Dubai’s real estate boom keeps rolling, emboldening investors despite risks

Al-Monitor Readers

Samuel Wendel

Senior Market Research Analyst, Al-Monitor

May 10, 2024

Even torrential rains can’t extinguish Dubai’s red hot real estate market, but current boom times are conjuring up memories of past crashes. Case in point: news surfaced May 1 that the children of Emirati property tycoon Hussain Sajwani were planning to revive the troubled World Islands project. The infamous manmade archipelago off Dubai’s coast — built to resemble a world map at a cost of $13 billion — has sat largely dormant since 2008’s global financial crisis wreaked havoc. Now the tides have turned, with Dubai again a top performing property market and currently home to 72,500 millionaires, making it the Mideast’s wealthiest city. That has bullish developers eager to tap surging demand. Still, this upbeat market also faces uncertainty and vulnerabilities, from rising living costs to slowing inflows of Russian wealth, among other headwinds.