Why Invest in Expo City Dubai Real Estate? | 2025 Growth & Smart City Investment Opportunities

Is there going to be oversupply in Dubai? Oh, this is the hot topic that you see, right? Well, let me tell you something. As someone who is deeply immersed in the Dubai real estate market, and if you look very transparently at the numbers of population increase, the rate of growth, the number of units that are available and what's being delivered overall in the market, they cannot meet up with the demand. However, I will say this and I will stand to it. I believe certain pockets of areas there may be a little bit of overcrowding in the next three years when those units come available, which is why I'm here in Dubai making sure to vet the opportunities that hedge against any potential oversupply. So you'll see me talk a lot about, for example, waterfront projects. You'll see me talk a lot about branded residences because these have been proven to test the market ups and downs. And Expo City. And we're here with the man. You probably noticed, Peter Cathy, sales director. Hi, Peter. How are you guys? How are you? Always a pleasure. I've missed you. Yes. A lot of activity happening. Now, to what I just opened this entire video with, what are you hearing about oversupply? What are some of the numbers you can share to address some of the concerns that there may be about that? Well, there's two ways of answering this. The short form and the long form. Okay. Short form, is there going to be oversupply and is there any concerns? No. Simple as that. Long form, why? The most important reason is: why do you think that? Well, look at the trend in population growth, right? It went from 2% increase per year, then to 4% increase per year, and then last year 2025, right? We now crossed over 4 million. That's a 6% increase year-over-year. So at that trend, even if it just continues at that trend, growing at the same pace, by 2030, you're looking at over 6 million people here. So that's one very important thing. Is the population growth happening? Yes. 100%, undeniable, factual, right? Is the government of Dubai investing more in the whole city? Right? Absolutely. We've never seen even more investments than they're doing right now. I mean, over 120 billion with the world's largest airport just one metro station away from Expo City, plus over 10 billion with the expansion of the exhibition center, also in Expo City. So just like this, there's so many huge projects that the government of Dubai is doing a phenomenal job in investing in itself. So population growth plus investment of the government. I think that's just a success. I believe the numbers are showing anywhere, I think, like a million more people should be moving in here within the next five years. The other thing that I've addressed multiple times on The Dubai Connect podcast. I've actually had the government, the DLD itself, on my podcast to talk about how they work with developers. And of course, you're a government developer to ensure that there's a healthy imbalance between supply and demand. Well, I say imbalance in the way because they make it so that there's enough desire that keeps it attractive for investors. Exactly. But not so that it's unaffordable for the people because of course we know in the Sheikh's own words, he wants Dubai to be the best city in the world for its residents. So it's very strategic the way that Dubai works. It really functions like a business, Dubai Inc. So they're smart. They know what they're doing. And then if you want to talk about even smarter, you invest with the government itself with Expo City. And so we have been bringing Expo City to my investors in America, the UK, and around Europe now since I started on my journey as a real estate agent. And then I see a lot of people jumping on that bandwagon, which has really been exciting. Tell us what some of your success stories have been over the past couple of years, Peter. Well, our investors absolutely love the capital appreciation that we've managed to get them from our first project, which is Mangro Residences. I'm happy to say that we're going to be handing over next year, right? And so lots of our investors have seen tremendous capital appreciation on that. And you can give your viewers on the screen itself some of the different options that you can find, public knowledge such as the Dubai Land Department publishes figures. DXB Interact publishes figures as well. Not only that, but all our Shamsa town houses, yes, Mina Villas and Maha Mansions, which all of them are sold out. They are now, they've appreciated tremendously. Just on average, you're looking at over a million dirhams in terms of capital appreciation. And this is transparent. Like, what you just said, all these numbers are proven. It's not taking our word for it. You go to DXB Interact, you go to Property Finder, you go to the DLD website, and you can track the progression and the price of what it was purchased at, what it's selling at. So it's not even us saying it. It's there for them to see. The equivalent of this for our American friends is the MLS system that you can have complete history of everything, how many times it's been sold, that particular unit, and