The end of another Dubai tradition?

A tradition we can actually do without is the one where motorists who have minor prangs and no injuries have to stand around in the sun and the dust waiting for a police patrol to arrive.

Without a written police report the insurance company won't pay up and workshops, officially, won't repair the damage.

According to Brigadier Mohammad Saif Al Zafein, Director of the Dubai Police Traffic Department, there is at least one minor traffic accident every three minutes in Dubai, and he says that each takes 10 to 15 minutes to resolve.

I think he's just quoting the time at the scene doing the paperwork and not including the time the police patrol takes to get to and from the incident.

One every three minutes is 480 a day and that's a huge amount of police time wasted when they could instead be patrolling to clamp down on inconsiderate and dangerous driving.

Now the Traffic Department has met with the Emirates Insurance Association to discuss the possibility of referring minor car accidents, which are not subject to dispute, directly to the insurance companies.

That happens in many other countries. The drivers involved exchange contact and insurance details, get a witness name and contact details if necessary and then go on their way. Later they complete an insurance claim form.

Brig. Al Zafein said that "99 per cent of minor accidents do not involve disputes" and the police really shouldn't have to waste time on them.

He says that if the proposal is approved, the Traffic Department will train insurance companies on how to deal with, examine and assess minor accidents.

I think there'll also need to be education of motorists because there are bound to be some, maybe many, who have no experience of the system from their home countries.


The story is in Gulf News, here.

Another stroll down Memory Lane

My postings on Old Dubai are always popular and I've been fossicking around to see what I have with me from my time here in the seventies & eighties.

I've found some more photographs which I'm sorting out and I'll try to post them in the near future.

Meanwhile, I came across a couple of books from the early eighties, which some of you may remember. Both were published by what is now Motivate but then was called What's On Publishing.

This was published in June 1984, written and photographed by another friend, Bob Milne Home, who was then Marketing & Tours Manager at DNATA.

Friendships made in Dubai have lasted I'm pleased to say. Bob's been back in the UK for a long time now but we keep in regular contact. We've visited him in his very nice old cottage in the UK and we also had dinner with him when he visited Dubai a couple of months ago on a short business trip.

He used to write a column in the early 'What's On' magazine and then put together this excellent book.

The other book I found was this one, published in February 1983 and compiled by Bryn Jones, a stalwart of Dubai Radio's Morning Show.

A regular feature of the show was the 'Dubai Diners Delight' segment, which featured recipes sent in by listeners. It was so popular that it was decided to put a selection of the recipes into a book.

In addition to the huge variety of recipes the book carries advertisements which are fascinating to look at. Here's what the Dubai Metropolitan on Sheikh Zayed Road, then simply called Abu Dhabi Road, looked like back then...

Hotels featured strongly in the advertising and here are two familiar landmarks:

Leisure facilities were fewer back then, but a foretaste of what was to come twenty years later...

Dubai's first mall, then known as the largest building in the Middle East, had a favourite children's area...

Other ads give some indication of the lack of sophistication in the advertising industry, because it was still very much pioneering days in the early eighties...

The DNATA book has some excellent photographs, Bob being a very gifted photographer as well as writer.

One of my favourites amongst his thousands of shots is this one of the Trade Centre, then our tallest building and the best known landmark.

Metro affecting property prices

There's another hint that Dubai's property market is edging towards some sanity, in a report in 'The National' this morning.

It seems that one of the factors taken into consideration in mature markets, proximity to transport links, is coming into play here.

If you look at property ads in other countries you'll see that if there's a nearby rail station, bus stop or freeway/motorway exit it will be included as a selling point.

In the same way, Dubai Metro stations are now beginning to have an effect on prices according to Landmark Properties.

They point to Jumeirah Lake Towers where they say that property very close to a Metro station attracts higher demand and about Dh50 per square foot more than comparable property further from the station. It doesn't sound a lot but on a 1,500 sq ft apartment it means a premium of Dh75,000.

