  Mr Sellers with the sixth resident of the flat

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

Entrepreneur Jack Sellers, 32, moved to the UAE from London in 2021 with a plan to invest in property.

The founder of YallaValue, a digital property valuation platform, grew up in neighbouring Bahrain, so the move to Dubai felt natural to him.

When he bought his three-bedroom flat in Marina Sail Tower, in Dubai Marina, for Dh2.35 million back in 2022, it was purely for investment purposes. He added two bedrooms and planned to rent it out to five tenants.

But after a gruelling renovation that set him back 10 per cent of the property value, he decided to take the master bedroom for himself – and he couldn’t be happier.

The National takes a look around.

Please tell us about your home

I basically bought a big three-bedroom flat in the Marina that had the potential to be turned into five rooms. I made the calculation that that would make it worthwhile for me and keep the bills paid.

The vibe is like a young professional co-living space in a modern, minimalist setting.

I removed all the designs from before, painted all the walls, redid the floors. I picked people that I thought would get along with each other, and so there's always a friendly vibe.

The residents often congregate in the kitchen area. Antonie Robertson / The National

Everyone's doing their own thing, everyone's got their own lives, their own jobs, but we still enjoy spending time together as a flat and congregating in the kitchen.

How much did you buy it for?

I moved to the UAE in 2021 and bought the flat in March 2022 for Dh2.35 million.

I own a property valuations platform and the estimate it gives now is around Dh2.8 million. And I think that's pretty conservative. I'd say anywhere between Dh2.8 million and Dh3 million right now.

The thing is, there are not many people who want to buy a five-bed. There are a lot of people who want to buy a three-bed with a living room. If I were to sell it, I'd probably have to convert the living room back.

What renovations have you done?

Initially I wasn't planning to live here. I was literally just going to buy it, do it up and go live somewhere else. But I made it the way that I wanted it, so at the end I felt like I had to live here now. I didn’t want to go and rent something that I don't really like when there's something that I designed.

The living room was transformed into two extra bedrooms. Antonie Robertson / The National

The renovation process was quite stressful, because it was a big job. And I'd never done anything like this before. This was my first renovation.

We knocked down walls, put up new ones, repainted the rooms, split the AC across the two new rooms so each room had their own separate controls.

We also redid the kitchen and added a new bathroom, redid all the other bathrooms, pulled out all the bathtubs and put in showers.

I was going to leave the original tiles to save money, but at the last minute I saw a picture of some herringbone floors and thought, ‘I’ve got to do that’. It finished it off really nicely, so I’m really glad I did that.

How much did you spend on renovations?

The renovation was about Dh200,000. When I went into it, again, it was purely for investment. At the time, I said to myself, I would be willing to spend up to 10 per cent of the property value on renovating it.

That was just an arbitrary number, but it was something to stick to. And I did.

It meant being smart about all of the individual, little things, looking for alternatives. If I hadn't have had that figure in mind from the beginning, then I would have spent a lot more.

Why did you decide to buy?

I was in London, then during the second Covid-19 lockdown, I had just had enough. I grew up in Bahrain, so coming to Dubai was like coming home.

I felt like I had kind of done everything I wanted to do in the UK, and I wanted something else. I had some money that I'd set aside to put into property, and I just knew that I didn't want to do that in the UK. Dubai was the obvious choice, really.

Why did you choose Dubai Marina?

Jack Sellers said he didn't consider living anywhere other than Dubai Marina. Antonie Robertson / The National

It was obvious to me before I even came. I can't think of anywhere better in Dubai. I've never felt Downtown. It's nice to look at Burj Khalifa, but that's assuming you've got a flat that does, as those flats are expensive.

I do a lot of walking as well, and being 10 minutes from the beach, sitting here now and looking at the boats – nothing compares to the Marina, in my view.

What facilities do you have access to?

We've got a gym and we've got a pool. The gym is small, so I don’t use it, but the pool has a lot of potential, it’s just a bit old.

I'm on the board of the building and I've battled very hard to try to make changes in the building. It takes time, but we're getting there.

How long do you plan to own this property for?

The long term. I really love it. I like just being able to sit here and see the boats. It's a very bright flat. Even though the living room is two bedrooms, I redid the kitchen so that all the light is still coming into the flat.

It just has a very nice vibe.

At some point in the future, would I turn the living room back into the living room? Yeah, potentially. But it works for now.