Sheikhs, Lies and Real Estate: The Untold Story of Dubai (20 page)

‘Hi, could I speak with Tariq please?’

‘I’m afraid he’s not in the office. Can I take
a message?’

‘Erm, yes please. Can you tell him Adam called?
I’ve thought about the offer and I would like to accept it. He will know what I
mean.’

‘Of course. I’ll pass on the message, sir.’

I had never been as popular at Imperial Bank as the day I
announced I was leaving. I suddenly received dozens of ‘keep in touch’ emails
from colleagues I had never even spoken to before; and I was approached at the
water cooler by nosy Indians and curious Emiratis, asking me where I was going.
I knew what they really wanted to know was whether I was leaving for a higher
salary, and, if so, whether I could put in a good word for them too. Company
loyalty was a rare thing in the Middle East and even the slightest salary
increment was often an incentive to move. But I didn’t give them what they
wanted. Instead, I decided to keep my new plans a secret, revealing only that I
was moving on to bigger and better things. It didn’t go down well, but I didn’t
care. 

Since Asim’s departure, I had known that my
days at Imperial Bank were numbered, so deciding to leave wasn’t too difficult.
Ever since my eye-opening experience at Cityscape, I had seen the massive
potential of Dubai’s property market and had desperately wanted a piece of this
exciting world. Tariq had presented me with an opportunity to make money with
the biggest name in the market behind me, and despite the fact that the Indian
mafia would probably soon be out for my head, I was sure I had done the right
thing.

The hardest part, of course, would be breaking
the news to Jamal. I had been dreading it from the moment I had accepted Tariq’s
offer, but as much as I tried to avoid it, I knew I would eventually have to
man up and tell him. I owed him that much at least. So Jamal and I agreed to
meet for a coffee, where I planned to fill him in.

Jamal was uncharacteristically early, which
made me even more nervous. I shook his hand and sat down.

‘Hey, buddy! What’s been going on? You’ve not
been an easy guy to get hold of recently.’

‘Yeah, I guess I haven’t. Listen, Jamal, I need
to tell you something you may not want to hear.’

‘Okay, sure. But before you tell me your news,
I have some too.’

‘Well, do you want to go first?’ I asked,
buying time.

‘Are you sure? You sounded pretty keen to tell
me yours.’

‘No, please. Go ahead.’

‘Okay. Well, it’s regarding our fund project,’
he sighed. ‘I may have to take a back seat in the whole thing, I’m afraid. I
met some guys from Silicon Valley a few days ago and they are very keen to set
up a technology fund in the Middle East. As my background is in technology, it
just seems natural for me to get involved and spend more time on that. I’m
perfectly happy to continue giving you support for a real estate fund, but you
will have to run the show alone. Otherwise, we could just abandon the whole
idea. It’s really up to you.’

I couldn’t believe it; Jamal had done the deed
for me! ‘Well, I don’t want to move forward without you. This was our project
and if you can’t be involved, I would rather go and do something else,’ I
replied decisively.

‘I see. Well, if you’re comfortable with that,
then I think that makes sense.’

‘Absolutely. It’s no problem at all. I’m sure
something new will come my way. But what will you tell Lucky?’

‘Don’t worry about Lucky, I’ll handle him.
After that night out at the dance bar, I started having a funny feeling about
that guy. Great guy to party with, but I’m not sure he’s all clean on the
business front, if you know what I mean.’

‘I was thinking exactly that, Jamal. I’m glad
we’re on the same page. You go ahead and run with this tech thing.’

‘Thanks, I hope you’re not pissed off about
this.’

‘No, not at all,’ I smiled.

‘Well, thanks for being so understanding. So
tell me, what was your news?’

I paused and smiled. ‘You know, Jamal, it
doesn’t matter that much. It’s really not important at all.’

We shook hands and agreed to stay in touch. I
left the cafe with a renewed sense of freedom. It was as if a huge burden had
been lifted from my shoulders. There was nothing standing in my way now.

