Husband and I will be moving to Doha in January, we're looking at Lusail/Pearl area, but he will be working at the Doha Airport, any idea on what the commute time is in the mornings/afternoons?
Hi and apologies for the seriously late response, the site didn't indicate an update to us so your enquiry was overlooked.
You can find everything from unfurnished to fully furnished and fully serviced here. It's probably better for you to bring your funiture and either opt for unfurnished or semi furnished option.
Unfurnished: No furniture, no kitchen appliances and can be with or without A/C's.
Semi Furnished: No furniture but comes with A/C's and kitchen appliances. Some semi furnished options also come with curtains/poles.
Fully furnished: comes with everything except crockery, cutlery etc but can sometimes be without curtains/poles.
Take a look on our website mirageproperty.com for availability, it's updated on a daily basis as and when we lease or take on new properties.
I am currently living in Dubai, but will shortly be relocating to Doha (end of March). I have been told that most places for rent come ready firnished.
We have a 3 bedroom villa in Dubai and I own all the furniture. I am wondering whether to sell my furniture, or bring it over. Can you advise? I also own all my own white goods.
We will be looking for at 3 bedroom villa or apartment within easy commute of NDIA.
No worries Craig, was just at a housewarming party at an incredible villa you and Louise were able to find for a few of my coworkers. Absolutely ZERO hesitation recommending you, your firm or your agents. One of the few things that are no hassle in Doha, well done sir!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As a matter of biology; if it bites you it's probably female.
Sorry for the delay in replying, just back after the weekend. Glad I could be of help.
Please be aware many of the schools are now beginning registering pupils for next year so you might want to take a look on their websites, the decent schools all have online access to allow you to at least get your childrens names down.
Travel times from the areas I mentioned can vary wildly depending on time of day, during rush hour you could be looking at 45 mins to an hour each way.
Drop us a line before your husband arrives and we can make contact to show him around a few options.
If you have any questions in the meantime, please feel free to contact me.
Baldrick, you ever make it out the to the NDIA site? It would be nice to have a fellow photog out there!! Did a quick site visit and managed to get a couple of snaps. place is pretty impressive inside. The scaffolding itself is pretty incredible alone!
Bik, I'm with a sub consulting group to an Architect group subbed to OBI subbed to NDIA.. ;) Let me know if you followed all that, I'm still trying to figure out who I actually work for ;) ;)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As a matter of biology; if it bites you it's probably female.
Well have been "in country" for about three weeks and here are my basic impressions thus far.
A. Craig at Mirage is fantastic. Very easy to work with, and great personal follow up, the agent I worked with is very personable and Mirage has "gasp", a REAL website!! However the best personal AGENT has easily been Joseph at Direct. My first choice as I like aggressive deal closers, powerful, professional. If you know exactly where you want to live he WILL get it done. Pure and simple. The rest not so much although I am sure there are exceptions.
B. Commute to NDIA is VERY different depending on where you live. I've been commuting back and forth along the Corniche and average 15-20 minutes. Almost takes longer to get to the front gate at the project site than it does to make City Centre. Fastest journey to the Pearl from Airport has been 23 minutes. Average is about 30 minutes give or take.
C. Budget thankfully is not an issue, so with that in mind, we felt like the 3 most desirable areas were West Bay (City Centre), The Pearl/West Bay Lagoon (Upper West Bay) and Al Wabb City/ Aspire Zone area. All of these are very new and feel like it. If you consider the bulk/quality of your daily lifestyle is dictated by the 2-3 miles around you, location IS important. More on that in the last sentence.
We are now negotiating on a unit at The Pearl and heres why. Going anywhere off the Corniche is a 15 minute or a 45-60 minute drive! ALL Depends on the intersection. If there is no traffic Doha anywhere is 15 minutes. If theres any traffic however anywhere but the Corniche is pure hell. The Corniche always moves, but Commute hours through the Al Wabb and Salwa intersections are a snails paced parking lot with traffic lights on 5-7 minute rotations per side!! D Ring is bad, C Ring is worse and Al Gharafa Interchange drops you into a dirt road alley behind a mosque. From West Bay, I tried going to Airport a bit west, farther west, all the way west and backtracking and never came in under an hour. Went out to Aspire Zone from airport to a coworkers house on several occasions, no less than 45 minutes and generally longer. Passed on Al Wabb (although we do find ourselves at Villagio Mall on the weekends more often than not) based on this alone.
