Real Estate CEO Explains Buyer's Remorse

Tim Elliott (0:00)

Real Estate, now this is the Morning Drive. So, you bought Dubai property at the peak of the cycle. Now what? Ajay Menon is here to explain that. He's the CEO of Luxe Vista Real Estate. Always good to see you.

Ajay Menon (0:13)

Good question, good morning.

Tim Elliott (0:15)

So, what's next? If you feel like you bought at the top of the market, or if you feel you may be overpaid, or there are pangs of anxiety and regret, you shouldn't feel that way, should you?

Ajay Menon (0:31)

No, let's face one thing. One thing is for sure. The day you buy a property, the next day you will have something called a buyer's remorse.

Tim Elliott (0:42)

Yeah, it's like when you buy a yacht. What is it they say about buying yachts?

The second best day of your life is the day you bought it, and the best day is when you sell it.

Ajay Menon (0:52)

Exactly.

Tim Elliott (0:53)

Apparently. It's not quite like that though, is it? Let's not be doom and gloom.

Ajay Menon (0:56)

No, it's not even that. The thing is, see, there's a lot of choices out there. So you buy a property, and you know it was a good purchase.

But then when you see something else out there, you feel there's a little bit of that feeling, or did I jump in too soon?

Tim Elliott (1:13)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and you have to...

It's the strangest thing. You have to buy something and feel like it's the right thing for you. When you walk in and you have to have that feeling. I can't express it.

Ajay Menon (1:28)

I am a seasoned investor myself. I have bought multiple properties. I have bought, sold. Even now, I have the same feeling.

You buy something and then you go home and it's like, did I make the right decision or not? You have spent hours on this, researching this. You have researched the comparables. I'm somebody who really goes very deep into everything. And then I've taken the decision. And again, if a person like me can have second thoughts, I think an average investor or a first-time buyer will should have it. It's natural. It's quite normal.

Tim Elliott (1:58)

I mean, you're a guy who... This was not your career. You had a very different career and you do this because this is something that you like doing. You like living in Dubai. We talked about this a lot. But you really do go deep. I've seen some of your YouTube videos and there is depth there. So that's what you're like.

There is still that moment when you buy something, for whatever reason you bought it, when you walk in and you kind of wander around, you head upstairs if you've got a first floor, that's kind of indefinable, isn't it?

Ajay Menon (2:33)

That is correct. See, again, nothing is an emotional or a random purchase. Everything has been deeply researched. And you still go there, you still figure out, you still find out the nice, the show apartments and the models and then the master plan. You get a little bit of excited when you actually go there.

But it wasn't like me. I've already compared everything else, but still, and I go with the intention of buying. It is definitely not an impulsive purchase. You can't do that with the multi-million. A minimum investment is on one million. I don't have one million like around, just, okay, let me just buy it and see what happens.

Tim Elliott (3:08)

It's not like it's in the back of the sofa, is it? It's fallen out of your trouser pocket. No, I know.

Okay, so that's just, across the board, that's 99.9% of us when it comes to buying property. And generally speaking, property is the biggest investment you make. Okay. Between 2024, first quarter of 2026, February the 28th, actually, tens of thousands of investors entered to buy off of planned property market. Would it be fair, I think it would be fair to say the market was pretty much red hot.

Ajay Menon (3:41)

Oh, market was very hot, and it was like every quarter and quarter, year on year, it was going upside and upside, and it was going plus. There was, we're not seeing any negative signs.

Tim Elliott (3:52)

Yeah.

Ajay Menon (3:53)

And the prices were going from, I mean, in fact, it was funny that, you know, my wife actually sent me a post which kind of popped up in her WhatsApp or email or whatever it is. It was a launch by Mira's. It was a project called Cherry Woods. And there, the price was 650 dirhams per square foot.