No more short-stay holiday-homes in Downtown Dubai

Gulf News

Business: No more short-stay holiday-homes in Downtown Dubai. What does this mean for property owners? We have the details. Visit gulfnews.com for the full story. #dubai #dubaiproperty #gulfnews

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00:00Manoj Nair from the Gulf News Business Desk, and I just have one question for you. Do you

00:18by any chance own a property in the downtown? Think about it. If you do, then this one's

00:25for you. Last evening, EMA sent out a note saying that they are stopping all operators

00:32of holiday homes slash short-term rentals from operating or leasing out units within

00:39the downtown. Now, you may know that the downtown is one of the three most prominent destinations

00:45for short-term rentals and holiday homes in Dubai. And if you were to ask the pecking

00:50order, I would say it's right up there with the Palm and above the Dubai Marina, but I

00:55could be wrong. But the fact of the matter is, downtown is hot as far as short-term rentals

01:01go. And there are a lot of investors who have bought into downtown thinking that they can

01:05offer these properties up for short-term rentals, either to a business traveler wanting to stay

01:10for possibly three to five days, or somebody from anywhere in the world wanting to have

01:15a feel of Dubai, but want to do so in the confines of a high-rise cluster, which is

01:21what the downtown is. Now, why would EMA want to stop all these guys going through

01:27Airbnb, Booking.com, B&B Meme, or any of these sites and saying that they don't want any

01:36more short-term rentals happening at the downtown? They have issued a statement through their

01:42community management team saying that the reason is they have had a lot of complaints

01:47from residents, the long-term residents, those guys who are there either as owners

01:54of their own homes, or those guys who take out one-year leases. They say that they cannot

02:00share the same space with the guys coming in on short-term rentals, and there's a lot

02:05of movement, fluidity in terms of who your neighbors are. They don't know who the next

02:12door person is, and every second week or third week, you see a new guy turn up at

02:17the neighbor's door. And the other part of it is that some of these guys, or most of

02:21these guys, would be using the swimming pool or the gym, and it's causing a lot of rift

02:28within those people who are staying long-term, and those who are coming in just for those

02:33few days or weeks.

02:35Take a step back. Why did EMAR decide to put a stop to this? Obviously, the complaints

02:43from the residents would have echoed strongly for them to come out with such a stringent

02:50decision and at a place where short-term rentals are going extremely well. And remember, in

02:58the last three years, a lot of investors would have bought into downtown, new launches, new

03:03apartments, just because they feel that as landlords, they can offer some of these units

03:09up into the short-term market. Because in the last two years, and especially in the

03:13last year, the short-term rental market, where you put up your property, as I said, for days

03:19or weeks, to a wider audience, a global audience, is carrying a lot of traction. It's building

03:25up to a nice momentum as far as the wider property market is concerned. If there's one

03:31category that is doing extremely well in the property space, it is the short-term

03:36slash holiday operations market. Now, those investors who bought into the downtown right

03:42now would be feeling a lot as if they've been short-changed. In a way, they're right.

03:47In many ways, they are right. Because you suddenly come across a decision from the master

03:52developer saying that, nope, you can't do it. And as far as these buyers are concerned,

03:58the worst part is they haven't been given enough lead time to make alternative choices.

04:03Look at plan B. Because right now, all those people putting up their downtown units on

04:10short-term rentals have to cease. And this is from doing so by the 19th of September.

04:16After that, it's no go. You cannot offer short-term rentals at the downtown beyond September 19th.

04:24EMR has laid out extremely strict requirements to prevent anyone from doing so. There's no

04:31question of an extension. Unless something breaks over the next 48 hours, you're looking

04:36at the September 19th deadline. So guys, it's time to have a plan B. However difficult that

04:42plan B might be, you have to come up with it. There's no point in saying that this is

04:47not what we bought in for. You have to look at an alternative. For more on this breaking

04:52story, please have a look at gulfnews.com.

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