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Dubai or not to Dubai? That is the question.

Ever considered buying property outside of your resident state?  How about investing outside of your country? Well, there are interesting opportunities in many far-away locales, but lately I’ve been fascinated by real estate in a place half-way around the world where something very different is happening. 

Back in October, 60 minutes conducted an interview with Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum. I caught the interview and it was intriguing to hear how Dubai, one of the few Arabian states open to the West in terms of social and cultural integration is growing like wild fire. Dubai is creating a real estate and property boom at a staggering rate. People from all over the world, especially from Europe, South Africa and portions of Asia are turning toward this country to live and invest. Despite lying in a region that is typically seeped in formality and strict conventions, Dubai has created a setting reflective of globalization. Gone are the strict restrictions on religion, selling of alcohol and formal dress code. Dubai has focused on creating a very open societal nature where people looking to move into the country are free to practice their own religion, alcohol is served in hotels and the dress code is liberal.

One of the most interesting parts of Dubai is… how they are creating opportunities for people to purchase real estate.  Over the last few years, Dubai has created massive, man-made islands, with emphasis on “man-made” because their construction process is so intricate, complex and just plain astonishing.  The islands have a couple of distinct shapes.  Three of the monstrous islands fall into the shape of palm trees, and the latest creation contains some 300 smaller islands that form together to resemble all of Earth’s nations.  Basically, an aerial shot of this collection would look like a flat map of the world.

“The World” and the three “Palm” islands are the work of Nakheel, a government-controlled property developer. Nakheel recently announced that it would hand the keys of 3,900 flats and villas on one of the palms, Palm Jumeirah, to their owners by year’s end.  You may be wondering about the price tag on some of these investments/homes… prices for the most luxurious villas on the island will top four million dollars. And if you want to own a “World” island all to yourself, Nakheel states that only half of the islands are still available.  The other 50 percent of the islands on “The World” have already been sold, with price tags ranging from 15 to 40 million dollars.

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