Mirage does have an incredible Villa in Aspire Zone (where my coworker lives at an incredible price for the size) just know that despite the relatively close distance the pace to get there is substantially longer.
The Pearl however easily has the nicest finishes of everything we looked at including several city center towers and west bay lagoon villas and although is still over valued, when you consider the drive up the Corniche is the fastest back and forth to date, the view is fantastic the whole way and to end up at a modern apartment at the Pearl is actually quite metropolitan.. Coffee on the Piazza is at the bottom of the elevator. Cheap? no, nothing here is except the finishes and the quality of the furniture but I can honestly say, I dont feel like I'm stuck in the desert! In fact, very much the contrary and THAT, may be worth the price tag after all. ;)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As a matter of biology; if it bites you it's probably female.
Schools here usually does not respond to email inquiry. At the very least you will need to call them. Even if they respond, most likely they will not guarantee a place for. Some of them even require a face-to-face assesment of the student.
A friend of mine have been here for 2 months and as far as I know, he had not been able to secure school for his primary and secondary aged kids for this year summer term (The kids are still in the home country).
Best course of action will be to ask for your (husband's) company to provide a temporary accommodation of 1 to 3 month which you can use to hunt for schools. After that, you can start looking for your accomodation.
As someone mentioned earlier, nowadays to get a house is much easier than a suitable school.
Another thing that you may consider is to use a brute force approach. Apply to as many school as you can (most if not all will require a non-refundable registration fee) and grab the first one that accept. Once you are here, you can always apply and transfer to another school of your choice for the next term or semester.
Apartments near to Qatar University are hard to find as it is mostly Villa accommodation in this area. However, depending on your budget, you may want to consider Zig Zag Towers or The Pearl developments in West Bay. A good size fully furnished 2 bed apt in these devlopments would start at around QR12,500pm, however we presently have a smaller 2 bed unit available for QR9,500pm.
If your budget is less than this, you would need to look further afield where the prices will vary from QR6,500 upto QR10,500 for a good 2 Bed.
If you require more info please feel free to contact us or take a look at our website www.mirageproperty.com
Al Waab is a very popular area amongst Western Expats and as such the prices are higher than most areas. You will struggle to find anything in this area for QR10,000, minimum would be around QR12,500 for a semi furnished Villa in a residential compound.
An area close to Al Waab is Al Rayyan, where you can find the odd villa for QR10,000, or you could consider Gharrafa, where QR10,000 will find you something, however the commute to the Airport would not be ideal.
If you lived in any of these areas a school to consider would be Doha Montessori & British School (DMBS), which would be on the commute route to the Airport.
Some compounds do have rules regarding pets, especially some of the larger breeds of dog, so you would need to consider this before committing to anything.
Diane5935 there are British schools in many different locations in Doha. Have you already contacted any schools about places for Sept 2010? Most schools are full with waiting lists, so I would recommend that you deal with this issue first. Housing is easier to find than school spaces. Also a 3 br villa with a yard might be tough for QR 10,000 especially if you need furnished.
If your husband will be working at the new Doha airport is not the same as Doha airport. Going to work at new Doha airpot is much farther then going to the airport.
You need to ad another 10 to 15 minutes at leas from the gate.
Buy theway, will your husband be working for NDIA or for Bechtel?
As per my earlier posts we are a professional Real Estate Agent here in Doha with a wide choice of villas, both stand alone and compound based. I assume, from your location requirements that work will be at or near the Airport, but more importantly, which school will your children be attending as this could have more of an impact on where you choose to live.
If you'd like to get in touch and give us some more info re schools, no. of beds and approx budget we can come up with some suitable options for you to take a look at. Alternatively take a look on our website: www.mirageproperty.com.
