Skip to main content

The horrors of house hunting in Dubai

So, what's better... A small but perfectly formed villa on the wrong side of the tracks (an oasis of calm in a swathe of urban grit) or a somewhat boring, slightly grubby but larger house in an area considered to be quite swanky? The latter also being more expensive?

After a day of sweating and swearing, mainly because 95% of the estate agents (realtors) in Dubai are inconsiderate morons who think nothing of being half an hour or more late - if they show up at all. Then, when they finally do deign to appear, proceed to show you something that would work really well as a crack den, all the while insisting that it's really desirable and they have loads of other clients literally gagging to move in.

So I'm left with two options: do I go for the unconventional choice that may prove to be slightly more inconvenient - but I love it - or the sensible choice that leaves me slightly cold?

Or do I just forget both of them and keep looking for the ideal house that may or may not exist? Bearing in mind that I now have exactly 18 days before homelessness beckons...

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Comments

Daddy Papersurfer said…
I'd keep looking if I was you.
5:01 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Apologies for being incommunicado this week and hope none of you out there are too distraught not to be receiving the usual almost-daily MotV missives. The reason for the silence is that I'm up to my neck, metaphorically-speaking, in research papers for my first grad course assessment. This experience has made me realise how rigorously un-academic I am in my thinking. It has also illuminated how reliant I am on red wine in order to get through endless evenings typing furiously on my laptop, not to mention the fueling of increasingly colorful curses that I feel obliged to aim at the University's online library system which consistently refuses to spit out any of the journals I'm desperate for (I refuse to believe this is 100% due to my technical incompetence...) Oh well, if this is the price one has to pay in order to realize a long-cherished dream then it's not all that bad... No one ever said a mid-life career change would be easy. Wish me luck!
17 comments
gimme more...

A thought

Perhaps sometimes a gift can be delivered in the guise of a tragedy. It's just a matter of perception, after all. I suspect that the talent lies in looking beyond the surface to what lies beneath and beyond. And, of course, being able to make sense of it all and going on to apply that knowledge to building a productive way forward. Here's hoping.
11 comments
gimme more...

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

A friend recently emailed me to say that her big memory of her stay with us last year is that she had a great birthday, one of the few where she didn't 'act like a spoiled grumpy princess'. She tried to give me all the credit but as I explained to her, it was all down to having a fellow female organising the birthday fun rather than leaving it to her partner. Her email got me thinking about birthdays and how very different men and women are in their attitudes to celebrating special occasions. It also had me thinking about my birthday two years ago when I threw a major tantrum in the Carrefour car-park after being told that we were off to do the weekly shop, kids in tow, which was simply the final straw at the end of a very uninspiring day. In contrast, my birthday last year was rather lovely (a morning on my own in a spa with no mobile coverage, pure selfish bliss). This year - in a few short months, eek! - I'll be hitting the grand old age of 38. This will be my las...
13 comments
gimme more...