Dubai Investments plans $2.7b real estate projects

29/12/2014 06:16 AST

Dubai Investments plans Dh10 billion ($2.7 billion) of real-estate projects in the next five years as it seeks to benefit from resurgent property demand.

Developments include Mirdiff Hills, a Dh2.5 billion project in Dubai that will include 1,500 homes, a 230-room hotel, shops and 200,000 square-feet of office space, Chief Executive Officer Khalid Bin Kalban said in an interview. The company's Dubai Investment Real Estate Co. unit will start tendering for the development in the next two months, he said.

Dubai Investments, whose largest shareholder is state-owned Investment Corporation of Dubai ICD, is seeking to profit from a market recovery in the emirate after one of the world's worst property crashes during the financial crisis in 2008.

Local developers are reviving projects amid a surge in prices and new measures such as limiting mortgages and a doubling of transaction fees which have helped stabilise the market.

"We don't think there will be need to borrow" for Mirdiff Hills, Bin Kalban said. "We'll be able to sell the project easily because of its size, location and components."

Still, the company may need bank or debt-market funding for a Dh7 billion project planned in Dubai Investment Park. The 13 million square-feet village with homes, shops, offices and hotels, may require the company to raise cash either through loans, Islamic bonds or by seeking investors to take a stake in the project, according to Bin Kalban.

"We are talking to a major investor to come on board and help," he said. "They will either pay us rental or take over the project within a certain number of years. ''We are discussing seriously the option of rent to own with them.''

Work started two weeks ago on a Dh800 million business park in Fujairah, another emirate in the United Arab Emirates, Bin Kalban said. The park will include a 220-room hotel, 200,000 square feet of offices, 150,000 square feet of retail space and some apartments.

Times of Oman