I've been in Qatar 2 years and will move to a new job at the new airport next week. I stay in Um Ghuwalina at Al Emadi Suites. They are good quality furnished apartments. I pay 11,000 for a huge 2 bed apartment. It is 5 minutes drive to the airport, and hopefully a 15 minute bike ride!
Hi, this particular villa compound is QR15,000pm and is available immediately. There are 16 villas in total and only 5 remain available. The finishing is of a high quality, both internally and externally.
We also have many other villas available ranging in price from QR10,000 upto QR50,000 so can cater to all budgets.
Hi, Don't know if you've arrived here in Doha yet? But we're a local professional Estate Agents, established here for over 5 years.
If your husband is going to be working in the New Airport then I'd recommend you give The Pearl and West Bay area a miss. They're on the opposite side of Doha to his work and, as previously mentioned, the commute could be horrendous. There is a lot of work going on to improve the road network, which presently is making things worse, but once finished should improve. However many of these works are long term, not short term solutions so could be a few years yet!!
If you're bringing bikes with you you'll definitely need to consider a villa, either in a compound or stand alone as the majority of apartments don't offer secure parking and those that do would only give you 1 parking space, as parking is limited here. I'm also assuming you'll not be using the bikes for the shopping runs etc so you'll probably also need a car, as nobody walks? Even more reason for a villa.
We at Mirage offer both our own properties, owned and managed by ourselves and properties from other landlords. We have a wide selection of Apartments & Villas both in compounds and stand alone. If your to give an idea of budget I can give you some options.
In particular we have a brand new villa compound siuated in an area known as Al Hilal, which is 10 mins from the airport (not on the flight path) and has both a shopping mall and large Hypermarket close by. Not sure whether your bikes are Harleys but the Harley dealership is also located close by (near to the Airport). There is a huge Harley Fan Club here and other Bikers Clubs, so you won't be alone!!
The villas themselves are finished to a high quality with fully fitted kitchen, sun terrace, attached covered parking for each villa, landscaped gardens, pool and clubhouse with Gym.
I hope you find this info helpful and please feel free to come back to me if I can help you further.
If your husband gonna work in the airport and you prefer some gated villas with gym, swimming pool, tennis court etc you may want to see Hilal area on D ring road. With normal traffic you can reach the airport in less than 10 minutes.
Two top end compound villas with best facilities here are the Al-Fardan Garden and Le Mirage. My understanding is that they are on the 20Ks price range per month ( don't know whether any are available at the moment). There are many other smaller compounds with less facilities and start at around 10K riyals.
My husband is a life-long motorcycle junkie. Got his first when he was about 10 years old. He would never consider riding one here in Doha. Traffic is very dangerous. They have the highest accident rate per capita in the entire world. Check out some you-tube videos showing all the spectacular car crashes in Doha. You have to see it to believe it. Seriously most people see a car crash every single day. Riding motorcycles on the streets in Doha is only for fools in my opinion.
I am not actually in Doha yet myself, arriving at the end of this month. The only vehcile imports I have done in Doha previously was for the Oilfield Market, and is done slightly differently.
You might be surprised, I seen a couple of big bike shops here in Doha when I visted a few weeks back.
Anyhow, in Dubai a few years ago, I imported some choppers from the guys off Discovery Channel program. The Duty was 5% of the CIF Value. (eg. Bike is US $20000 CIF then Duty will be US $1000) I then had to pay a local agent commission on the import of US $1500 each as they held the import licence agreements for the bikes. Therafter, Police Inspection, Registration and other details were approx. $1200 per bike. Then of course you will have standard insurance and road tax, which I believe is approx. $100 per month in Doha. (Someone can correct me if I am wrong)
PM me if you need further information, I do work in this field and can get a colleague to check all the ins and outs if required.
Have you picked a removal company yet ? They should be able to help also.
Do you know where i can go to find out how much taxes are and what needs to be done to clear the bikes through customs once we ship them? They are custom choppers, doubt I will find anything like it there. granted, given what I'd heard about driving in Doha I'm not sure we'll even ue them there. After a first visit we'll decide... :) thanks for the info!