at what price it was transacted at. So, yes. Okay, that's great to know. And then we have Cedar Residences, Sky Residences, and we have Alwaha. These are more recent launches. Yes, right. And so we've seen a huge uptick in terms of capital appreciation from Mangrove, from Shamsa, Yasmine, and Maha in recently because it's been a longer time since we launched it. So with Cedar Residences, Sky Residences and Alwaha, as soon as it comes a little bit closer to completion, then you're going to start seeing all of that jump, especially with our highrises. Once the superstructure is done, then people get very excited and you start to see that capital appreciation. So I'm going to ask you this question that I'm asked over and over again. If somebody's monitoring the market in an area that's still developing, in an area that's still new, such as Expo City, right? The sweet spot for capital appreciation is when? Handover. Exactly. Handover. Why? Two things. One is your average end user, right, doesn't have the funds in order to pay a mortgage and rent at the same time. So they're much more inclined to buy when that's the only payment that they have to do. Exactly, right. And let's talk about mortgages. It's a lot easier to pay for a property when you just have to put 20% of your own plus the bank gives you the remaining 80%, right? Or the remaining 75%, right? And for a foreigner, it's up to 60%, just so you know. But you can as a foreigner secure financing, and I talk about that as well with Mortgage Finder in fact on The Dubai Connect podcast. So you can check out that episode to learn more about how to finance. So yes, that's where you find to see the most capital appreciation. In summary, once you start playing with maximum money, then it's a lot easier. Exactly. So capital appreciation has already been proven. This is a government development. And I love something that you always say, and it helps me when I share Expo City as an opportunity to my global investors. What are the four sources of income for an investor that invests here in Expo City? Absolutely. So our investors love our four unique revenue streams, right? And we can start with sure. This one right over here, right? This is called the Dubai Exhibition Center. And now, pay close attention because there are three very important things that make this an extremely good investment. Number one, it's going to be 50% bigger than the World Trade Center one, right? That's very important. 50% bigger. So they're expecting over 4 million visitors, right, throughout the whole year. Did you guys know that over 6% of the total tourism of Dubai is thanks to the exhibition industry? And the government wants to expand on this number, so that's why they're focusing it right over here and making it bigger so we can have some of the biggest events in the whole world right at our doorstep. So not only is it 50% bigger but there's also going to be a lot less competition from the World Trade Center because they are shifting right. They're going to be doing with that space more residential real estate and commercial real estate, and putting all the high traffic area right here. Why? Because this whole area was beautifully envisioned for this transient and number of people. How did they do that? Three main sources. How they future-proofed against traffic. Number one, the infrastructure in and around and underneath Expo City. So you have three main roads. This is Expo Road that hits all the way to Sheikh Zayed Road, which is the most important road throughout all of UAE, right? It's the main highway. So this hits Sheikh Zayed Road. Expo Road. 14 lanes. That's seven lanes on each side. Just like you have 14 lanes here, you have another 14 lanes right here and the E311. And then you have Sheikh Ayaan Road right over here. So you have three roads, each one with 14 lanes. That's 42 lanes of phenomenal infrastructure all around you. And Ghada, that's not all. Why? Because you have the metro station that comes directly at the exhibition center. So you don't even need to clog up those streets, which is impossible to clog because there's so many lanes but right, the convenience right at the exhibition center for the metro. So that is phenomenal. Just envisioned from the start. This is what I'm telling you when you have such phenomenal leadership that has the vision of Dubai, and they've proven it, especially in the last 25 years. I mean, how much has Dubai grown in that time scale? It's phenomenal. So that is absolutely huge. Another thing that I love about this being a huge revenue stream is let's talk about supply and demand, right? We already spoke about demand. Over four million people are going to be coming just for the exhibitions. There's going to be 600 events per year, right? Each event takes on average around four or five days. So that's a lot. Now where do people stay? The World Trade Center one has around 300 hotels in the vicinity right, from Sheikh Zayed Road to DIC, Business Bay, Downtown. Whenever there's a huge event like GITEX, like Gulfood, like Arab Health, that is just massive, all of these hotels get fully booked, right? And their prices increase during that time period as well. Correct. And so your next