There's also, incidentally, support for sceptics about the Metro who've been saying that even a short walk to a station won't be acceptable for Dubai residents. Landmark says that the higher demand is only for properties almost directly outside a station.

I think there are three problems the Metro will face; our unwillingness to walk any distance to a station, our unwillingness to stand around waiting for a bus to get to the station, and the slowness of the journey.

That's maybe something for another posting though, so back to the property issue.

There's also a general feeling expressed in 'The National' report that rents will be higher for properties near Metro stations, again reflecting what happens in mature markets.

That applies not only in New Dubai but also in the older areas such as Bur Dubai and Deira.

There's another interesting point in the report. Landmark Advisory say that in the first quarter of the year the average sale price for completed and nearly completed apartments and villas fell 34 per cent. Unfortunately it doesn't say which period that compares with.

The interesting part to me relates to the values. They say average residential sales prices are now at the level they were at the end of 2007.

I've expressed the opinion several times before about buyers losing money - it depends when they bought, what they paid and whether they sell at the bottom of the trough. There've been endless claims that everyone who's bought property has lost a packet, much of it gleeful, gloating that buyers were stupid and deserved their losses.

In fact the Landmark figures show that only people buying in the last year and a half may have property worth less than they paid. And they won't actually lose unless they sell for less than they paid. If they don't sell they lose nothing.

But back to the question of the market maturing, and the Metro station effect does add another hint that it probably is.


The National report is here.

Property sanity?

There's a hint in a report in 'Gulf News' that Dubai's property market may be edging towards some sanity.

Better Homes and Landmark, two major real estate agents, are talking about some price increases over the past two months.

Ignoring the price rise claims, because they're average prices in a one month period, the encouraging part is that they talk about property in specific locations rather than generalising about the whole of Dubai.

And at long last we're hearing terms which are normal in sensible property markets. Phrases such as: "Developments in certain locations, with high build quality and facilities are experiencing price increases." "Prices are increasing, dependent on the location of the property and the quality of the building." "Location, views, amenities and infrastructure determine prices."

Those things have largely been ignored in Dubai's property market in the past.

It's long overdue after the absolute chaos of the free-for-all since freehold property for foreigners was announced in early 2002.

Until very recently there were no laws in place, nothing governing real estate agents or brokers, no escrow accounts, no protection for buyers and often no contracts were issued until after the money had been paid.

Although an awful lot of people have lost money, especially since the world-wide economic crisis hit, I'm amazed the numbers are as low as they are.

Developers, completely unknown to investors, sold off-the-plan apartments and villas before any work whatsoever had begun. Many buyers, more than a few never having visited Dubai, bought on faith alone, and perhaps greed, from plans and an artist's impression of the finished building and neighbourhood. It wasn't unusual for the plans, specs and renderings to be somewhat economical with the truth.

Many developers had no capital but relied on payments from investors to fund the projects. It would have been easy for the developers to pocket the money and run, but surprisingly few did.

Prices bore little relationship to reality. Master developers initially sold at way below what the market was prepared to pay. That encouraged speculators to leap in and on-sell almost immediately at a huge profit. It wasn't unusual for speculators to have no finance, they simply on-sold before the payment was due.

Stories appeared about the huge profits to be made and the market took on a life of its own with speculators and investors pouring in and pushing prices to ludicrous and unsustainable levels.

The end result, a finished building, didn't matter, didn't come into the picture. What was being bought and sold wasn't a building but simply a way to make a quick buck, and that worked for a while.

But each trade was nearer to the end product and that's where the rules of buying real estate began to loom.

In the feeding frenzy the rules governing real estate buying were ignored. Location, quality, price weren't considered. People who bought at the peak and the year or two leading up to it now have negative equity. Many will lose their property and their money, just as they do all over the world.

Many more are going to lose their money because since the economic crisis hit developers are being found out. If they didn't have finance for the project, or if they diverted income to other projects, the project is in trouble and may never be finished - or started in some cases.

When the dust settles there'll be the early speculators gleefully counting their huge profits but plenty of others counting their losses.

