Dubai-based billionaire Balvinder Singh Sahni – popularly known as Abu Sabah – stresses that Dubai’s property market has not yet reached its peak.
“Earlier, Dubai was receiving different types of investors mostly coming from 2-3 countries such as Iran, India, Pakistan and Britain. Today, there are real end-users. Now we have Russians, Italians, Germans, Americans, Canadians and Indonesians coming also. That too in big portion,” said Sahni, chairman of RSG Group.
“Investors are coming to Dubai because of the security, infrastructure and multi-culture society this City of Gold provides to its residents and visitors. Now my friends are bringing their families here too. So the buzz is going to be in schools and hospitals… I think property has not yet reached peak,” he told Khaleej Times in an interview.
Currently, the Dubai market is witnessing its third rally after the Coivd-19 pandemic with prices rising across the board.
Abu Sabah belongs to the old school of thought who believes in build and leasing. Starting his career as an investor, he is now also known as a top-class developer.
“I didn’t understand this concept of taking money from people and building on their money. We started selling the Fairmont project on Sheikh Zayed Road after completing 65 per cent of it.”
Realising the potential of Dubai’s property market, the chairman of RSG Group started investing in the local property much before someone could even think of it. He forayed into the Dubai property market in the early 1990s, buying land in Mirdif for just Dh6 per sqft.
“I came to Dubai for the first time in 1991. I told my partner in Kuwait that Dubai is just amazing. I am not sure there were many nationalities in 1991, but I could see different colours and faces. So we started investing in Mirdif and it was just Dh6 per sqft which reached Dh600 to Dh1,000 in 2006-07.”