# Buying a house in Dubai



## opportunist86 (Dec 9, 2011)

Is there any visa policy for those who want to buy a house in Dubai? Does Dubai offer any kind of visas who want to purchase a residential property and rent it out?


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## dizzyizzy (Mar 30, 2008)

Yes, the value of the property must be at least AED 1 million and be fully paid (no mortgage on it). Do a search. Info already in the forum and all over the internet.


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## TallyHo (Aug 21, 2011)

Can people actually get residence visas from owning property? I know it was widely talked about and promised but never actually followed through...



dizzyizzy said:


> Yes, the value of the property must be at least AED 1 million and be fully paid (no mortgage on it). Do a search. Info already in the forum and all over the internet.


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## dizzyizzy (Mar 30, 2008)

I know of one family who does. Don't have exact details but the wife mentioned they had to go to the land department and get some sort of trading license (??) and that thing alone was around 18K aed per year plus the cost of the visas for each family member, I think she said around 2K each, but I didn't ask for how long are those visas valid for.


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## dizzyizzy (Mar 30, 2008)

By reading what i just wrote, the whole thing sounds so ludicrous. Sounds like people are better off getting a free zone trade license and opening a company to sponsor themselves! What is the point of owning a property if you still have to pay for some license that will cost you 18K aed?? Granted, sounded like the wife didn't have exact details but I don't think she'd be wrong about the final figure they ended up paying!


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## TallyHo (Aug 21, 2011)

Yep. Sounds like the family in question didn't get their visas through property ownership but by setting up a dummy free zone company. 

I'm still confident that buying property alone isn't going to get you a residency visa. 



dizzyizzy said:


> By reading what i just wrote, the whole thing sounds so ludicrous. Sounds like people are better off getting a free zone trade license and opening a company to sponsor themselves! What is the point of owning a property if you still have to pay for some license that will cost you 18K aed?? Granted, sounded like the wife didn't have exact details but I don't think she'd be wrong about the final figure they ended up paying!


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## BedouGirl (Sep 15, 2011)

Friends of mine who owned a property here set up a company in RAK to get residency.


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## Jumeirah Jim (Jan 24, 2011)

you can get residency visas if the property is worth over AED 1m but they are renewable every 6 months and ludicrously expensive. As said above far better to set up a RAK co or similar then get that to sponsor you. 

There is talk about changing the 6 month property owners visas back to 2 or 3 year visas - which were available until about 2009. That is however being blocked, I understand at federal level.


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## dizzyizzy (Mar 30, 2008)

TallyHo said:


> Yep. Sounds like the family in question didn't get their visas through property ownership but by setting up a dummy free zone company.
> 
> I'm still confident that buying property alone isn't going to get you a residency visa.


No, they definitely have the investors visa, but now I remember she said they got an 'investors license' (not trading license, but I couldn't remember earlier) and that they had been dealing with the land department for this. Apparently having that investors license is a requirement to apply for the investors visa. But she also mentioned it turned out to be quite expensive, so I think setting up a company is better. A least they wouldn't have to renew every 6 months!


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