question should be, all right, so how many hotels are there in a 9.5 km radius? Guess how many? Just two. That's it. And they're small hotels, less than 300 keys each, right? So you have the Rove Hotel and you have Sheraton Mina right over here. And that's it. There's no other hotels, right? So where are all these people going to stay? And this is what investors love about it, right? Will there be more hotels that are being built in the future? Absolutely. They're going to start building it. But even if you started one right now, building today, how long will that take you? And the expansion of the exhibition center, Ghada, we're not talking about years until it's completed. We're talking about Q1 of next year, and that's it. So this is something that investors love. They don't have to wait for the expansion of the exhibition center to be ready. No, the expansion of the exhibition center will be ready, and then we have to wait for the investor's properties to be done. So right from the moment that you get the keys, you're just absolutely sprinting with all those short-term rentals, which is phenomenal return on investment. Exactly. And you know, right now, Peter, first of all, I'm from San Diego. San Diego is a huge convention city, and we see firsthand coming from Southern California what happens when you have property around a convention center. That's a huge value, right? For someone who hasn't been to Dubai, traffic is probably the top issue on everyone's mind because Dubai's popularity has been growing at such a fast rate, and now I will tell you they're very quick about building the roads and the bridges to ease the traffic and of course the public transportation. But I will say that there's a value given that when I talk about a community, a master community that has thought through how to make the lifestyle simpler to get in and out, you're talking about schools, hospitals. This is a master community. This is where families are going to be living. And to be able to get in and out, if they're driving their car and the metro, and actually there are numbers, there are data to prove that connectivity and being close to public transportation also increases the value with regards to capital appreciation, right? Yes. So both those. So now we talked about the source coming from the exhibition. Correct. The next revenue stream? Well, the next revenue stream is just going to be one metro station away, and that's going to be Al-Maktum International Airport, the largest airport in the world. In the world. I mean, let's put things in perspective. Dubai International Airport is already huge, successful, over around 90 plus million passengers per year in terms of capacity. And we're already nearing that capacity thanks to Dubai's huge success and popularity. What's going to be the size and what's going to be the passenger capacity for Al-Maktum right next door? And what's the economic impact that that's going to do, not only to the community that is connected by metro but the surrounding area right? Especially since Expo City Dubai is not, we're not doing one building just in the middle of nowhere. We are doing a full-fledged community, a city within a city, like you accurately said, that you never have to leave to get everything that you want from your school, from your hospital, which by the way, once we announce the top tier service providers for both of these, which is coming soon, okay, capital appreciation, which we were just talking about, expect that to go to another level. And we're super excited, rightfully so, because lots of end users really want to know who the top tier service providers are. But going back to the subject, how big is the airport going to be? Well, Dubai International Airport, huge. Al-Maktum, five times the size of Dubai International Airport. Five, right? So imagine that. And what is it already? I think we're four to six hours away right now, four to six hours away from like 60 or 70% of the world already. And now you have Al-Maktum Airport next door, one step away. So what does that mean for an investor? It means, I mean, keep in mind, Dubai is already the capital of tourism for all of the GCC, right? Without a doubt, one of the most popular cities in the entire world and only growing. And His Highness wants to take it to a whole another level. And the only way to do that is by expanding it with Al-Maktum International Airport. So they're doing a phenomenal job. Over 128 billion dirhams is being invested into Al-Maktum's expansion. Wow. And work is underway. You can go to Google Maps and you can start seeing all the construction of how that's underway. So it's, so now imagine the employees there, the pilots, the executives that work there. And in addition to the traffic, but just the employees that want to live in a master community, a beautiful, futuristic, amazing master community that's close by as well, right? In fact, isn't Emirates headquarters here in Expo City? So they're going to, Emirates will be shifting from Dubai International Airport all the way to Al-Maktum International Airport in the near future. And yes, obviously that you're going to have a lot of their employees that are going to need a place to live close