Dubai: Sharjah’s biggest developer is not going to wait around when it comes to offplan launches. Arada has brought forward the latest release of homes at its forested all-villa Dh8 billion ‘Masaar’ community by a couple of months, even as property investors get back to buying offplan in the UAE.
In doing so, Arada is sticking to its well-honed gameplan – in late January, when the developer launched Masaar as its third development, it was the first property launch of the year in the UAE. At the time, the real estate market was still swirling with concerns about a prolonged slump brought on by the pandemic. Arada’s Masaar move paid off – and in October, it is clearly time for a second round.
“We were contemplating a December release – but customers were knocking on the doors asking for more,” said Ahmed Alkhoshaibi, CEO. “When they do that, you can’t tell them they have to wait. The supply we had was not keeping up and we had to bring forward new releases.”
“Demand is too strong to wait a month – and we have other projects that are going to launch at Cityscape. We don’t wait for events - we create our own events.”
Heavy with the green palette
Masaar is located in Sharjah’s Al Juwaiza’a locality and is planned as a low-density upscale community. Space – both on the inside and out – as well as the green element have been heavily integrated into the landscape. The developer’s description of it being a ‘forested’ community does fit – up to 50,000 trees will be part of it along with the 4,000 odd townhomes and villas. Construction will start shortly.
Price points
In the initial Masaar release, the two-bedroom units start from Dh1.27 million and come with a generous 1,884 square foot layout. The largest unit is the five-bed ‘forest’ signature villa, which commands Dh4.63 million and is 6,117 square feet in size.
Indian investors
The CEO said that Indian and other Southeast Asian investors are starting to come in for its offplan releases. If the first two projects – Nasma Residences and the massive Aljada development – were driven by sales to UAE and Gulf nationals, the demographic mix is changing.
“It is so, especially from Indians and for the higher ticket five-bedroom villas at Masaar,” he added. “What was not expected was the bigger villas selling quicker, whereas we had planned on the townhouses having maximum demand.”
Pitch up outside of Sharjah
A plan to widen the project portfolio beyond Sharjah is inching closer to reality. Alkhoshaibi is hopeful of landing one in the first quarter of next year.
“We are aggressively looking at creating a land bank in Dubai and Abu Dhabi,” he said. “Finding plots of the right size at the right location and obviously right price points remain one of the biggest challenges. We have to be a bit more flexible on our designs to enter into these markets. Some of them could be smaller than what the market has come to expect from us in Sharjah.”
