How to Invest Smartly in Dubai Real Estate: Expert Tips for Buying Property in 2025

It's time in the market, not timing the market. Okay, so I have to adjust my jacket here because this is a big one, okay? Right. I think this is one of the biggest mistakes that makes my blood boil. When you fake the fact that you're an expert and give people ill advice, that's going to harm people. There's one word for it: stupid. Are you ready to buy real estate in Dubai, but wondering how to do it and what mistakes to avoid? Or are you worried about some of the myths that might be out there? Well, today on The Dubai Connect podcast, I have one of the most experienced and respected figures in Dubai real estate to help answer some of those most asked questions, like what is the biggest mistake that people make when they're investing here. So, welcome to The Dubai Connect podcast. Welcome to season 6 of The Dubai Connect podcast, a top ranked Dubai real estate show. I'm your host of The Dubai Connect, GG Benitez, a certified international property specialist and a licensed realtor connecting global investors with prime real estate opportunities in Dubai's thriving market. Okay, so today on our episode of The Dubai Connect podcast, I have back Mr. Todd Jarr. Hi, Todd. Hi. How you doing? I'm so good now that I have you here. I'm very happy to be here, as always. You're always my most well-dressed guest, as always. Todd Jarr is the executive director for DevMark. But just so people understand what I'm trying to do on The Dubai Connect podcast, I bring top experts. Because where I lack, I understand American mentality, North Americans. I'm licensed in California, but I cannot make up decades of experience. So may you share a little bit of your history, before you got to become, or before you positioned yourself to become the executive director of DevMark. Okay, great. So, I grew up in the UAE a long time ago and at the age of 14, I moved back to the States where I graduated in finance and banking. That gave me a financial background. Then I came back to the UAE, Abu Dhabi to be specific, where I worked in City Bank for almost six or seven years, moved on to Standard Charter Bank and so on. So I had 12 years of banking experience, on the selling side. Then I decided around 2003 to venture into the world of real estate. At that time there were no rules, no regulations as a new market, and that's how I started my experience. So I worked for all the top developers in the region, and about eight years ago, I got together with my partners and we started DevMark. And we explain a little bit about what DevMark is. Of course. DevMark, we are the largest project sales and marketing firm in the region. To simplify what we do: we basically work exclusively with developers. We provide them with sales and marketing strategy and we help them take the project to market through working with our partners like yourself. Fantastic. Safe to say you are well knowledgeable, well experienced that you work with so many different developers. So it's not subjective, just to one. Because of the financial background and working in the UAE, we're not just pigeon-holing this just in Dubai because we know for example Abu Dhabi savvy investors are worth it right? And you and I have a shared passion for Abu Dhabi. Yes. Yes. So you know what you're talking about, basically, because there are a lot of people out there, even on podcasts, I'm not going to mention names, that give misinformation and misdirect investors. There are a lot of myths and misconceptions that I'm trying to get ahead of to help allow North Americans and European global investors to feel confident with the right facts and information in order to strategically maximize their investments here in the UAE. I think this is one of the biggest mistakes, although it's not on the list, okay? There's a lot of people that come in and pretend that they're experts, right? They go out there unchecked and they'll give you their opinion and they'll tell you, "Oh, I think the market is going to do this and I think the market is going to do that." And they're not backed by any statistics, fundamentals. I've been in the market for quite a long time and I know who really is an authority on these things and who's not. You're 100 percent right. That's why a platform like yours is extremely important because you let out the people that are on your broadcast, what you're going to talk about and how you're going to educate your public. It's quite important. Thank you for saying that. You know, you triggered something when you said that. Right now, my first major job out of college was pharmaceutical sales. I called upon cardiologists. So I want you to imagine that I'd have to walk into some of the most educated people's offices in the world. Cardiologists are the most educated, I think other than cardiac surgeons, as far as years of schooling. I would have to sit down and have a conversation with my bachelor's degree in economics to persuade this cardiologist to prescribe my company's medication over the competitor. You better believe that before I entered that office, I knew what I was talking about with understanding the difference between significant versus statistically significant data, etc. In order to engage confidently, which I did, I was top of my game. I was rookie of the year, sales of the quarter year after year. But again, a bachelor's versus a cardiologist. That ingrained in me at a very young age. I was only 24. That was 26, 27 years ago, and