EYWA Dubai Unveiled: The Game Changer in Dubai Real Estate

Hi, I'm GG Benitez, a certified international property specialist and a licensed realtor connecting global real estate investors with the uniquely lucrative opportunities in Dubai's real estate. Today I have one of the most talented and creative personalities and developers on my podcast, so welcome to season 4 of The Dubai Connect. Please welcome Alex Zagreb, whom I had the pleasure of meeting about a year ago. Alex, please introduce yourself and the unique project, not just in Dubai but in the world. Tell us a little bit about AYWA Evolutions, etc. My name is Alex Gil. Yes, for 25 years I'm in real estate development. For 20 years I've been learning ancient knowledge with the name yoga. I had a unique opportunity as a decision maker to combine the ancient knowledge with the most advanced technologies from construction and create. I think for the last 25 years, 23 buildings, all of them unique because of their main target. It's not real estate anymore. It's a tool in the life of my residents, or if at office, so of the employees and companies who work there. The target is to increase their well-being. The target is to create something meaningful in their life, change their life, increase their longevity. AYWA is the essence of my 25 years of real estate development and my personal growth. Before you came to Dubai, you already had been building globally, yes? Okay. What made you decide to come to Dubai? Very interesting story. We started with two weeks' vacation. In our country, I'm from Europe, from Latvia. It was the second lockdown. We decided to stay for one more month. Then for one more month. Then finally, after four months we moved there. My wife proposed to me, let's stay because you don't understand Dubai when you're a tourist. When you're there for like two weeks, you don't get it. You don't get it, it's a little bit gimmicky luxury. Absolutely, it's like Vegas if you only... you're right. But when you start to understand the real Dubai, and especially after COVID, a lot of very successful, educated, deep people have moved to Dubai. This is growing with each year because I think what Dubai, what the government of Dubai created, is absolutely unique. It's safe. We don't feel this anywhere else in the world. It's safe, not about the physical safety of the people, but about all government institutions. If you create something like we do, we create something that really increases the value of the city. Everyone supports you. Everywhere there's a smile. Everywhere it's like the entire space around you supports your business, exactly. This is how I am, like an example of how a European investor, especially a developer, can feel. With my family, my family has two kids, a son and a daughter, a beautiful wife, everybody happy in Dubai. You're now in the school system. You're living here and you're an entrepreneur, a developer, a builder. I find that so incredibly profound to hear you as a European talking about it, right. A lot of stories came out of COVID by the way, because of the way Dubai handled COVID, right. That really impressed business people and locals. The way they were able to recover quickly and make you feel safe. But the fact that you know, it's not really, how do I explain it? I mean I don't want to put it down, but I just did a podcast, is it the American dream or the Dubai dream? And now you're even talking about, is it the European dream or is it the Dubai dream? Everybody is coming here. We were having a huge influx of multi-millionaires, Fortune 500 companies that are setting up their businesses here. Developers and entrepreneurs, and then not just for business, but like you said, as a father bringing their children here because of the safety and the schools. You're from Latvia. I'm Arab American. Someone next to us is Indian American, or Indian, Pakistani. It's 85 percent of Dubai are made of expats. We're all producing this positive energy together to build Dubai together. It's our city, don't you feel that way? Yes, yes, I feel that way. There's a beautiful community and so many very nice people moving to Dubai. Yesterday I spoke with one lady from Europe moving from Switzerland. People I know, like a few friends, they've moved from Miami, San Francisco, New York, from Germany. A few weeks ago there was an event with Tony Robbins, a lot of people think about it, yes, yes. Well, I love that. Now I get to share your personal story a little bit and that you're part of that Dubai dream, of someone who's already had significant success for at least two decades in this business. Now you come here. When I heard you, and I have some behind the scenes footage, talk about every single detail, even what's underneath the concrete, the crystals, and I want you to go into that. The thought that you put through, even the lines that you use in the walls, right, everything is like you. I remember you saying this to me and it made me so emotional. You're talking about, this is where you spend the majority of your life. You're sleeping, or someone who's working, that should bring you health and wellness. This has been proven through ancient years, so if you could go into that a little bit deeper. Because my job with what I'm doing on The Dubai Connect podcast is I'm helping guide international global real estate investors into Dubai. I go into the reasons why to buy Dubai: the high capital appreciation, high rental returns, no taxes, the safety of investing, how to finance, how to property manage, and who to trust and who to invest in. Investors in America aren't even coming to Dubai. They're buying sight unseen. So I find what you're doing very unique from anything else that I've brought on here. Yes, so please go deeper and deeply into what is so unique about AYWA. Yes. AYWA, I think for now, is the most health conscious, sustainable, well-being and longevity-oriented building on Earth, on Earth. Yes. It's not only my opinion. Our health and longevity consultant is Evelyn Bishop. She's a professor of Shanghai University. We created together the health longevity protocol for all AYWA buildings because