Why Expo City Dubai Is the Top Area to Invest in Now

Hi, my name is GG Benitez. I'm a certified international property specialist and a licensed realtor connecting the incredible real estate opportunities of Dubai with investors in the United States and Canada. We have a very special guest with us today from one of the most buzzed about communities in all of Dubai, Expo City. Stay tuned. This is Season 2 of The Dubai Connect Podcast. Welcome, Peter. We are quite honored and excited to have you take time out of your very busy schedule to share with our American investors why they should be considering Expo City. So we give it on to you to share with us the information. Thank you so much guys, appreciate it GG. Thank you for the invitation, an absolute pleasure to be here in front of all of you guys and all of your viewership. Having lived so long in the United States, especially in Miami and Orlando, it's a pleasure to help you guys as much as I can. And we have a lot of American clients who have already purchased with us and we're looking forward to it. So excited for North Americans as well, in Canada as well. We've had several customers, so we're looking forward to expanding even further. Well, you know, at this point a lot of the investors understand from America, North America, why Dubai. And the question is now, where in Dubai? And so Expo City is constantly coming up as one of the hottest areas with regards to the potential for capital appreciation, rental returns, short-term rental returns on restricted Airbnb, and minimizing their risk as investors. And so you are so eloquent with sharing why an American and a Canadian should look at Expo City compared to the other areas in Dubai. So share with us why? It's quite easy to talk about because I'm just a messenger. I mean, the work that the government has done with Expo City Dubai, being a developer that's 100% government, is absolutely remarkable. And it's an honor to represent them. Well, let me just start by saying that we're making history with being the only developer in UAE to have ever built the whole master community before the residences, right? And that's very important because when you're buying off-plan, there's always a risk element to it. And there's only three ways to mitigate that risk. And one of them is the most expensive thing people think with buying a property is the building itself, which is not true. It's actually the master community. The most expensive part, right? I'll give you an example. With the Expo City Dubai, we've invested over 25 billion dirhams just in the infrastructure alone. And our infrastructure is absolutely amazing. I mean, we had the pleasure of showing you around, and it's just, yes, we did it was impressive actually. We'll tag a video to this as well so that people can actually see what we got to experience and visually see yesterday with the fountain show and the different pavilion and the Al Wasl Dome, etc. So and the showrooms, that's a whole other topic that we could discuss. So you were talking about the ways to mitigate risks and the most expensive part being the community, which is already built. And then correct. So the beauty about us is like, whenever a customer comes in, you know, every developer has show apartments. We have show apartments and a show community. Why is this important? Because we'll take you on a golf cart tour so you can see the look, the feel, the quality of the whole master community that's already built. Whereas other developers have a lot of promises that they give you, we don't have to give promise because it's already built, and that is very reassuring, especially for our investors that are overseas. I have to agree with that, Peter, because there are many communities which we will not talk about that where the projects are there, but guess what, the infrastructure is still being worked on for the past 10, 15 years. It's a never-ending story. So every time you're driving into your community, it's a never-ending story with the construction. So that's what we realized and noticed with Expo City. We felt like we were like in an adults playground. We were so excited. Spectacular, yeah. I mean, I was telling GG, anyone who lives here will never be bored. They will be, just having all the entertainment and all the excitement within the community without having to go anywhere. And what's fascinating is that it's 15 minutes to walk the whole community, right? But you have access to the golf carts that's that we were shown around on. The buggies. The buggies, well, you call them buggies, golf carts, right? And then the scooters and then the bicycles. So we were talking about really catering towards fitness and health and wellness and the Metro that connects you. So no wait a minute, the best part, yes, the Metro. But guess what, it drops you right at the entrance of the community, which we have not seen that any of the communities I think is one of the most important things we should even discuss is this is a pedestrian-only community. It is a city within a city. Yes, and it's very unique, especially in Dubai right now. Some things that I love about the community being a pedestrianized community is you saw that we have even retractable roofs. So whenever it's sunny and hot, all the roofs just close in on all the hallways so you can just walk always through shaded areas, which is great. So that's unique. All the buggies that you mentioned, we also have all the scooters and electric ebikes that all you need to do is scan with your phone and then you can drop it off in over 20 different locations. So moving on throughout the whole community, if you don't want to walk, it's super easy. Now when you combine the fact that we are a pedestrianized city with over 45,000 square meters of parks, areas, and playgrounds