Picture Update of Palm Jumeirah

There are things starting to happen again on the Palm and I took a ride out today to get some pictures so we can keep the ones of you overseas up to date.
As you all know the Golden Mile retail area is now advancing and I will do a separate picture gallery for this next week and hopefully find out more about what retailers have taken space.

This is the area between Al Khudrawi and Al Haseer and where the QE2 was supposes to go. The sand has been removed and is being transported over to the Golden Mile area for landscaping use.
It looks a bit of a pig at the moment but hopefully when it is flattened off and tidied up it will be much better than before.I think it would be great to see this turned into a park whilst for the next few years Nakheel get straight.



As you drive up the Palm, through the villa area, on the right hand side just past Frond F is a new Mosque.It doesn't seem too big and I presume there will be another built in the Shoreline area too.Might not be big but the speakers are huge!!



I don't know if it is true but there was a rumour that when the Palm was ready for handover the design team had forgotten to include Mosques. A small embarassment if true.

As you drive through the tunnel, onto the Crescent, it is clear that this area is really taking shape. Landscapers were out laying the main street borders and this can only mean that people will soon be living out here.

Below is the Balqis Residence which is slower in progress than some of the other developemts on the Crescent.



These are the villas that are at the front of the complex overlooking the sea.Unbeleivable view from these properties.

This is the view


Moving round towards the Marina you can see that the roads are taking shape and further on the landscaping is much more advanced.



Next is the Kempinski which you can see is ready for occupation.It looks like we know the first resident to be given keys so I will get in next week and take some internal pictures.



This is what was called the Ottoman Palace and has recently been taken over by the Jumeirah Group. I went inside this about a year ago and it will look stunning. Very Arabic and very oppulent. The dining experiences should be amazing too as at the time they told me there were 17 different places to eat.



At the end of the cresecent is the Royal Mirage which is going to look stunning.You should be able to get a boat across the water to the mainland hotel which will be novel. Little bit like Venice without the ice cream.



I hope you found this interesting and also it should give investors confidence that the Palm is going to be superb. We need a great Shopping Mall at the top end of the Shorelines and some better facilities management but as you can see it really is going in the right direction.

Nakheel Credit set to Soar?

This week Nakheel have announced that they have had a good meeting with the banks and their debt restructuring is currently acceptable to 85% of the relevant parties. The target is 95% and they believe this will be reached by December.
In the background the most important thing locally is that Nakheel have been paying sub contractors over the past few months and agreeing terms on how they come back to the table and start construction again.
This is where I believe we could see a very positive lift to the market.
My theory goes like this.
If you have Nakheel Credit now you can transfer to another owner and receive about 50% of its value.
• Nakheel will restart work on 10 delayed projects shortly.
• Nakheel will then send payment request out to the investors of these 10 projects.
• A large portion of investors will default.
• A smaller portion will look to settle and buy credit.
I estimate that from 10 projects there will be at least 1,000 ( not scientific but a reasonable guess) buyers of credit. Today, my sources at Nakheel are telling me that there is little credit available for people to buy.
So in 2 months there could be 1,000 investors looking to purchase credit.
This will undoubtedly put the owner of credit in a better position than they have been in for the last 18 months and I can see credit being sold at around 70% of face value.
As the average credit note is around 1mAED that means the sellers of credit will be 200,000 dhs better off than today.
If there are 1,000 Nakheel customers floating around with 20% extra than today’s rate ( approx 40,000 pounds) I can tell you that there will be a mini party over here. ( I will be right in the middle of it too!)
Bearing in mind that it shows a massive commitment from Nakheel I hope that this is the first signs of recovery and that all you owners of credit are rewarded for youe patience.