by, right? Who wouldn't want to be able to live close by? I know I'm dying to live close by. That's why I myself invested in Expo City just so I can walk to work. Why? At first, I bought it just for the investment because everything that we're talking to you about in terms of investment figures obviously called my attention. That was the first reason why I invested. But the more I work here, the more I want to wake up 30 minutes later. I want to be home 30 minutes earlier. And when you compound that, we were just doing the numbers. It's like 24 hours that I save during just one month, right? And that's a lot of mental health and peace of mind, which is the new trend. And that's what I want. Just with the number of commercial offices that we currently have, there's going to be 76,000 people that are going to be able to enjoy this city. Out of those 76,000, 40,000 are high level professionals that are going to be working in this city, right? From companies like you mentioned, you have Siemens International, Siemens Energy, you have the global headquarters of BP, Nestla, ranked 67 in the world in terms of top companies, and so many more that are coming out every single month. Just with the commercial professionals, you can completely cover the demand for all residential properties, right. So let's sit there for a second. How many 40,000 executives are going to be working here in Expo City? 40,000. And how many actual residents are going to be available in Expo City? There's going to be room for 36,000 people to be able to sleep here overnight. So you're already surpassed the number if it was just the people that are working here. And again, we're talking about high-level Fortune 500 companies that have already seen this vision. Of course, it's the government of Dubai vision to set up their headquarters here next to the exhibition center, next to 30 restaurants in this futuristic city. Which by the way, it's the other unique thing about Expo City is how incredibly diverse. You have apartments, you have multi-million dollar mansions and villas, you have highrises, you have the lower-rise units, you know, in Alwaha. It's very diverse. It is, right? It is. And that's the beauty of it. It just reminds me of Dubai, of how it's so inclusive. Yes, right. So you have from one-bedrooms that are around 780 square feet right in Alwaha, which we have our smallest one-bedrooms are in Alwaha, all the way up to our mansions that we're now selling for 35 million, right, over 7,000 square feet. And if that's still not big enough for you, Ghada, we have our plots in which you can build these palaces right, because you can build up to 10,600 square feet per plot. You can merge plots and so now you're going into over 21,000 square feet of built-up area, basement, ground plus two, and just live in luxury with all that beautiful nature reserve, Expo Forest, that's going to be over 2.5 million square feet. Imagine Central Park right at your doorstep, right? So that's just the beauty of how they're taking in sustainability, wellness, greenery, right into everything that they do. You know, we didn't mention it in this video because I've done so many about Expo City because of my passion for your project, Peter. But this is a pedestrian-friendly city, so the parking is all underground as well. You can walk around the entire community in how many minutes? 15 minutes. It's a 15-minute walking city. Or the buggies that take you around or the little scooters that take you around. And just with your phone, you just take out your phone and you just scan it and you're able to just pick it up and you can drop it in 25 different checkpoints that we have today. Obviously, those checkpoints are going to be growing even more so. But in Dubai, I mean, Dubai is phenomenal, but I've never seen another master community with this level of mobility, this level of infrastructure. We're talking about a Waha Dome, the largest interactive dome in the world with 250 HD projectors, full surround sound. Any event that gets done there gets taken to a whole another level. Is that our fourth source of income? The events at Waha Dome? Yes, right. Correct. Well, not just in a Waha but throughout the whole. Throughout the whole event. So wait. The four sources of income were the exhibition center. Correct. The airport next door, the offices. The fact that we're a free zone, right? Free zone. In terms of offices, which you are correct. Why are all these companies moving into Expo City, these top Fortune 500 companies? Well, in Dubai, you have three levels of communities. You have leasehold, which is a 99-year rental for us expats, right? For GCC nationals and Emiratis then they can own it outright after that. You have what is more well known as freehold. You have your Downtown, your Marinas, Palm Jumeirah, which is more well-known. And then the best of the best is called your free zones. Why? You get all the benefits of freehold plus all the new benefits of free zone. And that's why you have so many big companies that are moving here. And so as an investor, you get more options, why? You can either do short-term rentals for the exhibition center plus all the events that we normally do, or if you want to do long-term