for kids, families absolutely love this. Why? Because you never have to worry about your kids and safety with other cars. That's super important, right? Safety absolutely. You're never going to hear a sports engine just revving their engine, right? And noise pollution or honking? None of that. Just peace, quiet, and tranquility. Why? Because all the cars go underground, right? And that's lovely. And in terms of sustainability, you're never going to have any smoke pollution as well because there's no cars on top. So you get the best of so many benefits when you combine all of this together. Um, as an American, one other factor that you were discussing yesterday that is so important to us Americans is the way that you're cooling down the whole area with the trees that are being built with the elevated. That each, yeah, each row of villas is elevated 4.5 to 5 meters. So we're doing several things in order to bring down the temperature, which to me is absolutely priceless, right? Especially during the summer, it's absolutely priceless to bring down the temperature 4 to 5 degrees Celsius. One of the things that we're doing is planting so many trees like you mentioned, right, that's very important. Secondly, um, the materials that we're using all throughout the sidewalks and everywhere is solar reflective. I'm sure you guys have walked down the uh a pedestrian path and you just feel like sometimes like the ground is hotter than in the outside air. That's because it just absorbs the heat. So we're doing the complete opposite, which is solar reflective so that way it just feels a lot cooler. And when you combine those first two things that I mentioned with the topography as well, then it just gets a lot cooler a lot quicker. And talking, touching about briefly upon sustainability, that is a huge part of the vision of His Highness, right? So this is a legacy as we were talking about yesterday in your offices, that they're leaving behind as far as Expo City. And it's part of the vision, not only of expanding and making it a livable, beautiful, incredible city but sustainable. Yes, I still remember when we first won the bid in order to just be Expo 2020, right? That was an absolute huge accomplishment and a historical moment for the country. And it helped propel Dubai on a global level even more so. Which by the way, you need to emphasize on because many people in the US are not aware of what Expo 2020 is. You're absolutely right, and I'll be honest, before coming to Dubai, I didn't know much about Expo or about the global Expo and how big of an issue this is and how big of a big deal it is. Well, Expo 2020 was an absolute success. And we had over 24 million people that came through our doors in a period of 6 months. That's over 200,000 people on a daily basis and still no traffic. Why do I want to emphasize the no traffic part? Because Dubai has become so popular with the expansion and growth. Everybody wants to move into Dubai for so many different reasons. I mean, we're blessed with the leadership that we have in the country because they've managed it so well. And it's just been skyrocketing, especially after COVID. That skyrocket is on steroids, right? Everybody wants to come here to Dubai now. Why is that important? Because all these famous master communities that you have all around Dubai, they're lovely, but they have one big drawback, and that is traffic, right? And what Expo City Dubai did was they future-proofed it completely against traffic. How did they do this? They have the best infrastructure in terms of connecting roadways all around Expo City. Now you have roads that are like six lanes going, six lanes coming. Um, so you're never going to have traffic. And the whole city is a two-tiered city as well. So you have underground parking that we were mentioning, and that makes it really just a nice place to be able to live in as well. So how would the tenants get inside the community since they're not allowed to drive over the city? Good question. So what we're doing is an underground tunnel system. In fact, all of the commercial buildings, which we have over 135,000 square meters of AAA office space already built, they connect underground, which is great. We have a lot of VIPs that use these underground. We have a lot of different transportation underground. And to answer your question point blank is for all our residential projects, let's say Sky Residences, which is our newest launch, right, there's a tunnel system that goes underground and then takes you to the three levels of basement parking that we have. And the attention to detail that Expo City Dubai does in every single aspect of it, I'll give you an example. We have both artificial lighting and we have natural light. So you have just solar rays that will be able to hit all the way to the third level of the basement. Oh my gosh, wow. And we're also doing gardens in the basement. So whenever you come home and you bring guests, they haven't even gotten out of the car and they're like, wait a second, they're already feeling this experience. So just a uniqueness in every single corner and angle of what we're doing. So every residential building will have access from the underground parking, right? They will drive straight down to exactly where their building is, basically correct. You get out of your car and then you're immediately at the elevator lobby lift and you go straight to your residence, which is great. And what you're mentioning is 100% the infrastructure has already been built. You already have, what is it, over 30 restaurants that are already functional? We currently, as of February, have over 30 different restaurants functioning. So any type of cuisine, you're going to absolutely love it in the city. And this is something that it's hard for people to understand. The