Invest in Affordable JVC Dubai Area | Interview With Praveen Skyline Developer | The Dubai Connect

Hi, I'm GG Benitez, a certified international property specialist connecting Dubai's incredible real estate market with my US and Canadian investors. Today we're going to touch upon an area that you should definitely know about to start your investment journey in Dubai with one of the best developers in all of the area. Let me welcome Praveen to our show from Skyline Developers. Thank you so much. This is season 2 of The Dubai Connect podcast. So please introduce yourself, your development, and what your history and background is. I'm Praveen Manon. I'm from Skyline Builders. I head the operations of the company. Skyline Builders, the legacy, when you talk about the legacy of Skyline, we are a company established in 1989 in Kerala in India. From then on, for the last 35 years, we have done about 158 projects in the south of India. We've delivered about 16.8 million square feet and around 8,000 customers across the globe. In this market alone, we have around 2,000 plus customers. I've been with the company for the last 24 years. Wow, congratulations. Thank you. That speaks a lot. So mostly heading the operations. Earlier I was heading sales because we never had a project in Dubai. We were selling the Indian projects to the expats over here. Which means the expats over here are already familiar with the brand, very much, especially the Indian market. If you talk about Skyline, it's a brand. Unlike in Dubai with the government rules, if you talk about delivering the project on time, it's a challenge, especially in the south Indian market. We have successfully delivered 158 projects on time. That is the highlight. All of them, and Skyline is known for the on-time delivery and even for the quality as well. Right. Before we do, if you were already so successful in India, what made you come to Dubai? As I was telling, I've been here in this market since 2002. Of late, if you look at the second generation, especially the second generation, they've started thinking of investing outside India and especially in Dubai. When the return on investments are much much higher than in the Indian market, that has really shifted the focus of the market. If you ask me, yes, it has. The numbers don't lie. That explains why you came to Dubai. Then when you came to Dubai, why JVC, which is Jumeirah Village Circle for my viewers? So we have been in this market for the last 23 years. The market is very familiar. When we decided to do a project here, we were studying the whole of Dubai. Where to invest? If you take the whole of Dubai, say 85 kilometers or 90 kilometers, JVC is centrally located. Explain that. When you say JVC is central, because you will have some people that will say JVC is the suburbs of Dubai. Never, it's not. So please paint the picture of how it's centrally located. I'll make it easy for you to understand. The whole of Dubai, when you talk about, say, let's take 90 kilometers. JVC is centrally located. Why? Because from JVC, when you travel towards the left, 20, 25 minutes, to your left, you are at Dubai Airport, which is the beginning of Dubai or the old Dubai. And 25 minutes to your right, you reach the new airport, which is the new Dubai, the end of the new Dubai. This is one reason why JVC is centrally located. Another thing is if you look at the three major highways that connect Dubai, the Sheikh Zayed Road, which everybody is familiar with, and then the Aly Road, the parallel Aly Road, and the Muhammad Bin Zayed Road, all these three roads get connected to JVC through Hessa Street. This is the highlight. Moreover, if you look at the current developments, the Dubai government is investing around 650 million for the expansion of Hessa Street. This means this community has very high importance in Dubai today. It connects all the major malls. If you ask me, like Mall of Emirates, Dubai Hills Mall, Mall of Emirates is about 12 minutes drive, and Hills Mall is about 10 minutes drive from the community. Within the community, there's a Circle Mall and two international schools. JVC is quite known for the communal parks. There are around 56 parks in the community. Nice and green. Especially the project which we're doing, Skyline Avanguard Residence, when you talk about, you have six parks surrounding the project. These are some of the reasons, and Jumeirah Beach is just 10 minutes drive from the community. All the free zones like JAFZA Free Zone, the Dubai Internet City, Knowledge Village, all within 10 to 12 minutes drive from the location. Location is very important. That's the reason we chose JVC, and it has the highest return on investments as well. That's a very important question and concern that circles around the ROI. With ROI, I know here you define ROI as rental return, but even capital appreciation is how they determine the success of an investment. So if I'm a US-based or Canadian-based investor and I want to dip my toes into the Dubai real estate market, I may not even be deciding to come here. I just want to capitalize on the opportunities in Dubai because it is the top real estate market in the world. Exactly. JVC has some of the most affordable entry points. What's the price per square foot right now? JVC, we have entered the market with a very catchy price. Being the first project in Dubai, if you look at our price, it's average about 1,200 per square feet. 1,200 dirhams per square feet is what we're selling. The return on investments in JVC, if you look at it's around 8.5 to 9.5 percent. Of late, say a one-bedroom worth a million dirhams will fetch you a rent of 110,000 dirhams annually. That's the kind of returns today we have. This is a very transparent real estate market. I've always known, and you can prove it by going to such websites like Property Finder, that JVC is long-term. If you're looking for the least amount of risk, exactly, the least entry price. But the highest ROI, yes, it would be JVC. And you said it's 8.5 to 