If you are in Doha for a long term contract, it may be cheaper just to buy new bikes than having them shipped, paying GCC Taxes, Registration Etc. Etc. (Just a thought !)
Yes I'm from Florida and yes photography pays *some* of our bills ;)
Husband got contract to work in Doha so I am thinking the expensive part of living arrangements there will all depend on what his contract stipulates.
Thanks for the real estate agent contact mdobrasz, will see if we can start lining up some visits to different areas and take a look at villas vs condo... not sure what is best for us yet. I think given we are going to try to bring our 2 motorcycles a house with a garage will be best...
Nic, thanks for the advice, I think we'll probably opt to be closet to airport than to drive 1 hour to get to and from work. So far I have seen very little "real" pictures of Doha, mostly plans and projection images of what it *will* look like so we figure we're in for huge construction site in the desert ;)
then you go around the place and select for your self,there are plenty of accomodations available with few people to occupy it, depending on your budget,real estate is coming down,taste differs from person to person,Good Luck
Qatar's property development websites are misleading as most of Qatar itself. What you see is not what you'll get.
Lusail is a "planned new city" due to open soon but you go there now, all you'll se is an empty desert land with maybe 2 tower cranes.
Pearl is nearly completed but with a lot of infrastructure and other nature problems.
Both locations are at the north outskirts limits of the city, while the new airport is being built at the southern outskirt limit of the city.
You do have to across the whole city and the traffic here is another nightmare (not only the traffic jams but also the aggressive and risk driving local style). If no traffic, it will be a 20-30 minutes drive.
The best location for you would be near by the Marriott Hotel.
A friendly advice: be prepared for the biggest frustrations you ever experienced at professional and social levels and you won't be disappointed.
Thanks, how awesome, I was thinking it was more like 1.5 hours from what everyone has said about Doha traffic!! :)
Being here in the USA is a bit difficult to find out what areas are best to live in Doha... My husband and I love being at home, we prefer high rises with a nice gym though given we are bringing motorcycles over I am thinking somthingh is a garage might be best. We have no kids so schools and having other kids around us is not a top priority.
Given this, which areas/buildings would you guys recommend? We don't want to commute more than say 30-40 minutes each way if we can help it (to and from new DOHA airport).
What information is there out there about the Pearl, I imagine is still is mostly a huge construction site but are there finished buildigns there worth commuting to and from? Are shoping areas and restaurants nearby already finished?
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Hi and apologies for the seriously late response, the site didn't indicate an update to us so your enquiry was overlooked.
You can find everything from unfurnished to fully furnished and fully serviced here. It's probably better for you to bring your funiture and either opt for unfurnished or semi furnished option.
Unfurnished: No furniture, no kitchen appliances and can be with or without A/C's.
Semi Furnished: No furniture but comes with A/C's and kitchen appliances. Some semi furnished options also come with curtains/poles.
Fully furnished: comes with everything except crockery, cutlery etc but can sometimes be without curtains/poles.
Take a look on our website mirageproperty.com for availability, it's updated on a daily basis as and when we lease or take on new properties.
When is it you're coming over?
Regards
Craig at Mirage Property
To Craig @ Mirage
I am currently living in Dubai, but will shortly be relocating to Doha (end of March). I have been told that most places for rent come ready firnished.
We have a 3 bedroom villa in Dubai and I own all the furniture. I am wondering whether to sell my furniture, or bring it over. Can you advise? I also own all my own white goods.
We will be looking for at 3 bedroom villa or apartment within easy commute of NDIA.
No worries Craig, was just at a housewarming party at an incredible villa you and Louise were able to find for a few of my coworkers. Absolutely ZERO hesitation recommending you, your firm or your agents. One of the few things that are no hassle in Doha, well done sir!!
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As a matter of biology; if it bites you it's probably female.
Glad to have been of help and sorry we couldn't secure the property you wanted. Hope it goes well in The Pearl, enjoy the Coffee Shops!!
By the way, what solution did you come up with for your Bikes.
