Candy Says Property Buyers Want Dubai Luxury, Not London Crime
The UK real estate entrepreneur tells In the City the ultra-rich are decamping for the UAE because Western capitals are losing their “values.”
British entrepreneur Nick Candy is best known for working alongside his brother Christian to create One Hyde Park, a residential development in London’s exclusive Knightsbridge district and home to some of the world’s richest people. When sales opened in 2007, the building was smashing world per-square-foot price records. In this week’s episode of In the City, Candy tells David Merritt and Francine Lacqua that his next project in Dubai will beat those records.
“You’re seeing a flow of money there like you’ve never seen before,” says Candy, explaining that more buyers are adjusting to the idea of living in the United Arab Emirates. He contends they’re fed up-both with crime in capitals like London and because “some of the values that we once cherished in the Western countries are not the same values that we’ve got today.”
Candy also discusses the housing crisis in the UK, where he says the problem is affordability, not supply, and where to look for smart real estate investments in London right now. And when it comes to Chelsea Football Club, for which he bid, he says the first thing it needs to do is sort out the stadium-and that means moving to Earl’s Court.
