Monday and more

Bottom left: Jameriah Beach Residences- Huge residences on the beach.
Top left : the East Side of the highway is Jameriah Lakes Towers
Top right: the west side of the highway is the JBR

Today was apartment hunting and of course it was 95 degrees at 10am, so a sweaty day of apartment hunting. Not only that- I couldn't get to sleep until 3:30am this morning- but oh well, now I know that Tylenol Pm is mandatory after midnight or when I start thinking about things at bedtime.

There are SO MANY apartments available in this city!! You have to pay the entire years lease upfront, so if your rent is 3,000 a month you guessed it- $36,000 is due on the day you move in. It is how everywhere in the middle east works apparently, and they know it from birth that this is how it works, so their families or they save before getting their own place. Luckily I work for a company that pays it for me otherwise I don't know how it would work if you were a foreigner.

There is a huge complex on the beach where most of the people in my company live called Jameriah Beach Residences- or JBR. I saw three places there- I will definitely be getting a 2bedroom but might get a 3bedroom if cheaper. The best place I saw at JBR was a three bedroom, three bathroom on the 6th floor of one of the 14 buildings. Furnished, high ceilings, and get this- has a maids quarters. My Realtor was like "oh- it's just the maids quarters back there as she walked away and I was like "I WANT TO SEE THIS!" It was a seperate hall off the kitchen with a room the size of a bedroom and a full bathroom! So really- in the states this would be a 4 bedroom 4 bathroom place and it was cheap! Only 130,000 dirhams for the year, or $3,009 a month. Now I don't need that much space but after the other places I saw today it was the cheapest!!! So come on over and bring your kids or other relatives- I'll have room!

The other area I looked at was Jameriah Lake Towers, across from the JBR- it is not on the sea, but rather a man made lake system. These places were all "hotel residences". This is a strange concept to me- it's a hotel on the first 10 floors, then from 10 up it's condo's; furnished and un-furnished. They have all the luxuries of a five diamond hotel (literally diamonds- not stars); infinity pools, bars and restaurants, fantastics work out facilities, great lobbies, and underground parking- usually two spaces per condo. You can even order room service to your condo- and they clean it for you once a week like a hotel!!

I had two favorites there- Bonnington Hotel and Liwa Tower. Both were amazing- huge corner living rooms with contemporary furniture- amazing kitchen with walk out balcony dinettes, the appliances all bosch- granite countertops and these are Hotels- so only 2bedroom 2 1/2 bathrooms. But still- great spaces. The Liwa was D180,000, and the Bonnington was only D170,000.

So I go tomorrow to look at residential spaces in the Marina District. Tomorrow will be places that a resident owns but leases it- so furnished by a resident more like a mom/pop rental but again, it's all new buildings shown in the pics above.
I'll keep you posted.