residences are still two years away from being completed, but yet the city's already alive. Exactly. You just had the event this past weekend, right? And you're constantly having events. But what was it, a musical three-day festival you had going on? Four-day festival. The photos and videos looked amazing. So the city is already alive. You have the um, the fountains that we went and visited yesterday. All these, can you explain a little bit about the pavilion? Sure. So every single week we have new events. Untold was one, was a very important one because we had over 100 artists from all over the world with huge names such as Test, what we had 880,000 people just rocking to Testo. Um, that was very fun. Sai with Gangam Style and so much different. The Pavilions are absolutely works of art, right? They're architectural marvels on the exterior, and inside they have a huge wow factor. But what are they? They're interactive museums that offer memorable experience to the whole entire family. Why is this important for investors? Well, the great thing about Expo City Dubai is is that, especially if you want to do rentals or you want to do even short-term rentals, you get the best of both worlds. Which is what you get business tourists that are either coming for the events at the convention center, which is already up and running, right? All the Fortune 500 companies that are already moving their headquarters to Expo City Dubai. And large companies such as, you have a lot of universities, DP World, all the ports are coming. So this is very important because you have the business tourism and you also have the regular tourism as well. People that are coming for all the different events like the ones that you just mentioned, right now, that are coming for all these different things that we're doing at Expo City, which is very family oriented. So why is this important for an investor? Well, whenever you have these big events and you're doing short-term rentals, you can just jack up the price because demand and supply, right? The demand increases tremendously. So the Pavilions are absolutely works of art. Especially I love one of my favorite ones is the UAE Pavilion, which is right next to Al Wasl Dome. By the way, Al Wasl Dome recently won Guinness Book of Records for largest interactive dome in the world, which is just mesmerizing. And UAE Pavilion is the architecture. So stunning. It's the Falcon, which is one of the most important animals in UAE. It's protecting the whole pavilion, which is just absolutely stunning. So much of the world is represented as you're just driving around on that cart. It goes with the whole theme of Dubai, right, being so curious and warm and engaging to the entire world and people of all different backgrounds and cultures and such a melting pot. Speaking of the pavilions, to expand a little bit, so many stunning architectural structures from all over the place. Lots of these have been converted into restaurants. So you go into a restaurant like the Turkish restaurant, uh, pavilion is now a restaurant of Turkish food and it's just absolutely lovely. Right in front of our sales center, we have the Uzbekistani Pavilion, which is now a delicious restaurant as well, and lights up stunningly at night. Speaking of lighting up at night, the whole city just illuminates beautifully. Everything just comes alive at night. From surreal waterfalls to the dome where we have light shows every day starting at 6:15. The city is just remarkable. Peter, is it true I've heard that you guys actually have two of the largest exhibition centers in Expo City? Yes, we do. We have one of the largest exhibition centers right there at our doorstep, and the Metro comes conveniently at it, which is perfect. But I have even better news. So we already have one of the biggest, and we're expanding it more than three times the size. It's going to be 180,000 square meters, which is absolutely so. Imagine the short-term rental desires and needs for all of these corporate events that are coming. Because I've also heard that all the exhibitions incoming time will be moved from the Trade Center to the Expo City? So you guys are attracting all the traffic from there to Expo City. We're going to have some amazing events. Absolutely amazing events. And so many investors are very excited about this. So we hit upon the short-term, which is a very hot topic for an American, North American investor. But there's also this huge demand that's going to be there for the long term. We were talking yesterday about the employees, for example, for all these Fortune 500 companies. You get to work and live in this whole little city, right? We are our own free zone authority. So not only will you have big companies from big respectable names, but if you wanted to open your own company, right, you can do that here. And how cool would it be to just be able to walk to work, two seconds, just take a quick golf cart, right, with all our professional drivers that will assist you with it. So that's lovely for long-term rentals. Imagine what's unique about this development is that since the residences are at least two years away, right, and for Sky Residences is a little bit more than two and a half years away, you have this pent-up demand. All the companies are already there, and every single month more and more companies are coming to Expo City Dubai to make that their home. Just that demand keeps on growing and growing. So by the time you get the keys to your brand new residence, right in 2026, you have a line of tenants. And with these big companies, they'll pay you one check. Yet we have the most amazing payment plans in the whole entire market, up to five years post-handover, that you've only paid 50%. So you get the full rental return you've only paid half of it. Exactly. And