here I am. Always know what you're talking about before you present it. There's this mentality out there: what is it? Fake it till you make it. Yeah, there is. I hear it a lot and I don't appreciate it. No. Maybe in some industries it works, but not for me. Because for me, honor, integrity, knowing what you're talking about is the most important. If I can just comment on that, yeah. You can fake it till you make it. For example, you want to wear a fake watch until you can afford the proper one. But when you fake the fact that you're an expert and give people ill advice, that's going to harm people. That's not faking it. That's harming people. So I don't appreciate that, especially in our industry. Now imagine the Americans that we were talking about before this started. I'm finally seeing the fruits of my labor of doing what I've been doing, and we're seeing Americans coming in here now. But they are still a skeptical audience because there's this whole preconceived notion of the Middle East, of Dubai, of the UAE being in this volatile area, not understanding like you were saying that this is the Switzerland of the world, right? That they play it very smart and safe here. But that's not necessarily well known in the United States. So now we have this very skeptical audience that they're hearing about Dubai. They're curious, but we need to give them factual information. For example, just one thing: oh, if you get the golden visa, then you're going to secure a lower interest rate because now you're a resident. Wrong. So what do I do? I bring mortgage finder Warren Phillies Kirk on here, who is one of the first mortgage lenders ever. Let's talk about that. Oh, they can just take my money. They can close my bank account. Wrong. I bring the DLD on here, the government themselves. So now with you coming on here, I'd like to hop into some of the mistakes that buyers can make so we can help them avoid it, Todd. And some of the myths. We can start off with something that you are very well knowledgeable on, and that's about timing the market entry and exit. What's your viewpoint and your expert opinion on this topic? Okay. One thing I just want to point out here: whatever we're going to talk about today is in no particular order, okay. They're all important and we're going to cover all of them. Timing the market, and I smile because this is something that I've been dealing with for 36, 37 years. When I started in finance, that was the first thing. It is almost impossible to time the market across any asset class, okay? So imagine how it is with real estate. But then imagine how it is with Dubai real estate. Let me explain why. So when you normally try to time the market, you will miss opportunities, right. How do you know that this is the right time versus the wrong time? That's a general thing. But when you're talking about the real estate market in Dubai, okay, Dubai's real estate market is very dynamic. There's market sentiment where in one quarter they feel that this particular area or this particular development is hot and it's trending, right. And maybe a couple of months after that it changes. It's a very dynamic market. The other thing is that there's a lot of internal policies that are issued, or they come out at a drop of a hat, that positively impact the real estate market. Then all of a sudden you see a surge. It's a very dynamic market and it's very difficult to time it. If you time it and wait for the right time, then you're going to miss a good opportunity. You might end up waiting and getting the product that you want at a higher price. So it is very, very difficult to time the market. What I'd like to say is that it's time in the market, not timing the market. I love that. Time in the market, not timing the market. We should trademark that. We'll talk about that afterwards. We should absolutely. So with that then I'll ask you this. I have had some clients from America who have been watching from afar, and they saw the rapid, record-breaking growth over the past two to three years. And now they say, I'm too late to enter the market. Well again, how are they measuring this, right. I always say you can look at the past performance, but how do you know what's going to happen in the future? I said that on an episode before with you, and I keep saying the same thing. Because of my financial background, I look at the fundamentals. We don't have a crystal ball. There's no way that we can predict what's going to happen in the world. I mean, just, and I don't know when we're going to post this out, but Trump announced tariffs and then paused them three days later. Who could have predicted either? Who could predict? Exactly. Exactly. So the way to ride this volatility, this fluctuation, is that if you find a property that you like, and I'm going to talk about this a little bit, and you have the means to move ahead, then go ahead. Don't take that risk of trying to time the market because with that there's a lot of anxiety. You're going to be sitting there saying, "Oh my God, I missed out on this opportunity" or "Okay, you know what, the prices are going up right now" and what people do is it gets to the point that they're so anxious they'll drop out completely and say forget about it, I'm not going to invest. So it's unfortunate. Now imagine if you're an investor. But if you're looking at a second home or a vacation home, what are you timing? You know what I'm saying? That's a whole other thing. You've got the budget, right. You found something