***

Lying in bed on the night before my first day at
Milestone, I thought about why Tariq had been so eager to hire me. I had no
real property or fund management experience, so it wasn’t that. Perhaps it was
my Oxford education or my investment banking pedigree, which he felt would rub
off positively on the culture at Milestone. Or could it have been the vague
family connection, which somehow meant I could be trusted in a city of
backstabbers and cowboys? But I convinced myself that Tariq had seen something
in me that reminded him of a young version of himself, an entrepreneurial flair
and a burning ambition to achieve great things. Whatever the real reason was,
one thing was certain: he had taken a gamble on me and it was up to me to prove
him right.

As part of our deal, I was offered a generous
benefits package, including a housing allowance on top of my basic salary.
Considering the sky-high cost of renting in the city, the allowance was hefty,
and although it was unlikely, we agreed that any residual amount would be given
to me as a cash sum. The sensible move would have been to find an apartment in
a mid-range neighbourhood outside the popular areas and then pocket the rest as
cash. But I wasn’t in a sensible mood. I had been waiting for my bachelor pad
from the moment I landed in Dubai and I was finally in a position to live the
dream. It was time to climb to the top of the social ladder.

In Dubai’s social hierarchy, where you lived
said everything about who you were and how well you were doing. It was the
benchmark of your value and status, and was often among the first questions
asked at parties, along with ‘What have you flipped recently?’ I wanted to be
sharing elevators with Russian oligarchs and Bollywood movie stars, not
computer engineers from Chennai. I yearned to be a member of Dubai’s dynamic
young elite and I wouldn’t settle for anything less.

So I began a whirlwind tour of the most
exclusive neighbourhoods in search of the ultimate bachelor pad. My guide was Nick
Edwards, a young Brit who was one of Milestone’s best rental agents. Together
we looked at apartments in Downtown Dubai, the Jumeirah Lake Towers and the
Greens. Although they were all brand spanking new, nothing I looked at screamed
out at me as ‘the one’. Many of the apartments were awkwardly shaped or poorly
finished, with exposed wires and missing tiles. Others looked out onto a
ghastly view of construction sites, or could only be accessed through a
perilous maze of sandpits and scaffolding. The thought of risking my life to
get home after work every day didn’t appeal to me much, so the search went on,
and on. After an exhausting day of back-to-back viewings, I had still not
decided and Nick was getting frustrated.

‘So none of the apartments we’ve seen today is even
a maybe?’ he asked desperately as we drove along the Beach Road.

‘No, not really, Nick. None of them felt like
home.’

Nick looked worried. ‘I understand, but I’m
kind of running out of options.’ He paused to think. ‘Okay, listen, I’ve got
one more I want to show you. I’m hoping this one may finally change your mind.’

Our final stop for the day was the mammoth Jumeirah
Beach Residences in the Marina. This was a recently completed luxury complex of
forty-eight towers that occupied a mile-long stretch of land across the far
side of the Marina, overlooking the coast. Billed as the world’s largest single-phase
residential development, JBR offered a unique cocktail of all of the finest
elements of the Dubai lifestyle: beachside living, al fresco dining and a Who’s
Who of A-list neighbours.

As soon as I walked into the thirtieth-floor apartment,
it felt right. There was a huge lounge, two king-size bedrooms and a state-of-the-art
kitchen, which alone was the size of my old apartment in London.

‘As you can see, it’s wonderfully spacious,’
said Nick, who could see that I was smitten. ‘But I think the real selling
point of the apartment is the amazing view.’

I followed him out onto the balcony and the
breathtaking sight of the entire Jumeirah Beach and the endless ocean beyond.
To our right was the grand Palm Jumeirah in all its glory, and directly below
was a poolside terrace where a host of bikini-clad beauties were roasting under
the desert sun. Directly below us a Miami Beach-style, kilometre-long stretch
of shops, cafés and restaurants ran the length of the complex. Just as the sun
began to set gloriously over the Gulf, its rays caused the water to shimmer
like a million fireflies, and it wasn’t hard for me to say the three important
words: ‘I’ll take it!’

‘Great,’ said Nick, with a sigh of relief. ‘You’re
lucky, because it’s the last one we have in JBR. These apartments are going
like hot cakes. I’ll get the paperwork ready.’

Nevertheless, my dream apartment came at a
substantial cost. On a square-foot basis, I was paying something in the same
range as uptown Manhattan or London’s Kensington. Unlike those densely
populated cities, however, the JBR was in the middle of the desert and it was
unlikely that sand would be running out any time soon. But value was a relative
term in Dubai. Rents were determined by supply and demand, and considering the
waiting list for JBR apartments, prices were likely to rocket higher still in
the next few months. 

