00:00Hi everybody, my name is Claudia, I'm Italian and I've been living in the lakes for the
00:12last ten years. I've been renting this house for the last seven years and we are all very
00:18happy to live here. We love the community, we love the greenery, we love the people here
00:24and we like it because it's a very helpful community, a very neat community. We help
00:30each other very much. It's perfect, it's very close to the beach, we love going to the beach,
00:35close to shops, close to malls, close to JBR, to Marina, so you don't need to travel for
00:41a long time to have any restaurant or shops or anything. The space is there and the gardens
00:48are there and so the community is very likeable, you know, and the houses are quite conveniently
00:54built. We have always been leasing our property, we would love to buy, this is not the right
00:59moment though, so we are waiting and hoping, but we are okay with leasing too. We have
01:05been quite lucky with our landlords.
01:24So, my name is Olimpia Siwek and I've been living here for 15 years in the lakes and
01:53I can really proudly say that lakes is a home away from home, okay, and I'll tell you why.
02:02This place, as soon as you enter, it feels so cosy and so welcoming. There are so many
02:11trees and greeneries and I don't know if you know, but we have seven lakes, okay, which
02:18really it takes quite a long time to go around it and you can see children playing everywhere
02:27and I found it very special for me because my both children were actually born here and
02:35we live in a four-bedroom villa with a huge plot, it's a corner villa. The plot is 8,000
02:44square feet and built up is around 4,000, so it's a big four-bedroom villa and we love
02:53the fact that the location is just fabulous because it's close to everywhere, five minutes
03:00to the sea, the schools are all around, we basically don't have to go anywhere further
03:08than 15 minutes. We have lovely neighbours, the community is just fabulous. We've been
03:14here, as I said, 15 years and as well I've been in real estate in this community for
03:19the past 15 years, so I know I was the one that sold many properties to my clients that
03:27became friends and all of us, not all of us, but many of us stayed until now here because
03:37we call it home away from home. Many people don't know that the Lakes actually is a community
03:42that was built for rental purposes at the beginning by MR, so it came with many facilities
03:49that other communities don't have. We basically have everything here from a gym, clubhouse,
03:59we have a huge football field, we can play tennis over here, basketball, so our kids
04:08are always on the run, on the go and the adults as well. We could run, we can rollerblade,
04:14we can bike over here, there is a very nice community of yoga, pilates and walking paths
04:22where you can relax and you can use a couple of pounds and you don't have to leave from
04:29here. Hi, my name is Riyad, I am the co-founder of Black Oak Real Estate and today here we
04:35are in the Lakes community. It happens to be one of my favorite communities. I've been
04:39living personally here for the past 17 years and I specialize in such communities. What
04:45makes the Lakes special, what makes it attractive and actually more than 70% of the occupants
04:53are homeowners, is what is making it sustainable until today against all the markets, ups and
05:00downs, it's still high in demand, very limited supply available for sale and for rent. That's
05:05why whenever there's a property that comes in for rent, it just gets snapped right away.
05:10Very popular with young communities and a lot of kids. There's about three nurseries here,
05:15seven lakes, it used to be called back in the day Seven Lakes. There's around 11 community
05:22park and pool. There's the very ultra high-end Hattans communities and then also there are
05:27the townhouses like Zulal, Ma'in and so on. Very popular amongst Europeans as well and all
05:36nationalities of course. It's about only a thousand villas, that's all in total. So everything has
05:43been built inside, even the supermarket inside. Nobody needs to step out of the lakes in order to
05:49go anywhere, everything is here and of course because it's prime location,
05:52so whenever anybody moves to Dubai and think about renting or buying, they consider the lakes as one
05:59of the first communities. Because the number of townhouses are more and because it's more affordable,
06:05there definitely will be more inclined or more customers for townhouses. We're talking about
06:11transactions varies between almost in a year, you will see about 70 to 100 transactions
06:20where obviously I would say 40% of that will be towards the townhouses. The prices of townhouses
06:26will be anywhere from three and a half million all the way to six million. So because they're more
06:32affordable, so of course there will be more and their more availability of townhouses than villas.
