Thursday, May 24, 2007

Housing Madness

To use the word "madness" to describe the rental housing situation in Abu Dhabi is a bit of understatement. Q has been diligently searching for an apartment for almost three weeks now and so far he's only seen 6 or 7 apartments. Given the size of a big city like Abu Dhabi it is pretty pathetic that it's all there is available, thanks to a way-too-hot-in-demand rental market. Rumour has it, and I quote Q's email note, "17 apts (N.B. apartments) in another building close to our hotel went within one day, 8 apts in the TCA building (2 bdrm) went between 2pm and 7pm"!

So to cope with the madness, we've decided to go mad ourselves. Q just informed a real estate agent that we'd like to be put on the list for a 2-bedroom unit that will be finished "in 15 days" even though we have not even seen the apartment or a model! And the rent is in the range of AED 100k/year (~US$ 2300/month)! And that's not the end of it, as Q put it, "Until I step into an apartment, I will keep on looking." *Fingers crossed!*

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