Moving to Doha in 4 weeks! Lots of questions

Its not a compound, its a large apartment block of 77 apartments. Almost all ex-pats. The furniture is very modern, Cable TV is included and so is a 32" LCD. I have about 1100 channels of rubbish and about 3 that I watch! Internet and a Cable card (for unlocking extra channels) is available at QR 250 pm but I don't know what speed/ download capacity is on offer. Its quite a busy location and quite noisy, but for me as a single man I prefer it to living in a compound or at the pearl. You can probably walk to about 50 places to eat and 2 shopping malls (if you wanted to!)

Sounds Ideal. are you part of a compound? is there interenet and tv included? is there a pool? is the furnature modern western or arabic style? Are you enjoying it so far?

Thanks for your help Andy

I moved into a brand new apartment in Al Sadd 3 weeks ago which is furnished (everything new) with inclusive water and electricity, gym and 24 hour security. They wanted 7,000 pm but took 6,000. The letting agent is called Neil 5589 8292

can anyone recommend a nice apartment to live for around 6500 furnished? I have tried the Beach Tower but they only have their 8000 apartments available.

16000 is normally ok for single person to live happily

Well i suggest the following , which will be viable and you can decide what suits you. You can rent a 1 bed room studio for aroud 4K, have a car for 75K and you take a loan where you pay up about 2.5 K as repayment, phone internet is 250 to 300 QR and you can decide how much more you want to spend and save what . I suggest you ask your employer to provide you a furnished studio and a car apart from that basic of 16 K. This is the best option as you have no worries , in case you plan to leave you just walk away with no liabelitys. Please think and go ahead- God bless

16K should be enough. Firstly the best thing to do would be getting a shared villa with other co-workers or your looking to spending a good 6-8k just on decent studio accomodation, with a shared villa you could be looking at only spending 2-5k each, the downside being you have to live with 3 or 4 others.

With your travel allowance you will be up to QR17,625 which is good, I would recommend you rent a car for the first year, that will set you back anywhere between QR1.5k and QR4K a month depending on what car you want, petrol is cheap you'll probably spend about QR200-300 a month on that, if your driving on city roads then I recommend a 2WD, make sure its automatic as you dont want to be stuck in long ques of traffic jamming the clutch down every few seconds as you inch forward. I would look into getting a second hand 4WD after a year with your savings if your here for the long term, anything by nissan, toyota, or mitsubishi is the way to go, reliable, and parts are cheap. Dont go for european or american cars unless you are prepared to pay an arm and a leg for parts, apart from maybe GMC which are reasonable.

Health care wise you can get the company to provide you with the bare essential health card (costs around QR100 I believe) which allows you to use the public hospital, however it would be wise to ask for full health insurance in order to use private hospitals such as Al Ali which are a lot nicer (go there without insurance and you will literally be paying thousands just for a simple check up).

Now the major question is how often do you drink alcohol and eat out. The average cost of a pint here is about 6 british pounds, spirits are ridiculously overpriced, go to any hotel club and they will be charging you a minimum of 80 pounds for a bottle of cheap voddy, go out for a big one and your looking at spending over QR500 easy. Food is also overpriced, if your looking at eating out daily you will probably spend over QR 500 a week on food.

As for internet they are currently installing fibreoptic cables around Doha but will probably take atleast a couple of years before they become fully functional, for now your looking at spending around 500 riyals a month just for 8 meg internet, I would suggest going with the phone/internet/tv option for around 250 a month which is only 2 meg but the savings are big.

If you want to know anything else let me know.

