We are your Asset Manager.
You cannot talk about Dubai real estate development without Emaar. They built Downtown and the Marina, and those districts now set the price everything else is measured against. For a first purchase what matters most is that Emaar stock is easy to sell again. There are always buyers.
Sobha builds its own towers instead of sub-contracting, which is rare here. You see it in the finish on handover day. You see it again in year five, when the service charge has not crept up the way it does elsewhere.
The way in. Damac prices lower and rents reliably, which suits a first position where the income matters more than the address. The one condition we set is that you agree when you will sell before you buy.
Income, a Golden Visa, somewhere your family will actually stay, or capital parked for a decade. Everything after this is judged against your answer.
Service charges, how quickly the area really absorbs new stock, and whether the developer delivered their last three buildings on time. None of this is in the brochure, and none of it can be checked from abroad.
Whose name it goes in, how you pay, and what you pay. One negotiation, not three. This is where most of the money is won or lost.
Snagging the unit, fitting it out, finding the first tenant. You will be on another continent for all of it. We will not be.
We agree roughly when you sell before you buy. Selling in a hurry is the most expensive thing you can do in this market.
Five decisions sit between your money and the right address. Most buyers are handed the third one and asked to sign. We start at the first and stay past the fifth.
Everything here has been
through the model. Most of
what we look at does not
get this far. What is left
is what we would buy
with our own money.
Stone Mason was built by two people who had spent long enough in this market to be tired of watching buyers be sold to rather than advised. One came to property through development and design, the other through finance and the plain arithmetic of what a building is worth.
Between them sits most of what a purchase here asks for: the judgement to know which address will still matter in a decade, and the discipline to leave the ones that will not. Neither has ever held a listing or taken a fee from a seller. That is the whole reason we can tell a client not to buy.
The six questions that come up in almost every first conversation with someone buying from outside the UAE.
Ask us directlyYes, and most of our clients did exactly that. Freehold ownership is open to foreign nationals in designated areas, the title is registered in your own name with the Dubai Land Department, and the whole purchase can be completed remotely through a power of attorney. You do not need a residence visa to own property here.
No. We handle viewings on video, sign under power of attorney, and send you the Land Department title once it issues. Plenty of owners see the building for the first time after they own it. If you would rather come, we will build the trip around what is worth seeing in two days.
Budget roughly 7 to 8 per cent on top. That is 4 per cent to the Land Department, around AED 4,000 in registration, an agency fee if one applies, and a mortgage arrangement fee if you borrow. We set the full figure out in writing before you commit, because this is the number most first-time buyers are surprised by.
Off-plan money in Dubai goes into a project escrow account regulated by RERA and is released against construction milestones, not on demand. That is the legal protection. The practical one is that we only buy from developers whose last three handovers we have tracked ourselves.
We do, if you want us to. Snagging, fit-out, finding and vetting the tenant, chasing the service charge, and telling you when the numbers say sell. That year after handover is where a remote owner is most exposed, and it is the part we were built for.
You do, and only you. We agree an advisory fee before we show you anything, and we have never taken a commission from a seller or a developer. It is why we can tell you a building is wrong, which an agent paid by the other side cannot afford to do.
No annual property tax, and no capital gains tax when you sell a home. Whatever the rent yields, you keep. For most overseas owners this is the single biggest difference from home.
Freehold, in your own name, on the Land Department register. Not a lease, not a company structure you have to maintain, and not dependent on you living here.
Buy at AED 2M or above and you can apply for ten-year renewable residency, which also covers your spouse, children and household staff. Many of our clients start here.
Higher than London, Paris or Singapore, and paid in a currency pegged to the US dollar since 1997. Your income does not move because the dirham moved.
Some people arrive with a building in mind. Most arrive with a question. Either is a good place to begin, and everything that reaches us is read and answered within two working days.
Rishad and Shernol take these directly. Tell us what you would like to discuss and we will come back within 48 hours.
