Arada awards $124m contracts for 740 homes in Sharjah

Arada

UAE-based developer Arada has awarded two major contracts worth AED 454 million ($124 million) to build 740 new homes in the 24 million square foot Aljada mega-project in new Sharjah. 

The two contracts were awarded to Dubai-based Airolink Building Contracting, the developer said in a statement.

The first contract worth AED 377 million is to build five Sokoon apartment buildings and the two apartment blocks next to the museum.

Work on the Sokoon buildings, comprising 482 units, and 138 apartments in museum-facing buildings, will begin immediately and is planned to be completed in 20 months. 

The second contract, valued at AED 77 million, includes the construction of 120 apartments in The Gate project. Construction will start immediately and will take 16 months for completion.

So far, Arada has completed almost 1,500 homes at Aljada.

The East Village complex of 16 apartment blocks, the Nest student housing community of 12 apartment blocks and the second Sarab villa community at Aljada are scheduled to be completed by year-end, the statement said. 

More millionaire residents

Sharjah, the capital city of one of the seven emirates that makes up the UAE, recorded the second-largest increase in millionaires in the first half of this year, according to a new report issued last month.

The total number of millionaires residing in the emirate is now 3,700, up 20 percent from December.

The Wealthiest Cities in the World for 2022 report features data from global wealth intelligence firm New World Wealth and includes the five richest cities in each major region, as well as the 25 fastest growing cities in terms of millionaires – defined as all individuals with investable assets of $1 million or more.

Data shows that Sharjah has recorded a steady increase in wealthy residents over the last couple of years.

The number of millionaires rose from 2,900 in December 2020 to 3,100 in December 2021, before climbing to its current number by the end of June 2022.

“As Sharjah’s largest developer we are seeing first-hand how investor patterns in local real estate are changing as the sector matures and finds an evermore widespread audience,” Ahmed Alkhoshaibi, group CEO of Sharjah real estate developer Arada, told AGBI.

“After launching in 2017, we initially saw a very high percentage of Emirati buyers who were already familiar with investing in Sharjah’s property market, which has a track record of stable growth.

“Since then the growth of contemporary, integrated communities of the type that you see in neighbouring markets, coupled with government regulations to make it easier for all nationalities to buy homes, has resulted in an explosion of interest from outside the UAE.

“It’s no exaggeration to say that we see buyer interest from all over the world.”

Arada posted a 38 percent annual increase in sales to AED2.41 billion ($660 million) during 2021 as buyers continued to invest in higher-value apartments and villas.

While around 90 percent of buyers were Emiratis when Arada launched its first projects in early 2017, the composition of purchasers had changed to a respective 75/25 percentage split between UAE/non-UAE nationalities by the end of the year, and a subsequent 51/49 percentage split by the end of 2021.

Arada’s goal is to hit a 30/70 percentage of UAE/non-UAE nationality buyer composition by 2026.

“We’re seeing a high percentage of investment from South Asia, particularly India, plus the rest of the Middle East, with good buyer interest from Western markets such as the UK, the US and Canada,” noted Alkhoshaibi.