rentals, right, for all your tenants and all these big companies, imagine buying right over here and you have Nestla with eight buildings right over here and they already bought the eight buildings for them. They're renting them all. So that's fantastic. Going back, I wanted to make sure we address the four sources of income for an investor. Again, the uniqueness about the walkability. This actually comes up. I've been spending my summer in Marbella. Okay. And the walkability of the coastal Doll communities, particularly in Marbella or Estepona is unique. And I see that Dubai is trying to incorporate. They have the Loop coming up. They have different huge mega projects that they're working on to make Dubai more walkable, climate-controlled roads and bridges, etc. But to have a community, I don't think there's anything else like Expo City to have this community which is like an urban living, right? But everything that makes what is a master community. And actually for those who don't really understand the concept of a master community, may you explain what is a master community because there are actually qualifications that the government has. You have to check the boxes to become considered a master community, right? So the beauty about a master community is, unlike let's say a one project, we do one building, right? The beauty of the master community is, in a word itself, it's a community, right? We have complete control of all the construction and therefore the demographics of the people that we want to bring in. All our commercial, we only rent it out, so we have complete control also of the type of businesses that are here and that they adhere to the strictest standards, not only in terms of ethics and morals but also in terms of sustainability. So we have more control and we are also going to be WELL gold certified, which is for the whole master community. So we're very focused with the mental health part and the well-being of that whole community, which we're going to be the first in all the Middle East to do that. So that is very important. What does that mean? Tell me more about what that means. Sustainability is a huge portion of it, right? Mental health. In order to be able to give adequate number of parks, we already have over 45,000 square meters of parks. Plus, when Expo Forest comes online, which is over 2.5 million square feet of nature reserve, to be able to give back to the community because all of this is part of His Highness's vision, right? And so he wants to promote an active outdoor healthy lifestyle for everyone, and this is one of his focal points of his 2033 UAE master plan vision and his 2040 master plan vision, which is phenomenal, right? So there are so many different things that the attention to detail for every single aspect of it is on another level. Not only are we a government master community, but the ethos and the vision behind Expo City is very different than your typical developer. Remember that this whole city was built with a purpose of demonstrating to the world what a model city should be like. Not only to other developers in UAE, but His Highness always thinks on such a global scale, right? To be a role model to other developers all around the world. So the Sheikh, the leader of Dubai, wants Expo City to be a model city, not just for the UAE, as Peter just mentioned, but for the world. So when you have a government developer and the government's vision with Maktum people on the board, right? Am I allowed to say that? I mean, yeah, I mean, our chairman is His Highness Sheikh Akman. I mean, yes, so I mean, I can say that. The uncle of Sheikh Muhammad. So for example, when an investor says to me, you know, give me the safest investment in Dubai, the safest, I just, this is it. This is it. I mean, the government has invested over 40 billion right over here in Expo City. 40 billion has been invested. And then that's not even counting the 128 billion right next door with the Al-Maktum airport. And just a little bit of history. Is that how did Expo City come to be? How did, oh, that's actually a beautiful story because it was first of all, it was all geared towards trying to obtain the expo. The world expo, right? Under the vision of His Highness and Her Excellency Reem Al Hashimi, who's also the UAE minister for the state of international cooperation, she led a small team of around seven people, right? And they did. They achieved the unthinkable because they were going up against some of the biggest superpowers in the world that had a lot of influence in order to get expo. And through sheer determination, power and will, they managed to not only win the expo. One of my favorite quotes from reading Her Excellency's book is that there's a point that His Highness comes to her and says she was very worried that we wouldn't win it, and so all of this effort would not come to fruition. He mentioned that even if Dubai does not win the expo, we will create our own expo, and people will come. So that level of leadership is just on a whole another level. Was it 24 billion that was spent or I believe dirhams when they originally did the infrastructure for the world expo and then converted it into a city I believe. I don't know. I'll