Kind regards
Craig at Mirage
Sorry for the delay in replying, just back after the weekend. Glad I could be of help.
Please be aware many of the schools are now beginning registering pupils for next year so you might want to take a look on their websites, the decent schools all have online access to allow you to at least get your childrens names down.
Travel times from the areas I mentioned can vary wildly depending on time of day, during rush hour you could be looking at 45 mins to an hour each way.
Drop us a line before your husband arrives and we can make contact to show him around a few options.
If you have any questions in the meantime, please feel free to contact me.
Kind regards
Craig at Mirage.
Baldrick, you ever make it out the to the NDIA site? It would be nice to have a fellow photog out there!! Did a quick site visit and managed to get a couple of snaps. place is pretty impressive inside. The scaffolding itself is pretty incredible alone!
Bik, I'm with a sub consulting group to an Architect group subbed to OBI subbed to NDIA.. ;) Let me know if you followed all that, I'm still trying to figure out who I actually work for ;) ;)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As a matter of biology; if it bites you it's probably female.
Hi All,
Well have been "in country" for about three weeks and here are my basic impressions thus far.
A. Craig at Mirage is fantastic. Very easy to work with, and great personal follow up, the agent I worked with is very personable and Mirage has "gasp", a REAL website!! However the best personal AGENT has easily been Joseph at Direct. My first choice as I like aggressive deal closers, powerful, professional. If you know exactly where you want to live he WILL get it done. Pure and simple. The rest not so much although I am sure there are exceptions.
B. Commute to NDIA is VERY different depending on where you live. I've been commuting back and forth along the Corniche and average 15-20 minutes. Almost takes longer to get to the front gate at the project site than it does to make City Centre. Fastest journey to the Pearl from Airport has been 23 minutes. Average is about 30 minutes give or take.
C. Budget thankfully is not an issue, so with that in mind, we felt like the 3 most desirable areas were West Bay (City Centre), The Pearl/West Bay Lagoon (Upper West Bay) and Al Wabb City/ Aspire Zone area. All of these are very new and feel like it. If you consider the bulk/quality of your daily lifestyle is dictated by the 2-3 miles around you, location IS important. More on that in the last sentence.
We are now negotiating on a unit at The Pearl and heres why. Going anywhere off the Corniche is a 15 minute or a 45-60 minute drive! ALL Depends on the intersection. If there is no traffic Doha anywhere is 15 minutes. If theres any traffic however anywhere but the Corniche is pure hell. The Corniche always moves, but Commute hours through the Al Wabb and Salwa intersections are a snails paced parking lot with traffic lights on 5-7 minute rotations per side!! D Ring is bad, C Ring is worse and Al Gharafa Interchange drops you into a dirt road alley behind a mosque. From West Bay, I tried going to Airport a bit west, farther west, all the way west and backtracking and never came in under an hour. Went out to Aspire Zone from airport to a coworkers house on several occasions, no less than 45 minutes and generally longer. Passed on Al Wabb (although we do find ourselves at Villagio Mall on the weekends more often than not) based on this alone.
Mirage does have an incredible Villa in Aspire Zone (where my coworker lives at an incredible price for the size) just know that despite the relatively close distance the pace to get there is substantially longer.
The Pearl however easily has the nicest finishes of everything we looked at including several city center towers and west bay lagoon villas and although is still over valued, when you consider the drive up the Corniche is the fastest back and forth to date, the view is fantastic the whole way and to end up at a modern apartment at the Pearl is actually quite metropolitan.. Coffee on the Piazza is at the bottom of the elevator. Cheap? no, nothing here is except the finishes and the quality of the furniture but I can honestly say, I dont feel like I'm stuck in the desert! In fact, very much the contrary and THAT, may be worth the price tag after all. ;)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As a matter of biology; if it bites you it's probably female.
Schools here usually does not respond to email inquiry. At the very least you will need to call them. Even if they respond, most likely they will not guarantee a place for. Some of them even require a face-to-face assesment of the student.
A friend of mine have been here for 2 months and as far as I know, he had not been able to secure school for his primary and secondary aged kids for this year summer term (The kids are still in the home country).