you like. You go for it. Exactly. Because you're going to miss out on it. So that's my take on timing the market and that applies to any kind of investment but specifically real estate. To this area. Yeah. In this area specifically, real estate, and then this area. So then will I mean, bubble risk. Do you foresee a bubble since you have the financial background, experience, and you're so well attuned to everything that's happening in the UAE and in Dubai. Do you see a bubble risk? No, there isn't. Again, I look back at the fundamentals, you know. I mention that, but it points out something: it's the supply and demand dynamics, right. So when you look at a market and you can measure the supply and you can measure the demand, okay, and you see that the supply is outstripping the demand, that's when you start looking at, oh, there's going to be a bubble building, right. Now, we know the supply. The supply is not phenomenal like people think, right. The figures, I don't remember exactly, but they're not in the 100,000, right. But if you look at the demand, the demand is not organic. What I mean is the demand is not people who are born and they're going to reach the age of 30 and then they're going to look at housing. The demand is constant, and the demand that's supporting Dubai's real estate market is from all around the world. That's an important note too, actually. Not even knowing like you said, this flow is not going to be necessarily how we maybe had discussed. I don't know where the timing is going to be on this when this video goes. What's happening in the United States? There was initially a fear saying, "Oh my goodness, how is this going to affect the UAE?" To which I say, "We're not very dependent on any one country." And first of all, our trade with the United States is very low, right. Which is what I thought. And then the tariffs were equal anyway, 10 percent, 10 percent reciprocal tariffs. But in general, the UAE is not dependent on any one nation. No. That's what made it special, and that's what continues to make the UAE a safe haven. They're not dependent. They're not biased toward a certain country or a certain regime or whatever. They're very neutral. And another thing is, you know, I don't want to talk too much about it. I'm not an economist, but it's just common sense. The UAE relies on other factors and not necessarily heavy manufacturing or these. Not any sector. Very diverse economy. It is a very diverse economy. And because of that it does hedge against any one issue happening. Yes. That's strategic. Very strategic. You used the magic word, hedging. I had a question we were talking about earlier: would that discourage investors coming from overseas? And I'm like no. Anyone that has been looking at the stock market recently, like me, you've seen the market going down, and there's no indication of when the volatility will stop. Now if you want to hedge against your portfolio and against that volatility, against unforeseen circumstances, what's better than putting it in a real estate market in the UAE, in a country that is very stable economically and politically? I like to remind people: I keep forgetting to say it. Zero. Income taxes, capital gains taxes, and property taxes: zero, which we as American citizens can't get away from, unfortunately. But the UAE has zero. They incorporated a nine percent corporate tax, but still if you compare that to most major business hub nations, it's still slight and it doesn't affect what we're talking about. Another thing that I think is very important came up in a conversation I had with a colleague about the same subject. People don't understand that when you decide to invest in the UAE, and let's say you sold your property and you've done a lot of good and you have capital appreciation, all that kind of stuff, whether you declare tax or whatever, that's a different story. But you can freely take the money out of the country. Such a good point. That is something actually Americans do ask. Okay. So how easy is it for me? I know because there are some countries in this region that are having a hard time with people pulling their money out of that country. But here in the UAE, I said, "Is that as quick as it takes from a bank to bank transfer to pull your money out?" The government's not holding it because there are no taxes. So they're just here, there you go, as quickly as it is. There's that fluidity and that ability to have access to your money so easily, which is great. And even the whole off-plan project process is so unique here in Dubai. It is the fact that you can sell it before you take physical ownership of it. If that's one of your strategies to capitalize on the capital appreciation, you do that. If it's the long term, you do that. If it's the short term, you do that. Which brings me or segues to another question that I have about when clients are so focused on the rental returns and they forget the capital. Maybe it's because in America there isn't that significant capital appreciation, or in Canada. Maybe it's just not even that. Because I hear so many people call me and say, what's the rental ROI, what's the rental ROI? I'm like, okay, I can share with you a prime area that's going to give you a high short-term rental ROI. I can share with you a suburb that's going to give you high long-term rental returns. But hello, we are forgetting one huge part of the profit opportunity. So may you share. Okay, so I have to adjust my jacket here because this is a big one, okay, right. This