all i can say is good luck trying to survive for 2-5 years in this hell hole on that sort of money. I see you say your in sales so i assume that is a basic that will be topped up by commission?? minimum you will get a car for (not a 4x4 but a Sunny or similar) is around QAR1650 a month (Petrol is peanuts), for the sort of housing budget you mention you will be looking at sharing with Westerners or living in a very basic 1 bed place with the Filipinos and Indians. Mobile with data will be at least QAR500 a month assuming you are talking about email more than web use, the best internet connection you can get here will be 4mb at QAR400 which is useable but little temperamental on Fridays/Saturdays when people are off work. Bring your IPhone (unlock it first) with you and just stick in a sim from out here that will save you QAR4000. Also you need to remember that food is extremely expensive here also and if you drink Alcohol god help you! With the way the market is in the UK we all know its a difficult situation and I see more and more people arrive on desperately low money; but bare this in mind if your considering staying for 5 years, that at the moment costs for accommodation are half what they were 2/3 years ago and with the possible boom with the World Cup they may return towards this level. Once you are here and tied to a sponsor with the threat of a 2 year ban, should they choose, it’s very difficult to get your conditions improved. Living on that sort of money is defiantly doable as the Indians and Filipinas prove but you will have to forgo big nights out and the regular sanity trips to Dubai that you need over here to keep you going……..

so come out anyway, you are single without any ties I presume, just do it, you will only regret the things that you don't do in life, not the things that you actually do.

Lets face it the UK is hardly thriving.

Well i intend to be there for a while, it's just difficult to plan more than 5 years ahead!

My company's counter argument will be that we will be paid comission as well. so they must take that into consideration. I believe their mentality is that if they pay us too high basic, then we will not be motivated to work.

2 - 5 years is not permanent, it is temporary. Don't forget that what you heard here are snapshots of how it is now. In Qatar laws and conditions can change within days. And most disturbingly, most companies don't seem to care about laws.

This is really useful for me to know, i need to go back to my company with a suggestion and by the looks of it, it seems like its a no.

I have further enquired and it seems like i do get a car allowance of 1,625QAR per month. Does this change things much?

How much am i looking at for health & car insurance?

This is a permanent move by the way so i will be looking at staying in Qatar for the next 2-5 years.

Do not take a car loan until you think you are going to stay for longer than a few years. There is a big implication for taking loans from bank out here.

I I do not think 16k is enough either.

I am british by the way.

Honestly .... It all depends on ur lifestyle ... what u r earning could be enuff or too little depending on ur taste.

Is accomodation available for 4 - 6 k (Yes but it will be a studio like wisefool mentioned or a shared F/F Flat or Villa. By the way Doha isnt very big so u dont really have to live in westbay.. there r other good residential areas too). If it is a furnished apt then normally TV and other utilities would be available.

The only provider for Internet would b Qtel and they r ok and offer upto 4Mbps speed for abt QR 400. Not the best connection but its ok for now ... i am hoping other international players enter this market soon. Mobile ditto ... very expensive.

Car ... u could rent or buy a car (4WD) for around 2500 - 3000 QR per month.

Cheers !!

I lived in Ezdan Towers for the first 12 months here. I wouldn't go back if you paid me.

no- dont listen to them. its not true.

i get an all inclusive package as well- 16k is enough to enough. let me explain:

- you can rent a studio at Ezdan Towers for 4k monthly. they have pretty fast internet (i download at least 1gb every night). however, there is no kitchen- it's like living in a hotel. however, there is a fridge.

- you can rent a car for 1,800-2,400 monthly. depending on how long you want to stay here- i would suggest buying a cheap car/second hand car with a bank loan.

Therefore, you should have 10k left over for the month which you can do whatever you want with.

Try to consider this breakdown:

Accommodation: 4000-7000 fully furnished flat (Madinath Khalifa Area) bit closer to westbay, other area would be in Dafna or west bay itself but its quiet expensive there.

Telephone/Internet/Cable TV: 250- 1MB and 300+ .. 2MB provided by QTEL

Vehicle/Car: 2000-2500 per month 4x4 + kilometer service maintenance + insurance

That's enough for a single person, it depends on your lifestyle.

Think twice before you leave!!

I really agree with POSTMODERNMAN....In Qatar ur company is responsible for ur Transport and living based on all company resource..!!

that really is not enough to own a car and to rent a place, and have internet. 4-6k, you will be living in a dump! What about medical benefits?

usually housing, car, benefits, medical etc are provided here, on top of the salary. Does not matter if it is sales based.

At that salary, with you paying your own housing and car, you will be way worse off than at home.

I'd think really hard about coming!

Not enough! You can cover what you've mentioned, but you won't have anything left to live on.