Best course of action will be to ask for your (husband's) company to provide a temporary accommodation of 1 to 3 month which you can use to hunt for schools. After that, you can start looking for your accomodation.
As someone mentioned earlier, nowadays to get a house is much easier than a suitable school.
Another thing that you may consider is to use a brute force approach. Apply to as many school as you can (most if not all will require a non-refundable registration fee) and grab the first one that accept. Once you are here, you can always apply and transfer to another school of your choice for the next term or semester.
Cheers
SK
Thank you for the advise Rachela.
Yes I have heard its difficult.
Are you able to secure a place at School before you arrive in Doha, or is it better to wait until you arrive?
Regards
Diane
Thank you Craig,
You have answered many of our questions.
We will try to secure a place for our children at the Doha College or DMBS.
If we do choose Al Waab or Al Rayyan, do you know approximately how long it would take by road to NDIA?
My husband is due to fly out in May 2010 and will visit as many Villa's as possible. I have your details saved in my favourites folder.
Kind regards
Diane
Apartments near to Qatar University are hard to find as it is mostly Villa accommodation in this area. However, depending on your budget, you may want to consider Zig Zag Towers or The Pearl developments in West Bay. A good size fully furnished 2 bed apt in these devlopments would start at around QR12,500pm, however we presently have a smaller 2 bed unit available for QR9,500pm.
If your budget is less than this, you would need to look further afield where the prices will vary from QR6,500 upto QR10,500 for a good 2 Bed.
If you require more info please feel free to contact us or take a look at our website www.mirageproperty.com
Kind Regards
Craig at Mirage
Al Waab is a very popular area amongst Western Expats and as such the prices are higher than most areas. You will struggle to find anything in this area for QR10,000, minimum would be around QR12,500 for a semi furnished Villa in a residential compound.
An area close to Al Waab is Al Rayyan, where you can find the odd villa for QR10,000, or you could consider Gharrafa, where QR10,000 will find you something, however the commute to the Airport would not be ideal.
If you lived in any of these areas a school to consider would be Doha Montessori & British School (DMBS), which would be on the commute route to the Airport.
Some compounds do have rules regarding pets, especially some of the larger breeds of dog, so you would need to consider this before committing to anything.
I hope this helps.
Kind regards
Craig at Mirage
Diane5935 there are British schools in many different locations in Doha. Have you already contacted any schools about places for Sept 2010? Most schools are full with waiting lists, so I would recommend that you deal with this issue first. Housing is easier to find than school spaces. Also a 3 br villa with a yard might be tough for QR 10,000 especially if you need furnished.
Hi
Thanks for this.
My husband will be working at the new airport.
We will require at least 3 bed villa near to the British Schools.
We have done a little research and think that Al Waab would be a better location???
Budget is approx 10,000 per month.
As stated previously, we will be bringing our dog with us.
Thank you for your assistance.
Hi,
We too are moving to Doha in July 2010 with our 3 childrens.
We will be looking for a fully furnished flat with 2 bedroms near to the french school and Qatar University.
Any suggestions please for where we should look for flat?
Thanks.
If your husband will be working at the new Doha airport is not the same as Doha airport. Going to work at new Doha airpot is much farther then going to the airport.
You need to ad another 10 to 15 minutes at leas from the gate.
Buy theway, will your husband be working for NDIA or for Bechtel?
Hi, Craig here from Mirage Property.
As per my earlier posts we are a professional Real Estate Agent here in Doha with a wide choice of villas, both stand alone and compound based. I assume, from your location requirements that work will be at or near the Airport, but more importantly, which school will your children be attending as this could have more of an impact on where you choose to live.
If you'd like to get in touch and give us some more info re schools, no. of beds and approx budget we can come up with some suitable options for you to take a look at. Alternatively take a look on our website: www.mirageproperty.com.
I look forward to being of assistance.
Craig at Mirage
Hi,
We too are moving to Doha in May 2010.
We will be looking for a villa close to the airport. We will be bringing a dog with us and 2 children who will need to attend school years 10 and 12.
Any suggestions for where we should look for a villa?