fact check my numbers. The beauty about the whole plan is that it was always meant to be a city. Oh, it was always, always meant to be a city. Okay? Because they wanted to obviously pump a lot of money into the expo in order to promote Dubai on a global scale, showcase the world what it's capable of, but sustainability is always at its core. So from the very beginning, it was always planned that 80% of all the infrastructure was going to be utilized for it to be converted to a city, and the only 20% that wasn't was in order to make ways for the taller structures like the mid-rises that we have in the city. And that's an important point to understand. The most expensive part typically of any building or area is the infrastructure. And when someone wants to talk about risk, not that I think anything I talk about is risky when I'm promoting it, but the infrastructure is already here. It's already been built. So again, lower the risk, hedge against any potential risk, hedge against oversupply because of the scarcity of the units, which we just talked about. How many executives are going to be here? The airport next door. The exhibition center. All you have to do is just go look at Property Finder, any of the rental portals, when there's an exhibition in Downtown to see what the prices and what the availability. Even me, when I come here, the amount of money that I pay for rent. So when someone says rental prices might be decreasing, I said, well, I mean, I'm not seeing that, but, you know, maybe again, maybe in certain pockets, which is why we hedge against that by picking the communities that are scarce, are unique, have a vision, have the infrastructure, have the money built behind it. The backing. Yes. And the quality of construction, which we didn't even touch upon the quality of your construction because this is a desert. Dubai is a desert. Those conditions are not the easiest on structures. So there are some brochures that my investors will see with something looking really polished and beautiful on the outside, and it's very cheap, and they say, why wouldn't I buy this? And I said, pull that first layer of the wall and what do you have behind it? What's going to happen in seven years of that layer of that product being, and I won't mention any names of course, but being in the desert? Let's talk a little bit about the construction quality that you have here, such as the thickness of your windows for example, the walls, the floor to ceiling height, the ceiling and the floors. Look, something that is very impressive besides the mobility that is unparalleled with any other master community. The physical architecture of things that we, everything that we built. Ghada, just to put it in perspective, one of our pavilions, right, is so iconic that even if you take out the currency of UAE, you will see it that it graces a full page on our currency. And this same building just won an international award as one of the top best design buildings in the world. In the world. Here in Expo City, which is phenomenal. I mean, and this is like looking at the tip of an iceberg. You can only see a small percentage of it because the vast majority is underground with double and triple ceiling heights, right? And such phenomenal quality. And these are our interactive museums that offer a memorable experience for the whole entire family. To go into a little bit more detail in terms of the quality, like you mentioned, with our windows, we take extensive care with double-glazed windows in order to do soundproofing of over 40 dB because we want to give all of you guys the best of both worlds. We want you to be in the thick of it in a city where you just take two steps and you're surrounded by restaurants, activities, events, fun. You're just one scooter ride, one quick walk, or one golf cart away from any type of concert, event, something happening, the parks, the forest, you name it, exhibitions. But as soon as you retreat to the sanctuary of your home, it's just peace and quiet, right? And that's how it should be to get the best of all. And even with the airport next door, because some people had addressed a concern, Peter, and we had addressed it last time I was here about, oh, is it going to be too loud? But that goes into play right there, is that thickness and the sound quality. And I believe you even had an expert that was talking about this. It even exceeds what the minimum requirement is for nursing homes. Correct, correct. Good memory. Because I always want to try to uncover any hidden objections that somebody would have and find the truth. And the good thing is, as your Dubai Connect, I go directly to that. I mean, other than him, I can go to the Sheikh himself, which I have met by the way. True. She has pictures to prove it. Video. I think even. Video. My god. So, I love being able to uncover any potential objection. So we've uncovered, okay, we know the population is expanding exponentially. That's easy to show the numbers. I can pop it up on the screen right now. What's happened in the past three years, the trajectory growth, the amount of units that are available, what's going to be available, and then we know what's going on with Expo City with the numbers.