In preparationFinance
The deposit you'll actually be asked for
Why the 20% figure in the marketing applies to UAE residents, what a bank typically wants from a non-resident applicant, and how that changes again on off-plan.
Most of what you'll read about buying in the UAE was written by someone with a unit to move. We work the other way round: the research, the real numbers on deposits, rates and transaction costs, and someone on the ground to run the process while you're eleven thousand kilometres away.
Olive Wealth Consultancy FZ-LLC · United Arab Emirates. We provide research, consultancy and purchase project management. We are not a RERA-registered broker, a licensed mortgage broker, or a licensed financial or tax adviser — where a transaction needs one, we introduce you to a licensed party.
Australians arriving at the UAE market usually have the same three gaps: they can't tell a good building from a well-marketed one, they don't know what a bank will actually lend them from overseas, and they have no one here to push the process along. That's the work.
Which areas, which buildings, and what the numbers look like once the costs are in.
What a UAE bank will lend you, and what the day-one cash requirement really is.
Someone in the country to run it while you're asleep.
Set to a 3.99% fixed rate and a 20% deposit to start with. Change the deposit and watch what happens — and pay attention to the second panel, because the purchase costs on a UAE property are steeper than most Australians expect and they are all payable up front.
Rates move. 3.99% is an introductory fixed rate for one to three years; most UAE loans then revert to a variable rate linked to EIBOR, which has recently sat well above it. Ask what the reversion rate would be today before you sign anything.
You'll know what you're paying and what you're getting before anything starts.
Thirty minutes, no charge. Your budget, your timeline, and whether the UAE is even the right market for what you're trying to do. Sometimes it isn't, and we'll say so.
What we'll research, what it costs, and what you get at the end. Fixed fee. We also set out plainly how we're paid on anything that follows.
A written shortlist with comparables, achieved rents, service charges and the full cost of acquisition on each option. You decide from there.
We run the transaction with the licensed parties who have to execute it, and stay on it through snagging, letting and setup.
A fair number of clients start out buying an investment and end up asking about the move itself. Here is the shape of that difference on income. It ignores your circumstances entirely — and on this particular question, your circumstances are most of the answer.
The part nobody advertises: if you remain an Australian tax resident, your UAE rental income and business profits are generally still assessable in Australia. Tax residency is a question of fact, not of where you keep a lease. Put it to a registered tax agent before you assume either answer.
Fifteen years running small businesses in Australia, most recently a car finance company — which is a thorough education in credit, in what a lender is really assessing, and in how a deal falls over.
I moved to the UAE and did all of this the hard way first: the wrong questions to the wrong people, the costs nobody mentions until the transfer appointment, the gap between a rendering and a handover. Olive Wealth exists because Australians keep arriving at the same market with the same blind spots, and there is no reason for that to keep costing them money.
I work in Arabic and English. That matters more than people expect — a conversation in someone's first language goes differently, and so does the paperwork behind it.
Commerce degree. Based in the UAE, working across the Emirates and back into Australia.
General information about how the UAE market works. Not recommendations, and no substitute for advice on your own situation. First pieces publishing shortly.
Why the 20% figure in the marketing applies to UAE residents, what a bank typically wants from a non-resident applicant, and how that changes again on off-plan.
Advertised gross yields in Dubai are real. So are service charges of AED 15 to 25 per square foot. Here's the arithmetic nobody puts in the brochure.
Tax-free in the UAE does not mean tax-free for you. What Australian tax residency actually turns on, and why it's worth settling before you buy rather than after.
Thirty minutes, no charge, no pitch. Bring your budget and your timeline. If the UAE isn't right for what you're after, we'll tell you that instead.