9.5 percent. No property taxes, yeah, exactly. There's no property or capital appreciation taxes in Dubai. So it's great. The price per square foot, as you said, 1,200 dirhams. But generally, if you look at quality products, the quality what we give, those kind of products today in the market, if you look at it's priced at 1,500 to 1,600 per square feet. So the advantage is, you know, invest in the property now so that by the time you get completed, you know, it can even go up to 1,800 per square feet in JVC. That's the highlight. When you address capital appreciation, do you just project as far as handover? If someone were to invest in a property today, are you telling them by handover you can expect an average of what? And what do you project for your project? With the current market, I said, see, even projects which are completed, which are now coming into the secondary market at 1,600 and 1,700 per square feet. Bravada is one to highlight, you know. Those kind of projects, yes. Especially when you give the quality, yes. People are really looking at quality today, especially investors from the US and places like Canada. It's very important. That's the thing I will tell you, Praveen. Why this podcast is so important to me is because in the United States, for so many people who haven't come to Dubai, one of the first questions I address is how safe of an investment is it? And of course, we know, and I share all about the Dubai Land Department, the precautionary methods, the regulations, and how obviously this is why you have ultra-high-net-worth investors from all over the world trusting Dubai. Yeah. Then the next question is what area. I would just love to add a point when you sent about this, the RERA. See, because we are a developer based in India and we have the same RERA system even in India, believe me, the rules in Dubai are much, much, much more strict than what we have in India. For example, as a developer, in India, normally what happens is when you have the funds going into an escrow account, you always have a provision to take 30 percent of the funds from the account. But in Dubai, what they ensure is that the builder has already parked the funds to complete the project, correct, and then you take your margins after a year after the completion. That's how the government has designed the RERA rules to protect investors. Exactly. It's incredible. Sharing that has really given comfort and confidence in investing. Exactly. And then we come and say okay, so we know your money is protected. We know that when you're wiring your work on an off-payment plan, it's protected through the escrow account managed by RERA, the real estate regulatory agency arm of the Dubai Land Department. Then the next question, if we look more further out, and that is important to me to address to my clients, is the resale value. That's where quality really comes into play. Right? Because if you're just buying the least expensive opportunity to get into the Dubai land to buy real estate market, then what's going to happen when it's time to resell if you don't have a quality product? Very true. See, we always believe as Skyline, we always believe in a long-term relation with the client. We have well studied the market. If you ask me, back home we have a 360-degree service. When I say 360-degree service, it's like, even after the handover of the apartment, we help the clients with resale of your apartment, renting out of your apartment, and even in the absence of the client, if it is a transit home, we help you with the cleaning of your apartment, payment of electricity bills, telephone bills. These kinds of services are never introduced in Dubai by any of the developers, and that is one area where we're going to really focus on customer satisfaction or giving a long-term service. Long-term strategy, exactly. And even now, if you look at Skyline projects, we believe in repeat buy and network sales. Basically, the moment an investor is happy with the developer, I'm sure he's going to bring in his friends and family to the builder. This is what we strongly believe in. We are going to work on this as well on the long-term. You're actually singing my tune. This is the most important thing that I have been told by a developer: it's that long-term strategy. Because my partner and I are not certainly looking for that quick sell. We're looking for that referral network, for that return customer. Exactly. And working with a brand, we've addressed this, the safety. We address delivering on time, which, by the way, most developments are typically late in Dubai. But there are few that are known for delivering on time. You prioritizing that and having the experience with that is important. Exactly, exactly. And then the quality is important when it comes to first of all enjoying the property yourself and attracting the renters that are going to come in and use it. But also for long-term resale. What else? If you were to point out, if someone were to ask you what are the five differentiators with Skyline to other competitive developers in JVC? What would you say are the top five differentiators? Location definitely. Location is the most important thing when you invest in Dubai. For that matter, location is one thing you can rely on. Avanguard locality, definitely, yes. Third, I would say the space, the living space. If you ask me, because generally what happens is Dubai is a market where most of the units are sold by the agents. For agents, it's not about the builder. It's just the ticket size they talk about for the investor. But when you build the real home, you know, the apartment which should appreciate, or even for the end user, space is an important factor. If you look at Avanguard Residents, we have designed all the apartments which are 20 to 30 percent bigger in terms of size. So you're getting more for your price, exactly. Our one-bedroom would be around 850 square feet usable area, good size, starting from 850 going all the way to 900 square feet. The two-bedrooms