I know a nice compound villa in Hilal. It is literally 3-4 km from the gate of the airport.
Nice swimming pool and club house/gym. Semi furnished it goes for 10-11 K riyal per month.
PM me if you are interested and I'll give you the name of the landlord.
Cheers
SK
PS. I'm not an agent and does not earn a commission... ; )
far away... don't think unless u love driving in traffic.
~noms~
-----------------------------------------
"Before God we are all equally wise ' and equally foolish" - Albert Einstein
I'm at the Ezdan currently, that 5 minute commute is going to be nice for you Baldrick!
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As a matter of biology; if it bites you it's probably female.
I've been in Qatar 2 years and will move to a new job at the new airport next week. I stay in Um Ghuwalina at Al Emadi Suites. They are good quality furnished apartments. I pay 11,000 for a huge 2 bed apartment. It is 5 minutes drive to the airport, and hopefully a 15 minute bike ride!
Hi Craig,
Hubby here, can you hit me up on local cell 690-6981?
Thanks!
Steven
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As a matter of biology; if it bites you it's probably female.
Hi, this particular villa compound is QR15,000pm and is available immediately. There are 16 villas in total and only 5 remain available. The finishing is of a high quality, both internally and externally.
We also have many other villas available ranging in price from QR10,000 upto QR50,000 so can cater to all budgets.
Kind regards
Craig at Mirage
Craig, what is the cost of these Villas that you mention ? When will they be available ?
Hi, Don't know if you've arrived here in Doha yet? But we're a local professional Estate Agents, established here for over 5 years.
If your husband is going to be working in the New Airport then I'd recommend you give The Pearl and West Bay area a miss. They're on the opposite side of Doha to his work and, as previously mentioned, the commute could be horrendous. There is a lot of work going on to improve the road network, which presently is making things worse, but once finished should improve. However many of these works are long term, not short term solutions so could be a few years yet!!
If you're bringing bikes with you you'll definitely need to consider a villa, either in a compound or stand alone as the majority of apartments don't offer secure parking and those that do would only give you 1 parking space, as parking is limited here. I'm also assuming you'll not be using the bikes for the shopping runs etc so you'll probably also need a car, as nobody walks? Even more reason for a villa.
We at Mirage offer both our own properties, owned and managed by ourselves and properties from other landlords. We have a wide selection of Apartments & Villas both in compounds and stand alone. If your to give an idea of budget I can give you some options.
In particular we have a brand new villa compound siuated in an area known as Al Hilal, which is 10 mins from the airport (not on the flight path) and has both a shopping mall and large Hypermarket close by. Not sure whether your bikes are Harleys but the Harley dealership is also located close by (near to the Airport). There is a huge Harley Fan Club here and other Bikers Clubs, so you won't be alone!!
The villas themselves are finished to a high quality with fully fitted kitchen, sun terrace, attached covered parking for each villa, landscaped gardens, pool and clubhouse with Gym.
I hope you find this info helpful and please feel free to come back to me if I can help you further.
Craig at Mirage.
If your husband gonna work in the airport and you prefer some gated villas with gym, swimming pool, tennis court etc you may want to see Hilal area on D ring road. With normal traffic you can reach the airport in less than 10 minutes.
Two top end compound villas with best facilities here are the Al-Fardan Garden and Le Mirage. My understanding is that they are on the 20Ks price range per month ( don't know whether any are available at the moment). There are many other smaller compounds with less facilities and start at around 10K riyals.
Cheers
SK
My husband is a life-long motorcycle junkie. Got his first when he was about 10 years old. He would never consider riding one here in Doha. Traffic is very dangerous. They have the highest accident rate per capita in the entire world. Check out some you-tube videos showing all the spectacular car crashes in Doha. You have to see it to believe it. Seriously most people see a car crash every single day. Riding motorcycles on the streets in Doha is only for fools in my opinion.
Hi,
I am not actually in Doha yet myself, arriving at the end of this month. The only vehcile imports I have done in Doha previously was for the Oilfield Market, and is done slightly differently.
