Millennials home in on Dubai

Millennials home in on Dubai

With the real estate market opening up and visa norms becoming even more accommodating, younger expats are opting to make their first-time property purchase in the city — for both ‘investment’-driven and emotional reasons

Published: Fri 20 May 2022, 9:47 PM Last updated: Fri 20 May 2022, 10:11 PM

A few years ago, Jatin and Sherry Gupta, a young millennial couple, he a banker in his early 30s, she a PR consultant (and founder of Excel Comms) in her late 20s, moved to Dubai from Doha. It was a transfer they had actively sought because they both felt Dubai would be a “good place” to be in — not least because it is “a two-and-a-half-hour flight away from home [in north India]”. In a year’s time, both had fallen in love with the city, and decided this was where they want to be in the foreseeable future: at least for the next 5 to 10 years.

That year was also the time when they lived in a rented accommodation in the bustling community of Jumeirah Lakes Towers (JLT), and, over the course of socialising on weekends, discovered that six of Jatin’s classmates from his college in India, all in their early 30s, scattered