is two in one. Two misconceptions, two mistakes in one. The first one, I've been dying for a platform where I can talk about that and clarify it. I love this. Yes, please. Okay. So when people talk about ROI, okay, return on investment, everybody talks about it. It's marketing collateral. The brokers are talking about it, clients coming in, what's the ROI on this? I like to pose a question and say, okay, calculate for me the ROI on this particular investment. They do the calculation and I look at them and I smile. I said, that's not ROI. That is a simple rental yield calculation, okay. Why is this important? Rental yield calculation is basically you take the value of your property, okay, what's written on the SPA. That's your property value. You estimate the rental and you just divide the rent by the price, multiply by 100, and you get a percentage. That's a simple calculation which is called rental yield. ROI is a more complex calculation because with ROI you want to know the net return on your investment. What you're doing is you're figuring out not the value of your property but your out-of-pocket expenses, how much you paid. You factor in the cash flow. You factor in capital appreciation if you're planning to sell it. You factor in the mortgage if it's mortgaged. You factor in all of these things, and that's where you get the ROI. Why is this important? When we're talking about off-plan properties and we're talking about off-plan properties with post-handover payment plan, that becomes very crucial. Why? Because if you are calculating your yield based on the price of the property, right, and let me give a hypothetical example. 100,000 Dirhams rent, property is worth 1 million, 100,000. Let's say you come up with a figure. I'm pretty bad at figures, that's why I'm in sales. Let's say you come up with 6 percent, okay, right. But if you factor in a post-handover payment plan where you take possession of the property after paying 60 percent and you have 40 percent post-handover, so you're actually renting it out and you only paid 600,000, not 1 million. So your rental yield increases significantly. That's why I wanted to clarify that point. But after clarifying that point, let's say rental yield. People that look purely at rental yield and ignore capital appreciation. Why that could be a mistake? Because there are certain areas, and I don't want to mention them, I don't want to upset anyone. These areas have not been, for the last 10 to 11 years, providing the highest rental yield in the entire market, but they have not appreciated by 1 percent, okay. So what you need to do is you need to have a balanced approach. You need to look at areas where you look at the rental yield, okay. But also you look at the potential for capital appreciation. And together, that's when you're making a sound investment. Absolutely. And with the payment plan and factoring that all in. That's why it's important to work with an objective real estate agent, broker that can help guide you versus if you go directly to a developer. Everyone's going to say, "Oh, this is the best, this is the best." But you want to look at a holistic approach to make the best decisions. Which also leads me to another mistake that is made all too often, and it saddens me: not doing the research about the developer that someone is investing in and just thinking, okay, I know Dubai and the UAE are hot. I know that these are the average numbers that I can expect. I know that I can get the golden visa. So I Googled, I researched, I found this person or here's this roadshow, and I'm just going to invest. Well, this goes for everything. It is a big mistake and I've seen it happening, I've seen it happening all the time, not researching, not doing your homework. Not doing your homework about the developer, not doing your homework about the area, not doing your homework about the building, not doing your homework about the broker, the brokerage company. These are crucial, okay. I'm going to say something right now, and probably after I say that all the salespeople in the world are going to go after me. Okay, I want to hear this. I like juicy. Well, okay. Salespeople, we are trained to create urgency. I do this all the time. I train my team to do it. I'm not going to apologize for it, okay. I feel like we're also built into that. It's our personalities as well to become a salesperson. To become a salesperson. But what I'm saying is part of our training is that you come to me, I'm a salesperson. I want you to buy now and I will create urgency. Now 90 percent of the time the urgency is not smoke and mirrors. It is due to the fact of scarcity, availability, limited availability, especially during EOI, you know, special promotion payment plan. That's my job and that's what I'm going to do. But you as a buyer, you have the responsibility toward yourself, okay. I wouldn't say not to fall for that, but to take the time. I'm not saying taking a week or two, but take the time, yes. Do your homework to get to an educated decision, right. So let me ask you a question. Due diligence, very important. We talk about this all the time. Actually, I remember, you said what Dr. Mahmud Alber from the DLD, senior adviser, said exactly what you just said. It is upon you. The onus is upon you, the investor, to do a little bit of due diligence. We're a very transparent real estate market, okay. It's very easy to Google and research someone's Google reviews, as you just said, etc. That's on you. How do you feel about