Apartment Shenanigans

As it turns out, securing our new apartment was more of an adventure than we anticipated. Things are just done differently here. We expected some differences, but for a country that is vying for a spot as one of the world’s financial hubs, some of these differences were kind of surprising.

To begin with, there is no uniform database for apartment listings. You may see a “To Let” sign hanging on a building, but that’s the extent of the marketing. The real advertising is just word of mouth – brokers talking to landlords and each other and fragmented web listings. As a result, the inventory of available apartments depends heavily on how connected and knowledgeable your broker is. Throw in constant construction and it becomes harder and harder to assess all of your options.

Having already found the apartment I liked while Meg was working in Dubai, we arranged to do a walk-thru on the way home so she could see it herself (way too much pressure for me to make a call on my own!). Megan loved the place, but since it was after 6pm on a Thursday, a formal offer would have to wait until first thing on Sunday (the UAE uses a Sunday to Thursday work week). Our agent (Sally – young British woman) vowed to call the landlord first thing Sunday morning to secure the room.

As it turned out, Sally’s calls on Sunday morning went unanswered by the landlord. Why? Because cell phones don’t have voicemail in the UAE! If someone doesn’t answer, you try calling again or send them a text or email. So by the time the landlord answered the phone, the original apartment we wanted was gone. And because the landlord’s English was not very good, he and our agent had a huge disconnect as far as what apartments were still available. And with no online databases, we would have to pick a place out in person to ensure we got what we wanted. So with Meg at work, I met Sally at the apartment to pick something out. It was now noon.

When we arrived at the building, Sally asked to be let in a couple apartments on the 6th and 7th floors, but we were told we couldn’t. Why, you ask? Because the watchman (guy in charge and only one with all the keys) wais on “rest”, meaning he was locked in a room sleeping and wouldn’t be up for another hour and half. Mind you, the apartments are going fast in this building, so I’m freaking out at this point. No one at the landlord’s office was answering the phones….the guys on site barely spoke English nor had the authority to let us in. Who sleeps in the middle of the work day? Seriously.

So, Sally drops me off back home and heads to another appointment. She said she would pick me up shortly and we would attempt another walk-thru once the watchman was awake. Around 4pm, Sally calls and said she got a verbal commitment for apartment #608, but we would have to put down a 5% deposit within 2 hours to secure it. Now when you talk about renting a place in the UAE, it’s important to know that landlords require a year’s worth of rent up front. And in this case, the deposit was actually 5% of a year’s worth of rent. By the way, they don’t take credit cards or foreign checks. Perfect.

In a panic, I tried to get cash from the ATM, but of course you can only take out about $500/day. Thank goodness Edelman’s finance department head came through with an upfront check. We raced to the building to scope out #608 since none of us had seen this exact apartment. Luckily the view was really nice and it felt like home. While inside, I took some quick measurements of the space and cut-outs for appliances. Based on my limited experience with real estate in the UAE, my gut said there was no way the landlord had any kind of floor plan or spec sheet on the apartments…which of course, I was right. With only about 15 minutes to spare, we headed towards the landlord to drop off the check. While on the road, Sally found out that the landlord just closed for the day. Ugh! However, the good news was that our apartment choice was secure and they would wait until the morning for our deposit. Victory was ours….at least temporarily. We’ll see how the move goes.

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