Back in London, I had always been cautious
about spending beyond my means. I was a strong believer in luxury as the reward
for achievement, and I began to feel guilty that I was sabotaging my values. In
Dubai things were different: everybody was spending beyond their means. It was
the Mecca of ‘buy now, pay later’. And so for the first time in my life, I
ditched my financial discipline and went with my gut. Like everybody else, I
was sucked in by the lure of the Dubai lifestyle, and was certain that I too
would be making millions in no time.

As soon as I received the keys, I spent an
entire weekend decking out my new home with the latest and trendiest furniture
and toys I could find. I bought a pool table, a fussball table, a basketball
hoop and a giant flat-screen television with state-of-the-art surround-sound
speakers. I bought funky lamps and chairs and ornaments. I indulged in every
must-have gadget on the market, from an iPod to a PlayStation to a remote-controlled
helicopter. I couldn’t actually afford any of it yet, of course, but having
been offered four credit cards on the back of my new salary, that didn’t matter
much. After a busy weekend of retail indulgence, my bachelor pad was finally
ready.

But there was still one important element
missing. After putting together the finishing touches on the apartment, I
jumped in a taxi and made my way towards the flagship Porsche showroom on the
Sheikh Zayed Road. Walking through the garage was like taking a stroll through
paradise. For me, a Porsche was more than just a flash car to pick up chicks;
it represented the last missing piece in the jigsaw to propel me to the elite
of the Dubai social pyramid. Every car gleamed brilliantly under the intense spotlights,
calling out to be admired and caressed. Carreras, Boxsters and Cayennes competed
fiercely for my affection. However, I had only had eyes for one ever since I
could remember, and there it was, teasing me as I approached: a stunning white
Porsche 911 Turbo. I stared at it longingly for a while, before I began gently to
run my finger along the smooth contours of its body – until I was rudely
interrupted.

‘Can I help you?’ asked the skinny salesman in
an Australian accent.

‘No, thank you. I’m just looking,’ I replied
sheepishly.

‘I see. Just looking.’ He rolled his eyes
sarcastically. ‘If I could only have a dirham for every time I have heard that
one.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Oh, nothing, sir. Please do keep
looking
.
I’ll be over here with a
real
customer in case you need anything.’

I couldn’t believe my ears. ‘How do you know
I’m not a real customer?’

‘You just told me you are only looking, sir.’
The sarcasm in his tone was starting to annoy me.  

‘Well, “looking” often leads to buying, in case
you didn’t know,’ I huffed.  

‘Sir, how I wish it did. But from my
experience, lookers and buyers are quite different species.’

That was the final straw. ‘If you don’t mind me
saying, I think you’re a bit out of order treating your customers this way.’

He grinned annoyingly. ‘Do you know where you
are, sir?’

‘What?’

‘I asked if you knew where you were, sir?’

‘I’m in a bloody Porsche garage!’

‘Not just any Porsche garage, sir. You are in
the busiest Porsche garage in the world. These cars are almost flying out of
the doors every day. And as a result of this wonderful fact, my wife has a
collection of the latest Louis Vuitton handbags and a wardrobe full of Jimmy
Choo shoes in every colour of the rainbow. My kids have a Nintendo, an Xbox and
a PlayStation – the grand slam of games consoles. I live in a five-bedroom
villa overlooking the beach. So tell me, sir. Do you really think I need your
business?’

‘I don’t believe this!’

‘Believe it, sir.’ 

‘Well, what if I gave you a cheque today?
Something tells me you would still gladly take it.’

‘Perhaps I would, sir. But you still wouldn’t
get a car.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because there is a three-month waiting list,
sir. Like I said, this is the busiest garage in the world. There’s only so many
cars our facility can produce, so I’m afraid you would have to wait. So will
sir be putting a deposit down today?’

I hesitated. As tempted as I was to teach this
cocky salesman a lesson, I allowed reason to prevail and refrained from doing
something I might regret. ‘No. I won’t.’

‘I didn’t think so. Now if you will excuse me,
I believe a
buyer
is looking for me.’

As he strolled away, I composed myself and touched
the car once last time.