In future there'll be fewer developers, fewer developments, more care taken in design and build quality, more realistic prices. We should also see the rules of property buying being applied and maybe, just maybe, this report indicates that's started to happen.



You can read the report here.

Behind the Blue Banana story

The local media has given extensive coverage to the bluebanana.com story, although surprisingly I haven't seen anything in the British press, yet.

Briefly, Simon Ford the founder of the internet 'events and alternative gifts company' fled the country because his company was on the verge of bankruptcy, owing large amounts of money.

He's not the first to do that of course - but he hit the news because he wrote a letter to 'the Dubai public' trying to explain his actions and promising to pay all debts in due course.

In the letter he says that personal threats were made and that "certain individuals arrived at my place of residence in Dubai at the start of Sunday, confirming that the follow through on many of the threats was very real".

That's not unique to Dubai. In peaceful, law-abiding Singapore I briefly worked for a company which was not paying suppliers and several of them sent heavies to the office to seriously threaten the management.

But the real issue the story raises in my opinion is that the laws on bankruptcy and in particular on bounced cheques needs urgent attention.

As residents will presumably know, writing post dated cheques is, bizarrely in the 21st century, still a normal way to do business in the UAE.

Two things make that dangerous. One, the cheques cannot be cancelled. Two, if they bounce it is a criminal offence.

Even the Dubai Police Chief, Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, has been calling for it to be de-criminalised and made a civil matter, as it is in most other countries.

We do have bankruptcy laws but business people and lawyers have been calling for them to be updated.

There's another problem which I've mentioned in previous posts. Spending time in jail before charge or trial while investigations are carried out. This happens in all kinds of instances when allegations are made against someone.

Whether someone would be sent to Al Slammer in reality is perhaps less the issue than the widespread perception that it may happen. Not willing to take the risk, people understandably skip the country.

Many of our laws need updating which means a heavy workload for the lawmakers and the advisors who are called in. In fairness, laws are being changed but these areas need particularly urgent attention from three viewpoints. One, it means too many people are in jail when they really shouldn't be. Two, the police and courts are spending too much time on cases which really should't be classed as criminal. Three, the present laws don't gel with Dubai's reliance on business and with its future so dependent on business thriving and growing.


'Arabian Business' has Simon Ford's story here and comments from lawyers here.

The egg genie

I always enjoy reading the reports about black magic and genies and my thanks to Jess for sending me the link to 7Days' latest update on the magic world.

It seems to be a more common phenomenon than I'd realised, magicians casting their spells about one a week on average. Well many more than that I'm sure because that's the number dealt with by the police.

It's such a problem that Dubai Police have a special department within Dubai CID with a team of officers dedicated to the subject.

7Days have an interview with Brigadier Khaleel Al-Mansouri, the head of CID, who gives some intereresting examples.

I particularly liked the genies and the eggs story.

It was actually a sting operation, the client being an undercover cop.

He was told to bring a tray of eggs to the magician's house where genies would put $100 into each egg.

The magician did some acting and abracadabra-ing, then sent the client/cop out of the room to fetch some water.

You'll never guess...

He switched a real egg for one which already had $100 in it and told the client/cop to stamp on it to get the money.

The cops arrested him - and thought it was particularly funny that the real egg he'd hidden smashed in his pocket



Here's the story.

PS to dangerous driving post

Yesterday I posted about the standard of driving on our roads, tailgating being one of the dangerous stunts all-too-many drivers insist on inflicting on the rest of us.

Here's an example from this morning, on Al Sufouh Road where traffic from Dubai Marina and Palm Jumeirah merges.

The right lane in the photograph is about to end and traffic in it has to merge left.

In about 100metres, a few seconds, the road becomes three lanes so there's ample room to overtake.

The small white sedan is doing the right thing travelling at the speed limit of 80kph and there's nowhere for him to go, but a 4X4 driver isn't prepared to travel at the speed limit and can't wait for an overtaking opportunity. He got much closer than this too.