You might be surprised, I seen a couple of big bike shops here in Doha when I visted a few weeks back.
Anyhow, in Dubai a few years ago, I imported some choppers from the guys off Discovery Channel program. The Duty was 5% of the CIF Value. (eg. Bike is US $20000 CIF then Duty will be US $1000) I then had to pay a local agent commission on the import of US $1500 each as they held the import licence agreements for the bikes. Therafter, Police Inspection, Registration and other details were approx. $1200 per bike. Then of course you will have standard insurance and road tax, which I believe is approx. $100 per month in Doha. (Someone can correct me if I am wrong)
PM me if you need further information, I do work in this field and can get a colleague to check all the ins and outs if required.
Have you picked a removal company yet ? They should be able to help also.
DohaDiesel,
Do you know where i can go to find out how much taxes are and what needs to be done to clear the bikes through customs once we ship them? They are custom choppers, doubt I will find anything like it there. granted, given what I'd heard about driving in Doha I'm not sure we'll even ue them there. After a first visit we'll decide... :) thanks for the info!
If you are in Doha for a long term contract, it may be cheaper just to buy new bikes than having them shipped, paying GCC Taxes, Registration Etc. Etc. (Just a thought !)
Yes I'm from Florida and yes photography pays *some* of our bills ;)
Husband got contract to work in Doha so I am thinking the expensive part of living arrangements there will all depend on what his contract stipulates.
Thanks for the real estate agent contact mdobrasz, will see if we can start lining up some visits to different areas and take a look at villas vs condo... not sure what is best for us yet. I think given we are going to try to bring our 2 motorcycles a house with a garage will be best...
Nic, thanks for the advice, I think we'll probably opt to be closet to airport than to drive 1 hour to get to and from work. So far I have seen very little "real" pictures of Doha, mostly plans and projection images of what it *will* look like so we figure we're in for huge construction site in the desert ;)
then you go around the place and select for your self,there are plenty of accomodations available with few people to occupy it, depending on your budget,real estate is coming down,taste differs from person to person,Good Luck
Qatar's property development websites are misleading as most of Qatar itself. What you see is not what you'll get.
Lusail is a "planned new city" due to open soon but you go there now, all you'll se is an empty desert land with maybe 2 tower cranes.
Pearl is nearly completed but with a lot of infrastructure and other nature problems.
Both locations are at the north outskirts limits of the city, while the new airport is being built at the southern outskirt limit of the city.
You do have to across the whole city and the traffic here is another nightmare (not only the traffic jams but also the aggressive and risk driving local style). If no traffic, it will be a 20-30 minutes drive.
The best location for you would be near by the Marriott Hotel.
A friendly advice: be prepared for the biggest frustrations you ever experienced at professional and social levels and you won't be disappointed.
I wish you all the best!
wow... in Lusail/Pearl area??? hmmm that's too expensive to live on there, hehhe...
there's a lot of Villa's here which you can stay peacefully, i've forgot the names of it..
So, you're from Florida?? because your name is kikiFl... Kiki your name then Fl is your place, am i right?? hehehe...
Then,, you like photography also, Professional?? hehehe... that's cool, there's a lot of nice places here to be taken a shot in your cam.
Thanks, how awesome, I was thinking it was more like 1.5 hours from what everyone has said about Doha traffic!! :)
Being here in the USA is a bit difficult to find out what areas are best to live in Doha... My husband and I love being at home, we prefer high rises with a nice gym though given we are bringing motorcycles over I am thinking somthingh is a garage might be best. We have no kids so schools and having other kids around us is not a top priority.
Given this, which areas/buildings would you guys recommend? We don't want to commute more than say 30-40 minutes each way if we can help it (to and from new DOHA airport).
What information is there out there about the Pearl, I imagine is still is mostly a huge construction site but are there finished buildigns there worth commuting to and from? Are shoping areas and restaurants nearby already finished?
Thanks so much!
Kiki
Morning (6.30-7.00am) - It takes almost 40-45 minutes.
Afternoon - If there is no traffic, 30 minutes.
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I don't want a Signature line to prove that I'm great !!