would be in the square feet area of 1,353 square feet, which is as good as a three-bedroom size in JVC Community. The advantage of this is, maybe an end-user or maybe an investor tomorrow when you rent out, you get better rentals for bigger apartments which are done in quality. The fourth specialty of Avanguard, I would say, is we have utilized the floor space and the wall space in terms of storage. Every single minute space is being utilized for the storage space. This again lacks in most of the apartments in Dubai. Developers save cost on these or they cut cost on these areas. But we have really worked on all the interior works and we've given maximum storage space in the apartment. Exactly. This is why we're doing this podcast: to steer and guide these investors in the correct way. Because there are a couple or a few developers that are heavily marketing to the United States. When a client calls me, I say to them, sure, you can. I can sell any development. I get paid the same. You pay my commission. It doesn't make a difference to me. But if I'm helping guide and strategize you to make you happy in the long term, let's make sure it's someone who delivers on time, someone who's known for the quality, the brand recognition, the space, the location, locality, and locality. I love all of that. Who do you believe, or I know that you have done a lot of market study. What demographic does JVC cater to? I would say it's a mixed community. JVC Community is known for the European crowds and even the US people who have come in, especially those who work with free zone companies. And, as I said initially, the highlight of JVC location is it's a community with a lot of open space, lots of parks, around 56 parks in the community, which attracts mostly families into the community. And then it has international schools within the community. These are some of the specialties of this community. Because whereas if you look at the neighboring community like Arjan or any other community, they don't have these kinds of facilities. It's a community which is already developed with malls, clinics, and all those things. So the mixed community, I would say it's a mixed community, and it's a pet-friendly community as well. Pet friendly, yeah. You know, Americans love to hear. I know, I know this. JVC is, yes, exactly. It's a pet-friendly community. I actually noticed that Dubai is starting to cater more and more to pets. What is the least expensive unit that you are offering right now in your project? We have studio apartments which are 450 square feet, which are at the price of 650,000 dirhams. But what are the ones that are the strongest for the long-term rentals? What size? One-bedrooms. One-bedrooms definitely. In the square feet area of 850 to 900 square feet. So what is the least expensive one-bedroom then, based on if a client wants to obviously invest with something that's going to have the highest long-term rental returns? We would suggest one-bedroom. So what's the least expensive price? Least expensive would be about 1,180,000. Approximately 1,180,000 dirhams. It's about 1,200 per square foot, yes, yeah. But generally, as I said, it's the initial launch offer. For the quality we're giving, because for the first project, we wouldn't have huge margins, but yes, let clients enjoy the quality. That's where we push into the market. What's next for you? We have already taken another land parcel, which we have invested in JVC. We are in the process of sourcing a third land outside JVC. Outside JVC? Are you going to venture out? That's what I was going to ask. Exactly, exactly. Okay, but JVC is a safe bet. It's a safe bet because, as you said, we have the mid-income segment investing in the community and it gets the best rental returns, even because, see, the thing is, being an investor, your capital investment is a big thing. So if you look at locations like Jumeirah Garden City or Business Bay, your capital investment is going to be huge and the ROI is not going to be as promising as that of JVC. So on an investment perspective, if you look at JVC, it's the best because you have minimum capital investment with maximum return. What are your payment plans? We have a 50/50 payment plan. That's another interesting thing, you know. We have 50 percent payment during the construction progress in about 30 months, and then at the time of handover, you make the balance 50 percent. The investor can opt for a house loan finance as well during this, up to 60 percent. So foreigners can secure financing for up to 60 percent before handover. But that's interesting that you have a 50/50 payment plan because that is becoming quite rare to see here in Dubai. There, as demand is continuing to rise and we don't see any slowdown of the demand with the population growth, with Dubai being a top tourist destination, now you're starting to see 70/30, 80/20 payment plans. So the advantage of that 50/50 is that you're leveraging less capital exactly before you're able to, let's say, secure financing before handover. At what point could somebody resell? Somebody wanted to purchase today and they want to resell the property before completion. How much do they have to pay? 40 percent. Each 40 percent? 