Nakheel is perhaps one of the best known names in the Dubai property market. They are a government-owned property development firm that has the claim to fame of being the developer that constructed The World Islands. The World is a collection of different islands created by man that are in the shape of the world map.
At the time The World was created, there was a lot of enthusiasm for the project. Before the islands were even completed, over half of them had been sold in deals that were worth hundreds of millions of dollars in total and the demand for that type of man-made tropical paradise island was running high.
Not to be outdone by their first effort, Nakheel decided to go ahead with something even more ambitious and came up with the idea of The Universe. The Universe is like The World with the exception that the project is bigger and better and is in the shape of the Sun, Moon and the Planets instead of the different continents of the world.
While The Universe has been met with a lot of the same kind of positive thinking and demand for space that The World received when it was first announced, there are some that have noticed that this time there is a sizable and vocal minority that is not at all impressed with the development of The Universe.
One of the executives of Nakheel was quoted by ArabianBusiness.com as mentioning that while the overwhelming majority of the reaction to The Universe has been positive, there has been some negative reaction, and it is mostly from people that already own one of The World islands.
What are the problems that these owners might have with the project? Well, firstly there is the extra supply, which promises to act as a control on prices in the area and investors that have already locked in their property purchases are not big fans of that. Additionally, the view of the gulf from The World Islands might be obstructed (especially on the sides of some of the western and eastern islands) and that in turn also has the effect of driving down property values.
With the negativity that has permeated through some of these discussions, some analysts have wondered out loud whether too much development in Dubai in such a short time might be a bad thing. While there is nothing beyond a few dissidents at the moment and therefore no reason to really believe that is true, it is certainly something to keep an eye on for the future.