the real estate agents that give a kickback? That makes my blood boil. Tell me why. Because first of all it's unfair, you know. First of all, I don't want to use the word unethical. Well, it's illegal. Okay. It is, first of all, it's illegal, first. But we know it's being done. It's been done, it's been done a lot, it's been done a lot. It's been done by brokers that are so desperate. You probably don't want to work with them anyway. That's what I want. I see. I did not prep you to say that. You didn't. But I wanted to use you. You are a very reputable expert that's been in this business in this area for so many years. Before I came in, I come from a different standard in America when it comes to this. So many things I'm very impressed with about Dubai. But the way that real estate agents are with each other in America, I think there's a lot that can be learned from the way we do it. Because if anyone has a whiff of somebody downplaying another real estate agent, giving an illegal kickback, you lose your license, you're finished. We're so monitored in the United States. I have to make sure my DR number, my real exec number, my brokerage, is on every single post. Someone makes a phone call, it goes to my broker. You have two, three warnings and then your real estate license is gone. So my thing is, why would you as an investor even want to work with someone that is so desperate, devalues themselves, and is that desperate to give you a few thousand dollars? And by the way, what then? Now you have a project, a product in the desert. What are you going to do with it? Because that person was not motivated enough to be with you for the long term, right. No, absolutely. That kind of person won't last in the market that long, exactly. That was a question I wanted. I was just so curious as to what your viewpoint is. And then, how do you feel about developers that are trying to undercut brokers and say, "Oh, we'll offer you this"? I think there's one word for it: stupid. Because the market is dependent upon brokers. It has been the case since 2003 or 2004. They add great value, okay. Not all of them, but the majority of them. I have seen throughout my experience working with big developers where they, I wouldn't say deliberately, they wanted to reduce their dependency on brokers, okay. Because it costs a lot of money, right. Right. So I've seen a lot of them investing into their own sales team, going into marketing campaigns that cost millions for lead generation, having offices all around the world. Yet they come back to the same point: no, we cannot succeed without working with the brokers. That's interesting. So the brokers still play a very important role in this market, I think in every market, okay. But especially in this particular market. Yeah. The majority of transactions are conducted through brokers. So to your point with regards to the role that they play, it's very important. I didn't realize that some had tried that model of cutting them out because for off-plan the commission is paid by the developer. So I can see how they tried to cut that. I'm sorry. Yeah, they're two different things, okay. What I was talking about earlier was not cutting them off from a deal that they should be paid for, okay, right. So for example, what some are doing is the developer, the broker is the one that introduced the project to the client. That's it. That's done. The minute you know that, then you owe that person the commission, correct, irrespective of whether the buyer comes to you again and again and again and again and you engage with them, okay. That's ethical and that's how it should be done, right. Then what happens is the client goes directly to the developer. The developer looks at and says, you know what, if I'm paying that broker 4 percent, I can give that client a 2 percent discount, saves 2 percent. Now, why is this stupid? Because this is a very small market and you need is one, two cases and the brokers will not work with you anymore. That's the situation. That is a situation. Top tier developers and reputable brands, like the brands that you know DevMark represents, they don't do that and it's smart. When we talk about desperation, why would somebody even offer to do that in a market where you know the next broker is going to come, bring you, let's say, hundreds of millions of dollars of deals? For one person you're going to ruin your reputation. It's not smart. Okay, I appreciate you answering these. Well, Todd, I thank you for bringing your wisdom and your beautiful energy to The Dubai Connect podcast and always being a source of information that's really relevant to people across the globe when they're making the decision to come invest in Dubai, in Abu Dhabi, in the greater UAE. I look forward to seeing what DevMark projects you have in the works. You always work with only the best. When DevMark is representing a brand, I need to learn about what this is and share that with my American clients. So thank you. Well, I want to thank you for having me here. You always give me an opportunity to be here. I thank you for your platform because what we talked about earlier is what you're doing: educating the people. You're not just there promoting services. You're also educating the people. For me, that's something that I respect and I appreciate. Well, that means a lot to me. Thank you, thank you very much. With that, please make sure to like, subscribe, follow, and stay tuned for the next episode of The Dubai Connect. Until then, happy investing.