With the Dubai property market starting to gain momentum again, I came across an article from one of our network of Service Providers, Mark Armstrong, who is a director of iProperty Plan and provides independent analysis and tailored advice to investors and home buyers in Australia.

Mark’s article focuses on the incentives that developers will try and use to get you to part with your hard earned savings, when the reality is, none of the incentives are actually free and are only built in to the cost you finally pay.

The article is written from an Australian perspective but the same equally applies here in Dubai. If you were residing in Dubai for the last property boom (and bust don’t forget..) you will remember the huge billboard advertisements from several developers that were giving away cars and boats with the purchase of a property. Well they were not really giving them away, you were paying for them in the purchase price. Worse still, you were paying for a depreciating asset, not an appreciating one.

So your investment now consists of an asset that you hope will appreciate and one that is almost certain to depreciate, placing additional pressure on your property to increase in value at a greater rate to cover the depreciating asset you now own.

The article provides two live examples of when incentives (gimmicks?) were used, or not as the case may be, to entice buyers into buying a property and the very different results that arise.

The full article can be found here:
http://www.propertyobserver.com.au/residential/beware-the-new-breed-of-property-marketing-incentives-mark-armstrong/2013092465265

The key message to be derived is that the decision to buy or invest should be made on sound principles, not bells and whistles. That message crosses most of our critical business decisions also.

At TLB Business Advisory Services our aim is to provide not only sound advice around our core specialties, but also provide a network of trusted advisors and specialists to assist you with other factors affecting your business and potentially personal lives.

To find out more about how our network of advisors can assist your business, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at gidday@tlb.ae or telephone in Dubai on 04 3609477.