40 percent. When they've done with 40 percent, they can resell it if they want to. What is the expected handover date? For the agreements, the sale purchase agreement, we have mentioned it as Quarter 4 2026. But between us, what we have internally planned is December 2025 is the internal completion date we have planned. That's our goal internally. But legally what you have a promise is 2026 Q4. After completion, we do the snagging. Explain what snagging is, because Americans don't know the term. It's very common in India, actually. Normally what happens is once you have possession of the apartment, the client along with the developer visits the apartment he or she has invested in. They take a tour around the apartment looking if the finishes are good. If there's anything that happened or they just make a list where it has to be corrected. But in our case, what we do is once after the project, the occupancy certificate is received, before we inform clients that the apartment is ready, we do the snagging ourselves. As an internal process, the builder does the snagging. So the sales department along with the engineering team, we visit the apartment, we do the snagging. So we act on behalf of the customer. If I go for the snagging, I act on behalf of my customer. I say that no, this is not right. This has to be corrected. All this process will be done before the handover. So it's assured, you know. Next, say 90 days, say March is what exactly we try to hand over the apartment. It's always good that clients feel that they got the best product and an early handover date too. I can tell that you take a lot of pride in what you do, yeah. And clearly, by how many years you have been with your company and the experience that you have, having established a strong brand in India and already having people from here invest significantly there, the sky is the limit for you here. I think it's very important that we do offer and discuss JVC because of the fact that it offers a much lower entry point, exactly. To the market, of course. With that, it means that you're not necessarily known for the strongest short-term rentals. But that's going to be a riskier investment if that's the property and a more expensive investment, right? If you want that short-term rental, you're going to have to look at seafront, more premier locations where tourists are coming. Whereas you're catering to people that are living here and a lot of the end-users and, as you said, Americans and Europeans that are moving here due to the significant job opportunities and job growth in Dubai. Exactly. Great. So walk us through the amenities that Skyline Avanguard provides for its users. While we were designing the apartment project, the mix of apartments, we have 62 studio apartments, 93 one-bedrooms, and 7 two-bedroom apartments. This is how we have designed the apartment. How many? 7? There's not a lot, yeah. And most of them are sold as well, you know, for the two-bedrooms. Actually, but then we are trying to make a combination where, you know, combining a one-bedroom and studio into a two-bedroom plus study. So we're working on this because we understand that, especially as we rightly said, being an end-user segment, there's a huge demand for bigger apartments for the families, exactly. For the families. So what we did is we are redesigning the one-bedroom and studios combined option into a two-bedroom plus study. Interesting, yeah. When we talk about the amenities and facilities, we have very thoughtfully and functionally designed amenities and facilities. When I say this, on the ground floor, we have given a guest lounge. For the fact that most of the apartment studio customers, if they start living there, you have a guest or a family member coming in, and if it's somebody you don't want to take into your apartment, you can always reserve the guest lounge where you can entertain them. You have a coffee machine. Fantastic, yeah. So we have a coffee machine, we have a TV lounge, and all those things. So you entertain your customer in the ground floor. Connecting to that, we have a communal workspace for say 8 to 10 people where they can sit and work together. Or even, especially when it comes to studios, you know, it's mostly single working women or bachelors who stay here. So they would definitely have work from home. All these things, so we have given a facility like that. And then we've given a warm reception area for the fact that most of the apartments today, of late, after the post-COVID period, when you ask me, most of the apartments, you have this Airbnb concept of renting it out. So definitely, you know, especially the tourist when they come into the apartment, you should have that cozy feeling when it is given on Airbnb. So that's one reason we have given a very warm reception area. Adding on to this, we have 22 plus world-class amenities and facilities. We have a 20-meter infinite pool, yeah, and then we have a sunken seating within the pool. So this is something you see in the hotels. I love it. Like the Atlantis Royale has that as well. It's so beautiful. So you have a sunken seating and then we have beach shelves within the pools, the water beach shelves, and then you have a kids pool separate, okay, and connecting to the kids pool, we have a splash pad area, especially when Dubai is summer. Summer is hot, yeah, and kids would love to play in water. So then we have landscape gardens, a coffee seating area, a sunset deck, and then kids play area outside. And apart from all these, we have a silent cinema on the rooftop. Wow, yeah, which is really catering to people not having to even leave the community to be able to enjoy so many different facilities. And then we have a barbecue station, okay, with some dining area. And then we have a walkway around the rooftop. And then internally, we have an infant caretaking room and a multi-purpose hall. So these are all the amenities facilities we have given. Fantastic, yeah. We're going to get to check out your show apartment to really see that beautiful quality and that luxurious vibe that you are bringing to JVC. You're most welcome. I would really want you to come and visit my apartment. See with my own eyes, right, and be able to share it. Definitely. Is thank you, Praveen, for taking the time out of clearly a very busy schedule selling to come and be able to help share with my investors back home why JVC and then why Skyline. I think you did a beautiful job of sharing the story about your development, your history, the quality, the differentiators, and what makes you very unique. So thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. With that, please make sure to like, subscribe, follow, and stay tuned for the next episode of The Dubai Connect podcast. This is season 2 of The Dubai Connect podcast.