Dubai - a cleaner and better Delhi or Mumbai

Dubai, apart from being the sought out destinations for shopping and leisure, is also the hottest investment destination for Indian property buyers. Realty Plus spoke to Sanjay Sachdev, Managing Director – Sales and Marketing, Sobha Group on the advantages of investing in Dubai . What are the benefits of investing in Dubai? Dubai is one of the best cities to live, in terms of low crime rate, robust infrastructure and strong real-estate regulatory laws. Also, when you do a carpet area to carpet area comparison, you get a much better buy and much better quality in Dubai than in India for the same price. Dubai real estate is three times cheaper than Hong Kong, London, Singapore or Mumbai real estate. For example when you invest 1million dollars in Dubai, you get 153 square meters of land compared to 20 square meters in Hong Kong, 22 square meters in London, 42 square meters in Singapore, 39 square meters in Mumbai. Another major benefit is that the rental income is tax free. An Indian can avail 50% mortgage from a Dubai bank if the investment is more than one million dirham and can get the residence visa too. The mortgage rate is also as low as 3.99 percent to 4 percent whereas loans in India are about 9 to 10 percent. How do you see the India and Dubai recent relationship? The strong alliance between India and UAE can be seen after the flurry of visits that have happened recently. Mr. Modi was the first Prime Minister of India in 34 years to visit UAE and even the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan was invited as the Chief Guest on the occasion of Republic Day of India. Dubai manufactures very few products and already Indian imports to Dubai are huge and increasing. As a consequence of the recent visits of the head of states, more money has been pledged in the right sectors for example in infrastructure that it will be beneficial for both the countries. Impact of RERA on foreign real-estate buyers in India For us it is other way around, as we are already in India and now we are building in Dubai but the developers of Dubai who want to come to India, they will come once the RERA gets strong and you can buy land easily. As of now foreign developers are very skeptical about the litigations that would go behind buying a land. No one wants to get into the litigations, you want to come, own a piece of land and do the development. So, I think that RERA is very good for India. It will improve the market and also attract the foreign investments in this sector. Please elaborate on some company’s projects in Dubai. Sobha Hartland at Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid’s city is a fully integrated development of eight million square feet with two schools out of which one is functional and parks of 2.4 million square feet. The project is a JV where land is by the Government and Sobha has done all the development. It is ready and we are handing it over. One part is already handed over. The second is Meydan One by itself where all the new stuff is coming in. The third is Sobha Hartland. When we talk about Sobha Hartland, we have downtown, DIFCs etc right in the centre. What are the future growth plans of Sobha Group? Sobha Group plans to continue to build projects in UAE. The company has some other land banks and is starting a new product very soon which would again be a JV with Meydan. We have signed up an Old Island in Umm Al Quwain called Firdaus. It is a virgin island and that has been given by the government of Umm Al Quwain to be developed. A 10 year project, it will be a destination holiday resort with a real estate component for people looking for a second home.