Modon Sweeps AED 1.25B in 24 Hours

**Tim Elliott** (0:00)
This is the Morning Drive, it's Mira Business FM, Real Estate News Next, and Mario Volpi is one of the regular voices on Mira Business FM. He is a regular voice on the Dubai Property Podcast. He hosts a regular weekly column in the National Newspaper. And he's a senior manager at EVA Real Estate, just back from sunny London, post-World Cup final.
Life's getting back to normal, Mario, how are you?

**Mario Volpi** (0:25)
I'm very good, thank you very much.

**Tim Elliott** (0:26)
Nice to see you.

**Mario Volpi** (0:27)
You too.

**Tim Elliott** (0:27)
So, what did you think? I have to ask you this, as a lifelong football fan, what did you think of the World Cup final? Because we haven't talked about this.

**Mario Volpi** (0:36)
No, we haven't. Well, yeah.
I think the best team won, for sure, irrespective of the shenanigans that went on between Argentina and England.
I think Spain came there to play, whereas it didn't appear that Argentina came there to play, they came there to stop play and just steal something. I mean, there's no place in football for all that sort of, all those shenanigans, slapping around, falling over, feigning injury, trying to get people sent off. I mean, it's not nice to watch, let's put it that way. But I enjoyed the England-France game. That really was a festival of goals. And it just goes to show you when two teams sort of relax, there's nothing to play for as such other than pride. You then get a game that produces 10 goals, which...

**Tim Elliott** (1:33)
I'll be honest with you, I'm not a big sort of England flag-waver. I mean, I'm from there, so nominally, you sort of support the team. And I thought France would go all the way. So wrong about that. Spain were tremendous. But that was the game of the tournament, the England-France game. Not really for the goals, because it was exciting to watch and all that stuff, great players.
But it was just the spirit of it.

**Mario Volpi** (1:54)
Yeah, definitely. I mean, he was the camaraderie at the end as well. You know, when...
And credit to England. You know, third place is the best position they've got since 1966 So inching ahead, when England lost to Argentina, there was calls for Thomas Tuchel to be sacked and all the rest of it. I think there was a lot of knee-jerk reaction there from the tactics point of view, especially from talk sport.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:20)
I saw some of that, yeah.

**Mario Volpi** (2:21)
But no, I mean, he's got a contract for until the Euros. So yeah, it was good. It was good for me because, well, apart from that, Italy wasn't there, of course, so it wasn't good from that point of view, but it was good that it kept your mind on football. And now we're only, what, three, four weeks away before the season starts. So now you think, well, it's just another month to go, we're just under. So I'm getting excited, especially now that we've stolen Morgan Rodgers from Arsenal, which is hilarious from my point of view.
You know, this guy's been talking with Arteta for, God knows how long, we come in and just basically swoop it and out we go. And Garnaccio might be going the other way, which is even better.

**Tim Elliott** (3:08)
There's always an Arsenal comment from you, I notice. And Italy there next time?

**Mario Volpi** (3:14)
Well, they're now looking to, well, very good, actually. I'll tell you why. Not because we're going to improve, because we're rubbish at the moment, and that deserve not to be there, is because 48 is going to 64, apparently. And so they're just opening it up to the world. So if we don't get through this time, that's it, finished.

**Tim Elliott** (3:31)
It's like participation medals when you're a kid now.

**Mario Volpi** (3:34)
Well done.

**Tim Elliott** (3:35)
Oh, man. Anyway, that's football. That's our football update for this week. Thanks for listening.
Real estate news, there's lots of stories. I want to kind of split this in two. So we'll look at some of the news stories this week. First of all, here's a piece of news. 1.25 billion dirhams worth of island homes sold out in a day. This is Modon selling all 300 Beshia waterfront homes within 24 hours of launch. This is the proverbial flying off the shelf.

**Mario Volpi** (4:04)
Yeah, I mean, this development, Al-Hudriyat Island in Abu Dhabi has been an absolute success from the get-go.
It's been selling out. The land itself is in a very prestigious area. Obviously, it's waterfront, but it's kind of opposite the sort of royal palaces in Abu Dhabi as well. So it's a bit like the old Um Sukim Road, where you've got palaces leading up to Burj Al Arab. It's a very prestigious area. Coupled with the fact then, you're on the water as well. So it's just continuing the momentum, if you like, of selling out. And Modon have done an amazing job in the, I mean, because when they first came on the sea, I never even heard of them. Then sell out, sell out, sell out. And it just goes to show the appetite, not just for waterfront homes, but for Abu Dhabi itself. And I know there's lots of stories at the moment where Abu Dhabi is in the center of it all. And the interest is definitely there. And to sort of sell out, I mean, listen, 300, it's still a lot of units, don't get me wrong.