I want AYWA to be a new generation of 21st century buildings. Not only residential, hospitality, office buildings. Because yes, sometimes you know we spend more time in our offices than at home. The quality of the air, quality of the water, not only clean water, yes, but create right clusters of water, reduce all negative information what water received before the building. Then change the charge of the water. We even, let me give an example. Three days ago in our experience center, I met with Deva Premal. Deva Premal is a beautiful singer. She sings mantras, and we spoke about how the sound can change the structure of water. Imagine this: in all places where we store water inside the pools, we implement speakers. Through the speakers, special mantras, special prayer. Because even in Arabic culture there are special prayers for water. When you charge the water, especially in Vedic traditions, in old traditions, even when you speak to water, saying I love you, and then drink this water, it's much more healthy because you change the structure of the water. We are 70 percent water. Imagine this. But as a developer, I have the possibility to change it on a big scale, yes. Actually, we as developers are responsible for the future life of our future residents, to balance energies inside the building, to detox the building. So we check even before we implement the concrete. We check the radiation of the concrete. By the way, sometimes 10 percent of the concrete, we give it back because it's not fit. With concrete, you can bring poison inside your buildings and nobody thinks about this. We call it detoxification of the building from the waves inside. We have a special system for how we work with cables. A special system for how we protect the building from mold, from day one, from when we only start the project. One of the consultants in our list is a consultant for protection from mold and fungi of the building because black mold, after three months in your apartment, starts to destroy your life. It changes even your mentality. You become more aggressive. You start to fight with your beautiful wife. You don't understand that this is because you have black mold under your ceilings. Combining all these systems, now we come to what is the core essence of AYWA, yoga, the most advanced longevity ice bath lounge pool, infrared sauna. We collect, if our client makes a choice, we can collect even their data, how when they run inside the gym. So when we, in our building, all our clients have a longevity coach which is responsible that if you want one time in three months to give your blood test, he will be responsible that in the time what is suitable for you, it's inside your building. So the best clinic from the location where AYWA is located in Dubai, will be Abu Dhabi, will be Miami, will be the Maldives. I want to go all over the world with this type of...even I cannot say that this is real estate anymore. This is a tool in your life which can help you live happier, longer, and increase your wellbeing. Because the way we work inside, water is medicine, air is medicine, your space is medicine, community is medicine for you. This is our target. Why can't it be so beautiful like AYWA where we combine biophilic design, neuro architecture, colors? We work on the sensorial level with all six senses of humans. Actually, go into that, the six senses, right? Because I remember when we walked into the experience center, it really is touching all of it, right? The scents, the sight, the feel, the textures. You really do become immersed in it, right? When you walk into that experience center, you do feel that positive energy. It fully vibes with me, yes. It's balanced with crystals, remedies, so all the crystals what you see inside our experience center is in the correct locations. If you ask me why about any even small detail in AYWA and in our experience center, you will receive the answer why. This is how all our spaces are, with meaning and with understanding of how you need to create space for people's wellbeing. So you feel very comfortable inside the experience center, yeah, but you don't understand why. We create the form. Yes, you're right. You don't understand why, but you're obviously doing all this research and the expertise to bring it together. We work with light, only reflected light, only hidden 2,700 Kelvin color, same as the color of the candle, and so on. Every small detail has meaning and purpose. The main target of all this, when we work on the sensorial level with all six senses, we activate the cognitive function of our brain. It helps increase your longevity. I'm impressed. No, the there's a lot to this. It's not about the smell is beautiful. But there's a strategy. There is a strategy inside, yes. Some oils we put inside our fragrance because our strategy of well-being. What of your unique differentiators are, and what makes you so different? Like you said, in the world? For me, immersing myself with Dubai developers and recommending top tier developers, ones that have really great standing with the DLD, great delivery times, high quality. So that when my investors go to either rent it out, enjoy it themselves, or they want to sell it, they're able to maximize their ROI. So for now, let's talk about what the differentiators of AYWA are and your passion towards it and the strategy behind it. Now let's convert the investor. Very simple question: in the city, taxes, successful people, what is the main value in our life? The our health, health of our loved ones, and our well-being and wellbeing of our families. If you're honest, and if you create a tool, and there's no thousands of favors, there's only one. The second will be zero. So we, I cannot build thousands of AYWA now, correct? There's going to be that high demand because it's limited supply, of course. And of course, especially I think for all investors who trust us now, it means in the middle of construction, they will double their investment when we finalize our building. You only need to trust this person that after 23 buildings, all what was delivered by me. All what I want to say, and by the way, it's a very