06:37So there's about 600 units of townhouses versus the number of villas. So if we talk about these
06:43days and era, Hattans can go all the way up to 40 million. During 2008, the most expensive was about
06:5228 million, 27 million. So now definitely has reached a lot. Dima and Main, they would trade
07:00anywhere between six to nine million, the independent villas. And then we have the townhouses
07:07which we said already the prices. But yeah, there are also Hattans that are anywhere between
07:1115 to 20 million. So there are four types of Hattans. So executive types and luxury types
07:16and of course the luxury types are on the golf course, so they are more expensive. The biggest of
07:20them and the most modified and the most upgraded. But if we talk about actual transactions,
07:26we would say that they are anywhere between 20 to 25. These were the transactions that happened,
07:31not the listed. There are listings that are at 40 million, but they haven't sold yet. So the lakes,
07:36again, one of the most attractive things about the lakes is that it is right in between the
07:41Emirates Golf Club and the Montgomery Golf Club. So these are the two most famous golf
07:45courses in Dubai. And then of course, like I said, there is so much happening inside the lakes.
07:50There is a football field. There is 11 basketball courts and one main court.
07:57There is an outdoor gym. There is the Reformed Social Grill. So it's a very famous English
08:04restaurant. And it's just happening all the time. It's so green inside the lakes than any
08:10other community in Dubai.
08:15Hi, my name is Pooja Deepakahuja and he's my husband Deepakahuja. So we are living in lakes
08:41and we have been here for 13 years now, 13 to 14 years. It's a beautiful community.
08:48We've been living here since December 2009. We bought it in October 2009.
08:53And the Metro was launched as my trigger point to buy this property. I bought this for 2.75
08:58million dirhams, lived here for 14 years, been a beautiful community for us. Our kids were born
09:03here. A lot of great things have happened. So we've really had a fantastic time, amazing neighbors.
09:09I'm asking price currently, you could ask anything, but we believe that it's around 5
09:14million dirhams plus minus somewhere. So apart from living here, the property also is appreciated
09:19primarily because of the proximity to the Sheikh Zayed Road, a beautiful community that was built
09:23by EMAR, which has a lot of open spaces compared to many other communities unlike to that. What
09:30has also been a very standout is the people in the community, which has been our biggest USP,
09:35so as I said, our kids were born here. Since the age that they could leave the house,
09:40they've been having some amazing friends. Every evening the bell rings and the kids get invited
09:45to play around, which is something very, very unique for this community. And you can hear the
09:50noise behind, the kids' noise, so it's a very cheerful community. I think our reason for not
09:56moving out of this community is primarily because, as I said, it's been a lucky house for us in many
10:00ways. The community is beautiful. The fact that we have 10 lakes and there's a park almost
10:05within the radius of 500 meters for kids to play, these are clear differentiators,
10:11USP of this community. You don't find this in many places. It's a gated community, very safe.
10:15You need to show your vehicle number and ID card before entering. So these are some of the key
10:20aspects that have made us stick around here. Yes, we got tempted when we got that offer to sell,
10:25but then my kids are so fond of this place, they said, you can sell but buy in the same community.
10:29That doesn't make sense. There is one more point I would add to it is there are three nurseries
10:35in the community and there is a basic grocery is always there. There's a football field,
10:40there are two or three tennis courts. So it's a self-sufficient community, I would say. The
10:45proximity to Sheikh Zayed Road, I sit in my car and I can be on Sheikh Zayed Road in three to five
10:49minutes, which is very, very unique because we have neighboring communities where it takes 10,
10:5315, 20 minutes sometimes to just hit the Sheikh Zayed Road. So that becomes a very,
10:56very important point. Location, as they say, is always key for the properties.
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