Jumeirah Golf Estates marks end of delay with villa handovers

Five years after the DP World Tour Championship first teed off in Dubai, the first 15 families have moved into completed villas at the host venue Jumeirah Golf Estates. That marks a new phase for the golf tournament.

Most Whispering Pines villas at the Jumeirah Golf Estates are ready for occupancy by next year. Jeffrey E Biteng / The National
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Five years after the European Tour’s season-ending DP World Tour Championship began in Dubai, the first residents around the host venue Jumeirah Golf Estates are preparing to watch the action from their homes.

The first 15 families have moved into completed villas at the vast 1,100 hectare golfing complex, while the manager Jumeirah Golf Estates said it was expecting to hand over 400 of a planned 1,050 villas by the end of the year.

“We are very pleased that after three years’ delay the villa has finally been handed over,” said Abdul Shakeel, who bought a four-bedroom villa in JGE’s Whispering Pines development three years ago as an investment. He was handed the keys to the property last month.

The first handovers mark a new phase for the championship which, over the past five years, has been played against a backdrop of hoardings masking villa construction sites as work stalled in the Dubai property crash.

The Around the Earth course where the tournament is played, the developer said construction work was 70 to 80 per cent completed. It expects work around the course to be fully completed in time for next year’s tournament and work on all planned villas to be completed in 24 months, apart from those being built by owner-occupiers.

“It is the first time that buyers can watch the golf from their homes,” said Yousif Kazim, the general manager of Jumeirah Golf Estates (JGE).

And with up to 60,000 visitors expected to flock to the course to watch the golf this weekend, the developer is hoping that it can use the opportunity to restart selling the remaining villas on the estate after sales stopped during the property crash.

JGE said that prior to the property crash it had already sold 145 of the 160 Whispering Pines villas it has now completed on the site, and to which families are moving in. The remaining 15 villas will be marketed at the tournament this weekend.

The Irish developer CHI has also begun to hand over villas at its long awaited Lime Tree Valley project on the site.

The company said on its website that most of the villas had been sold, however it had retained stock in preparation for the handover of the project at the end of this year. That was because it would coincide with the Dubai World Championship Golf tournament this month, it said.

JGE said it had sold 96 of its 99 Flame Tree Ridge villas which are due for completion this year. And 17 of a total 47 Fire Side villas with construction of a further set of 30 new villas in the area are set to go on sale.

Luxury golf courses have been popular with developers in Dubai. Ambitious developments launched before the economic downturn included the Tiger Woods Dubai, which was planned to be surrounded by 22 palaces and 75 mansions; and the planned 510-hectare Golf City development, slated to be part of Dubailand, which was to have five courses and hundreds of villas.

Many of these were left in limbo by the global financial crisis when property prices in Dubai tumbled by as much as 60 per cent.

But with the Dubai market rebounding, golf course-based property developments are again in vogue. In May, the luxury developer Damac announced it was building a 7,205-yard, par 71 course fronted by the property tycoon Donald Trump, which would be surrounded by hundreds of villas and townhouses.

And at Cityscape last month, Saudi developer Tanmiyat restarted marketing its plans to develop "Living Legends", a Peter Harradine-designed, nine-hole golf course in Dubailand surrounded by 500 villas and 12 apartment towers.

However, despite the renewed interest in golf properties. JGE said prices were still below 2008 levels. “Prices at the peak of the market reached Dh3,000 a square foot in our Fire Side villas,” Mr Kazim said. “Now we’re expecting to sell for around Dh2,200. We’ve brought down the prices to be more realistic compared with pre-crisis levels.”

And with current development on the site extending to just 370 hectares of the 1,100 total, the developer said it was likely to return to its ambitious development plans.

Future masterplanned projects include adding to the two existing Earth and Fire golf courses with another two courses – Water and Wind – which are likely to be surrounded by more residential neighbourhoods.

“This is a championship golf course and we are very glad for our collaboration with the European tour,” said Mr Kazim. “But we are not finished yet. There is a lot more news to come.”

lbarnard@thenational.ae