Who Will Actually Live in Dubai in 2035?

Tim Elliott (0:00)

This is the Morning Drive. Ajay Menon is here, the CEO of Luxe Vista Real Estate, which means it's Tuesday morning.

Ajay Menon (0:07)

Yes, good morning.

Tim Elliott (0:07)

Nice to see you, Ajay.

SPEAKER_3 (0:09)

How are you?

Ajay Menon (0:10)

Very well, thank you. How are you?

Tim Elliott (0:12)

Well, I'm okay, actually, but I'm intrigued by your question, because I hadn't thought of real estate in Dubai in this way. Here is your question that you posed to me. I'm not sure how to answer it. So what I'm going to do is get you to answer it, because it's your question. Who will actually live in Dubai in 2035?

Ajay Menon (0:31)

I don't know. I don't have a crystal ball.

Tim Elliott (0:33)

You don't, but you have a few theories. It's a really good question, actually, because essentially what you're saying is, look, we're seeing a change, aren't we? We're seeing a change in the real estate market.

Ajay Menon (0:46)

Yes, and this is not pure speculation. This is more of an extrapolation of what is happening according to population growth, current trends of property purchases and the Vision 2040 plan by the government. It's a combination of the three. So I think we could come to some sort of agreement that who might be the people who will be moving in 2035 to the buy.

Tim Elliott (1:09)

Yeah, so the whole kind of conversation has changed, right? So we've gone from short-term bubbles to return on investment flips. The population has changed. I mean, structurally changed. Multi-generational wealth is coming in. You've got the 2040 Urban Master Plan.

Everybody in Dubai is asking, will prices go up? Is there a bubble? Is there too much supply? Would you argue that these are the wrong questions?

Ajay Menon (1:37)

These are the wrong questions. We should be asking, who is going to live in 2035? And what will they ask? And what sort of houses do they need? Let's start with what's happening now. We've seen the population grow.

We added 236,000 people in the middle of this conflict, just this year, so far.

Tim Elliott (1:57)

That's a remarkable...

Ajay Menon (1:58)

I am surprised myself.

Tim Elliott (1:59)

Yeah, yeah, I had no idea.

Ajay Menon (2:01)

And we just passed 4.8 million, right? So which means... See, Dubai has always been a city of growth. People used to come, you know, work, go... The whole idea was, you know, you come here for a few years, you make a lot of money and you go back home. That's structurally changing. The idea is now they are kind of coming here, they're relocating here. They want to live here for some... for quite a few years of time of the lifetime.

Then raise children, raise families, preserve wealth. So it's much more long-term to a view of, you know, permanency kind of thing.

Tim Elliott (2:38)

Yeah, you just described what I did.

Exactly. Unwittingly, but you did. I mean, because I came here for... we were like, a couple of years. And then, you know, children come along and yeah.

Ajay Menon (2:50)

I came here for one year. I was supposed to go to the US to do my studies. You're worse than me.

Tim Elliott (2:56)

But I mean, it's a really familiar story, isn't it? But it means that now we have a...

I mean, my two children are both either in education or just finished education. They're in the UK at the moment. But, you know, to them, this is where they were brought up. Yeah.

Ajay Menon (3:14)

And do you really think they've got a job opportunity or any good opportunity back in the UK? Or will they, if they look around, which... ask them to find three destinations that they will do well in their career?

Tim Elliott (3:27)

And Dubai has to be one of them. For sure. No, for sure it will be. I mean, that we won't see on that. You could well be right.

But I guess that's familiar to a lot of people of our age, or people who have done exactly what we did. Moved and had kids and lived here.

Ajay Menon (3:43)

No, it's pure common sense. See, most of the countries are tightening their immigration. They don't have enough budgets to spend. The jobs are not being created.

And Dubai is going exactly the opposite way. We want more people to come. We want more skilled people to come. We are creating a lot of jobs. We are creating hubs. We want to be the education hub of the world. We want to be the health care hub of the world. So when you are an AI hub of the world, so when you are actually creating a lot of avenues and a lot of opportunities, the whole world has to, they cannot ignore the world. They have to look at it. And I'm sure a lot of people are looking at it.