Housing in Dubai 101

Almost exactly 5 months later, I can finally say.... da da dum, I MOVED INTO AN APARTMENT!!!

Is it unusual that it took so long? Yes. Why did it take so long? Even I don't know. Can it be done quickly? Yes (a recent patient did all of the below in 2 weeks. Hmph).

From my experience, here is my synopsis of the housing process in Dubai:

1. 1st off, you need LOTS... and I mean, LOTS, of patience.

2. The hunt - The important things to decide BEFORE you even start the hunt is yes, the obvious of price range and location, location, location, but also villa or apartment and furnished or unfurnished. As Dubai is extremely transient, there is plenty of both. As I am new to Dubai, I am still learning the city to know where is a "good" place to live, and where isn't. That took up some part of my lengthy delay in getting an apartment (and yes, pretty much all of these points will somehow lead to why I took so long to get an apt!).

3. The find - Dubai is quite interesting for real estate. There are Real Estate Agencies, but it's not nearly as organized, efficient, and professional as it is back at home. Most people here, including myself, look independently through websites like their version of Craigslist, it's called "Dubizzle.com" (seriously) and expatwoman.com. So YOU look up the apt, YOU call the number listed, then YOU meet the "realtor" at the apartment to see it, they pretty much just open the door, YOU look around and if you start to ask any questions, they are generally confused and don't know. If YOU decide to take it, that "realtor" usually gets 5% of the yearly rent and then you deal with the management for the contract, etc. Hmm... maybe I should change careers and become a realtor... I feel I can be pretty good at opening doors! Okay, I'm exaggerating (but not too much)....at home it seems like they DO a lot more.
[Behind the scenes: During the boom in Dubai  there was absolutely, and NO JOKE, NO control of the real estate industry. As you can imagine, the realtors got crazy greedy and out of control. However,  since the crash, not only have they toned a bit, but the gov't regulated obscene prices]. 
Anyhoo, yes, there are some out there that will actually look up housing for you, but it's more YOU pushing them then vice versa. The other thing is that now since the crash there are A LOT of vacancies. BUT they will make it sound like whatever you are wanting to rent is the hottest ticket in town and if you don't take it NOW, someone else will grab it. YES that does happen, really, things happen VERY quick here, but from my experience, they just use those old tricks to get the commission.

4. $$$$. So you confirmed the apartment. There IS a legal system of having and signing a contract, actually fairly straightforward. THEN comes the $$ part. 1st you need to pay (usually) a 5% deposit for the apt (this is off the yearly total). Then, as I just mentioned, 5% commission. So my "realtor," who opened the door for me, got 1/2 of that 5% and the other half went... I don't even know where but supposedly to the management for doing... nothing. Next, I think this is unique to Dubai, comes the "checks" part. So basically you have the yearly total of the apt, right? Instead of paying month by month, like most Western countries do, here you pay AHEAD 2-3-4 months. You will always hear the renter and the rentee talking about "how many checks?" And this means, how many months is paid ahead. So mine was 4 checks. So right then and there I paid for March, April, May. The catch is that when you sign the contract, you actually pre-write ALL the checks for that entire year and date it from the 1st of the 3 months, for example, and then they just cash it in on that date. So that March, April, May check was cashed in right away, then they have my other checks paid 3 months ahead dated June 1st, September 1st, December 1st, and they cash it in on that date. So because they have it and it is ready to go, ALWAYS make sure you have money in then because if you don't, it is BIG BIG trouble here (jail and deportation usually).

5. Electricity - The electricity, water, A/C is all run by DEWA. So once you get your official contract (after your check cleared), you bring that, your visa and employment visa (See? Nothing without that), to the government run DEWA office and set up your electricity. Then again, you put down a 1200dh deposit which should be returned to you when you leave. Now, I heard sooo many "bad" stories about DEWA messing things up and basically don't have electricity, but I actually had a very easy and straightforward experience, shockingly enough considering that it is run by locals. You have to do the usual like take a ticket and wait in lines, and then another ticket for another line, but all and all, for me it took like 15-20 minutes and they said it would be set up in 4 -24 hours and it actually was! Phew! But if you get them on a 'bad' or busy day, that process could take hours.

6. Internet - This is run by the local Du or Etisalat. Some places like my building make you chose one or the other. This again is government owned, and hence it is always unknown on how things will go, but again you bring your contract, passport copy and resident visa copy. After the ticket and line, then ticket and line, again, I got lucky, and maybe 30 minutes later got it set up. Here most all the packages are unlimited, but they do it by megabyte, so 1, 2, 6, 8, 16mb... so speed. I got the 8mb and it is $80USD a month, which I think is fairly comparable to home? I had a little run around with them coming to installing it, but again, it was relatively straightforward.

7. Technicalities - I happen to notice a few creepy crawlies, aka. small cockroaches, when I was first milling in/out of the apt. It HAS been unoccupied for awhile, so I figured it was a rare occurrence. Until pretty much every subsequent day following I noticed just a couple here and there. Well, unfortunately, with things like this, one or two could mean a whole family hiding somewhere. Soo.... that is the LAST thing I want to deal with and unfortunately my management doesn't pay for fumigation, but I am getting my apt fumigated. ALWAYS CHECK FOR THIS!!! Especially before moving in!!!

8. FURNITURE! So there is an easy way to do this and the hard way. I chose the hard way because I am being cheapy because I'm pretty sure I won't be here for too long and it doesn't make sense to me to invest in all these new things when I will be leaving and then have to deal with getting rid of it. So the "hard" way is basically buying things individually 2nd hand - garage sales, flea markets, and dubizzle and expatwoman (the websites for re-selling). It's time-consuming, tedious, and takes a lot of patience. BUT you can find great deals. The "easy" way is to go to IKEA (yes, they have one) and other furniture shops, pick your stuff out, and have them deliver it to you. This probably has been the biggest reason why I have been delayed in moving in, just doing the research, the back and forth to the person you are buying it from, arranging a moving truck, blah blah. As of this moment, I literally just got a bed and lamp, and this weekend am getting a sofa bed (for visitors!), desk and office chair, coffee table... and who knows what else will come up in the meantime?? :-) Things here happen very very quickly!!!

9. Have I mentioned patience?

10. That's it (I think!!)! Welcome to your new home!!!