strong sales point: I want to live in AYWA with my family. This was the reason why I started development in Dubai because I tried to buy something for me and my family. We live in my buildings from 2004, and I could not find, the luxurious materials, yes, but you know, for example, when you live in a building where it's very balanced and with the crystals inside the structure like it was in my city, with the amazing design, with the taste, with the quality of the air, with the quality of the water, and location by the way. The location, you have an incredible location, yes, yes. But I could not find something for me. In this case I decided because I understand that there is a niche in the market for super quality and for our super approach, but actually all over the world. My next targets are that even with developers from other cities, we can help them collaborate. We can help them to build AYWA in cities, beautiful cities in Miami, in New York, in Milan. We need you in California, of course. Yes, we need you there. Very health conscious, wellness conscious state, you know. In each state in the United States, some just tend to be more understanding of the value of everything. By the way, one of the developers from Miami told me that AYWA is absolutely unique on Earth. It's Tony Cho. He's actually a very strong visionary in development in Miami, yes. You know, it is very unique. Your passion is beautiful and your proven track record and history before coming here, right. We know that there are safety measures in place anyway for a developer in Dubai, right, under the real estate regulatory agency that oversees all real estate transactions. We know that the safety is there, we know that the uniqueness is there. You made a bold statement that you believe they will double their investment by handover. Obviously rental returns are going to be very high because this is going to be the only one like its kind in the entire world. Your two buildings are the only ones that are like this. Only in first AYWA. What is unique in AYWA? Only 50 apartments, 48 apartments and two penthouses. It's a very exclusive community. Very exclusive community. So even the people that you're engaging with, 50 apartments for Dubai, I don't know, it's like for Miami 10, yeah, yeah. Agreed, absolutely. I'm so glad that I know you're a very busy man and your whole team is so busy, but I needed to have you come because the way you share with all your heart, and you can tell that you are organically and authentically passionately creating like you said a life. It's living. It's not just about real estate. I live like this, yeah, I know. I live like this. I mean you were giving me a hard time about being on my phone. You said before the podcast started, you said, you know how many hours do you think you're on that phone? Doesn't that work with, you know, disrupt connection? Because you're so in the moment and connected and deep, and you're bringing that through your work and bringing that to other people in our lives. By just like I said, visiting your experience center, I can only imagine living in one of your buildings, how I would feel. All of my employees drink water for, oh my gosh, and I'm very grateful. We implement all of this, yes, inside our office. And I'm very pragmatic because when they start to drink the water, I receive an extra one hour of efficiency in that work. You could tell you can monitor, yes, of course. When you look to the eyes, even so that especially at like 5:00 or 6:00, you understand, yeah. Wow, it's incredible. So what's next for you then? AYWA Way of Water, AYWA Power of Desert, AYWA Hanging Garden. So the soul of AYWA, the heart of AYWA, with all these systems, was the combination of ancient knowledge with modern technologies. It will be in every one of these buildings. We change only the storytelling because in Way of Water, the main motto of this building will be ocean inside you and ocean around you. You're inside the building and outside. In architecture, you feel like you're in a huge Banyan tree. We want to speak with the buildings with the language of architecture and design every time. What needs to be protected about connection of time, continuity of generation, and what should not be lost for future generations: nature, culture, traditions. In Power of Desert, we want to decode the ancient civilization of the Middle East. In Hanging Garden, it will be a new translation of the Hanging Garden of Babylon. It's where my ancestry is from, Babylon. All on top level of sustainability. We are, yes, we mention that as well: sustainability excellence and 12 platinum level. All of our building received awards as well about this, right? Yes, yes, we are officially now the best property in the world from International Property Awards, congratulations. But I know that's not your motivator. I know your again. But my marketing recommends to do it because we need as much as possible for people all over the world to know about it, correct. We even spoke to one of our clients, the owner of Mind Valley Vision, yes, and I even told him that we need to educate people because not a lot of people understand how important it is to manage even the mold inside, so to protect their homes, how to do it. We learned even how in India, in ancient times, they protected buildings from mold. We combine it, how to protect, how to balance the energies. There's a lot of knowledge which can help really a lot of people to live more happy and more healthy. You can run for one hour in the gym, you can make a lot of exercises about your health, and then you become at your home, and your home destroys your life if it's toxic. Then it doesn't matter. Absolutely agree. Fantastic. Well, I am honored that you took the time to come and share your vision, your story, your extraordinarily unique projects with our audience. I hope to be part of that effort of having more people be exposed to what you're doing with AYWA. So thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you for the invitation, absolutely. Please make sure to like, subscribe, follow and stay tuned for the next episode of The Dubai Connect.