that's another huge point, right? When we're talking about how to mitigate the risk, right, we talked already about the infrastructure being the most important part, and that's already created. But really go in on this because I don't know if people understand how your payment plan is extremely attractive and rare. Yes, to be 50/50. So if you could just go in on that for me, so our payment plan is 50% during construction, right? So let's say about a three-year payment plan in which you just pay small installments. You're going to pay about 24% on booking the unit, and then every 6 months you just pay 5%, which is beautiful because that equals to less than 1% per month. So it's very flexible, right? It gives you a lot of readability. That's a 0% basically interest rate, right? Especially GG, how interest rates are so high right now, so to have an 8-year payment plan, three during construction plus five post-handover, at 0% interest is we love it. Everyone loves it. Um, so what happens? You get the full rental return, and you've only paid 50% on handover. So you leverage off the payment plan. And if you're used to getting, let's say, a 6 or 7% yield here in Dubai, then you leverage off the payment plan, then you go into double digits very quickly. And that's just long-term. Don't even get me started on short-term rent, which you can even squeeze even more out of. You guys actually have started going the opposite direction of the market. The market today is very aggressive when it comes to payment plans. Um, particularly one master developer today is almost taking 90% right during construction and 10% upon handover. And I think one of the most attractive thing for our American investors was when we said while the remaining 50% would be 5 years later after handover. I mean, they could choose obviously to finance at that point if they wanted to. Exactly. They do have the option. They have that option. And Americans can mortgage up to 60%, right? But that's a very attractive deal to have that five-year post-handover payment. It gives you so much flexibility, especially let's say. And you always, investors always want to know, what if I come into some financial trouble? What are my options? Well, very easy. You can always sell it. All you have to do is pay 30%. And you don't even have to pay 30%. The buyer can pay the balance to reach the 30%. That's great. GG, is my payment plan transferable? Yes, you transfer it. You can transfer the payment plan to the new buyer. So they get all the benefits of that five-year post-handover. A huge differentiator for the United States, right? Because that's not an option in the US, really. Yes. So until you have handover, you cannot sell a pre-construction your interest basically in it. So that's another huge differentiator. And then of course, let's talk about no taxes. Oh, see, I love that people don't believe it. But there are no taxes. It's, it's hard to believe. I mean, having lived here so long, zero income tax, right? So everything that I make, 100% mine, which is great. Investors absolutely love buying property here because their property appreciates tremendously, tremendously. Even 100% capital appreciation. And yet they pay 0% capital gains tax, which is completely different than in North America, right? Exactly. All the benefits and no property taxes. Property taxes eats in so much into investor in the United States profit margins. And so no property taxes. Now, as a US citizen, they will have to pay capital gains taxes when they bring the money back into the US because the US is one of the only countries in the world that taxes their citizens on worldwide income. But of course, they can work with their tax accountant to figure out different ways to minimize, yeah, and minimize their tax exactly. 1031 exchange is actually possible as well. But no taxes. So you have a government-backed owned developer. Developer. So and then you have the infrastructure already built. You have the most attractive that I know of right now payment plan in the entire market. Yes indeed. And you have no taxes. We have you always at your service. And you've been amazing and you've helped serve our American clients and they're so incredibly excited. And they haven't even been here. So it's been exciting for us to to go and be able to shoot video and show it. And then you have the legacy. And I want to get into that a little bit more about what Expo City means for Dubai as a brand. One of my favorite pictures, and maybe you can share it with the audience, is that there's a beautiful picture of His Highness. And everything that we've done and able to accomplish is thanks to his vision and his leadership. I couldn't stress that enough. And there's a beautiful picture of in 2016 of him visiting Expo City Dubai, right, and overseeing the construction, the land. And there's nothing there in 2016. And thanks to his vision and guidance and leadership in just five years, that city was completely transformed. And then you see it in 2021 again, a picture of him being and just overlooking just what a stunning masterpiece that master community is. And we can't wait for the third picture, which will be another 5 years, which is when all the residences will be completed, which is 2026. Because if the city already feels alive, and you've visited it and you know it and you can attest to it, can you imagine what that city is going to look like? All the restaurants, if we have 30 restaurants right now, and every single month we have more, how many more do you have a number of how many restaurants and retail offices, etc., and residences that you will have? So in terms of restaurants, I know that we have over 30 right now, and every single month we add to that number more and more, which is great. In terms of retail space, we have a lot of retail, um, shopping and boutiques. But the mother of all retail is coming in Expo Mall. And that's opening up this year way before. So there's a mall also that's going to be here within the community. Within the community you have the convention center, the metro, and then the mall. They're all connected. And are you building a hospital as well? State-of-the-art hospital and a school. 