Dubai's Real Estate Rises

It’s not much more than six square kilometers of desert pocked with building foundations, but by the time the United Arab Emirates city welcomes visitors for the World Exposition in 2020, the neighborhood known as Dubai Creek Harbour will contain nine high-end residential areas, as well as the biggest shopping mall, the largest Chinatown, and the tallest structure in the world. The new neighborhood epitomizes the kind of rarefied lifestyle that Dubai has leveraged over the past decade to attract top foreign talent and businesses, with the expatriate population growing to 2.7 million, according to official population statistics in 2017. The city has boomed into an expanse of postmodern architecture, including the world’s tallest tower, the Burj Khalifa, at 828 meters, and now boasts first-class restaurants like popular sushi spot Nobu, as well as plans to build the world’s first Hyperloop shuttle, which will travel 140 kilometers between Dubai and Abu Dhabi in 12 minutes. "Dubai is like a drug; from the minute you’re a tourist, that’s where the love affair starts," says Paul Christodoulou, managing director at Gulf Sotheby’s International Realty, who has lived in the emirate for over a decade.