40,000 square meter plot school. And we're going to be announcing the top tier service provider very, very soon. This is really the city of the future within the city of the future. It's incredible. It's amazing. Speaking of the city of the future, we have one of the fastest and largest 5G networks in the whole Middle East. My son will love to hear this, okay? And we have free WiFi throughout the whole master community as well, blazing fast. And also, even as residences, you really have something for everyone because you have apartments. Yes, you have town houses. The villas. Mansions. Mansions, correct. We have something for everyone at anyone's budget from starting at 1.7 million dirhams all the way to 18 million plus. So we cater to every single segment of the market. Peter, we missed out one of the most important factors that I personally love about Expo City is how does Expo City benefit from one of the largest airports in the world coming right next to us. Thank you for bringing that up. We haven't, we haven't even talked about. I mean, there's so much to talk about, right? So many plus points. Um, it's amazing. And we have such a huge airport, Al Maktoum International Airport, which has His Highness's name attached to it. They are expanding it and investing a lot of money, billions and billions of US dollars are going into that expansion. Now let me ask you a question. Now and he has mentioned that this will be the main airport of Dubai. So that's phenomenal to have such close proximity, only a 10-minute drive to it, right? Let me ask you, where are all the pilots going to be living? Where are all the people working at control towers in the airport? Why not live in the best master community that's already built right next door to it? So this, you're never going to have a shortage of tenants if you're a landlord at Expo City Dubai, which is, uh, which answers the question when a lot of people ask, who's going to come and move all the way to Dubai South? That's what we refer. That entire area. All Dubai is starting. You have to you have to start moving out. But people who've never been to towards Expo City to that part of the town will never understand until they visit like you and I did. We were literally blown away yesterday. The whole focus of Dubai is just shifting more and more closer to Abu Dhabi. Exact. You have Port Rashid that recently got relaunched. You have um Al Maktoum International Airport. Expo City Dubai, Abu Dhabi is also expanding closer to Dubai. So we're seeing a lot of investors and end users from Abu Dhabi that are buying as well. And if all these things that we spoke about are not enough, you'll also be happy to know that this is part of His Highness's 2040 Vision for this area. Which means what it means that the government is going to continue to invest even more money into the whole area. And wherever you invest this amount of money into one single area, what does that mean? Capital appreciation is all but guaranteed. And that's what that's what our investors want. That's what they want to hear. You know, Peter, what I love the most about Expo City? One definitely, that is owned by the government. Number two, it's global marketing and ongoing global marketing, which is a huge factor. Why? Unlike other developers, when they launch one project it's sold, they're done, they move to the next project, and you never hear about the previous one. But Expo City, being a government entity, and that long-term vision that they have for it, it's a global marketing for them. The government is willing to spend whatever it takes to make sure. Exactly. It's their entire brand. Their reputation. Everything lies within that. And you've touched on a very important point that I don't go into much detail about with your typical client, which is what we're blessed with the leadership of Expo City Dubai and the vision of it is profit margins are not the main priority like with other developers and mall owners. The number one priority, as per His Highness, we have three pillars. Number one is human centric. Value centric. And our biggest and most important pillar, sustainability, right? So we want to leave the world in a better place than we found it, which is great. The reason I'm saying this is profit margins are not the most important thing. We want to be not only a role model for other master developers and developers in UAE but also on a global scale, right, doing a model city of what it should be, right? And they've been doing such an amazing job. This is why we're so excited. Of course, you make me want to cry. I feel so emotional. First of all, you are so passionate. I love it. But everything is just pointing to Expo City being a top investment opportunity right now for our investors. And thank you for so eloquently and beautifully sharing so much knowledge that you have and being such a great resource and answering so many questions for our investors. And we look forward to a very successful 2024 and beyond with you and appreciate your knowledge. Absolutely. Thank you so much for inviting me. You know, you have our full support with anything that you need. Seven days a week. Thank you. Thank you. Expo City Dubai is constantly launching new projects. So if you want to get your hands on this opportunity and capitalize on the investment opportunities in Dubai, reach out to me right away. This is Season 2 of The Dubai Connect Podcast.