Tom Jewell

@LondonMoneyFS Imagine being this angry about other people’s tax planning on a Saturday morning.

If you spent 20 years bragging about how much easy money you made on BTL and then a few years bragging about a Dubai move to escape taxes on that money, when life comes at you fast you can expect ZERO empathy from me.

@SukhSidhuDXB So hard to get a real sense of what it's been like in Dubai over the past few days. X is just so full of noise. Good to hear things seem to have settled.

This morning in Dubai > zero noise in the sky for the past 36 hours > woke up at 5am and went for a run > breakfast with the kids while the wife had some time to herself > started work > 8 year olds friends knocked on to see if she was playing out before it was even 9am Life is good

@SaulStaniforth UAE have just paid for 20,000 people at DXB to get hotels and rebooked onto flights. Most non UAE residents. The narrative that expats in particular need bailing out is misaligned. They don't want to come back.

Susanna Reid: "Brits have moved to places like Dubai, potentially.. to avoid paying tax.. if they need rescuing.. should they pay for their own evacuation, because if they're avoiding paying tax then they're avoiding paying into public services, like the govt coming to get you"

Lots of talk about expats “moving back to the UK” because of the current conflict. I don’t see it. If anything, this will likely strengthen the expat community in the UAE. Moments like this remind people why they moved in the first place, safety, stability, decisive leadership etc.

@PeterMcCormack They won't be moving back to the UK. The reality is the expat community in the UAE will only strengthen through going through this. The way that the UAE state have handled it will only of doubled down their decision to have gone there in the first place.

Those who moved to Dubai for tax reasons - coming back to the U.K. within 5 years means you will be getting a bill for back taxes. Tax is theft. Bombs are scary.

The wider impact to property markets from the US-Iran conflict. The bigger risk isn’t the conflict itself or UAE real estate. It’s oil → inflation → delayed rate cuts → tighter liquidity. That hits London. That hits the UK. That hits everywhere. This is a macro question, not just a Dubai one.

@shanaka86 I would be very careful what you post about the UAE pal

Iran did not strike a military base in Dubai. It struck the idea of Dubai. Missile debris hit the Fairmont on Palm Jumeirah. Drone fragments set fire to the facade of the Burj Al Arab. A terminal at Dubai International Airport, the busiest hub for international passengers on earth, sustained damage. Jebel Ali Port, which hosts US warships and handles aircraft carriers, caught fire from interceptor debris. Abu Dhabi’s Zayed International Airport took a direct hit. One dead. Seven wounded. The UAE Defense Ministry confirmed intercepting more than one hundred ballistic missiles and two hundred drones. That means Iran fired over three hundred munitions at a country that has spent the last four decades marketing itself as the safest square mile in the Middle East. Dubai is not a military target. Dubai is a financial thesis. It is the proposition that you can build a global city at the mouth of the Persian Gulf and insulate it from the region’s violence through money, architecture, and diplomatic neutrality. Two million expatriates live there. Sixty percent of the emirate’s revenue flows through its airport and seaport. Every sovereign wealth fund in the Gulf has exposure. Every global bank has a regional desk there. Every luxury brand on earth has a storefront on Sheikh Zayed Road. Iran just put a missile through that thesis. Not metaphorically. The Burj Al Arab, the building that appears on every postcard, every airline advertisement, every sovereign wealth fund pitch deck, had fire crews on its roof Saturday night. Dubai’s airspace went dark. Flight tracking maps showed the entire Gulf region virtually empty. Airlines suspended operations. Schools prepared to move online. Residents sheltered in underground parking garages because Dubai has no bomb shelters. The financial implications compound from here. Dubai real estate, the asset class that underwrites half the Gulf’s wealth effect, just discovered it sits within range of Iranian ballistic missiles. Every property valuation on Palm Jumeirah, in Dubai Marina, in Downtown, now carries a war risk premium that did not exist forty eight hours ago. Insurance underwriters who just repriced Hormuz transit are about to reprice Gulf property portfolios. Saudi Arabia was hit. Qatar was hit. Kuwait was hit. Bahrain’s Fifth Fleet base took drone strikes that destroyed a three hundred million dollar radar system. Iran targeted every Gulf state that hosts American forces. The only Gulf country spared was Oman, the mediator. The message is not military. It is economic. Iran cannot defeat the Fifth Fleet. But it can make the Gulf uninhabitable for capital. And capital has no loyalty. Only a return address.

@NormaCohen3 Lazy take. This is less about leasehold and more about timing. Most of those flats were bought 2014–17 at peak pricing. Then rates rose, tax changed, supply hit the market. There hasn't been some sudden awakening about “not owning property”.

The reason that buyers are not prepared to stomp up for a London leasehold flat is because increasingly, they understand that they are NOT buying property . They are only buying a time-limited right to occupy, subject to terms and conditions, fees and charges.

@MerrynSW Feels like a timing chart more than a new build chart. Most bought pre-Brexit and sold into the worst London flat cycle in decades. Funny thing is every period property people love today started life as an overpriced new build.

We warned about this over and over. Buy at an average 16% premium to 2nd hand price and you need big market moves just to break even.

The average UK homeowner now has roughly 50% loan-to-value. Half the home owned outright. So when people ask why higher interest rates haven’t caused a housing crash… That’s your answer. This isn’t 2008. Most owners aren’t highly leveraged. They’re sitting on equity. Which means: higher rates slow the market, but they don’t force mass selling. The real pressure sits with new buyers at 80–95% LTV, not existing homeowners. Two completely different risk profiles inside the same market. And it’s one of the reasons UK housing keeps proving more resilient than people expect.

People keep saying “Dubai is outperforming the UK.” Outperforming at what? If you’re judging how the UK is holding up at the bottom of its cycle, I can pretty confidently say Dubai wouldn’t look this stable if it were at the same stage. And if you’re judging the last few years, where Dubai has been in a bull run, then yes of course it’s outperformed. That’s what early-cycle markets do. You’re comparing two markets at completely different points in their cycle. That’s like comparing bonds to equities and arguing one is “better.” They carry different volatility. Different upside. Different downside. The question isn’t which one is winning. It’s what stage of the cycle you’re buying into and what level of risk you’re comfortable with.

@proptechpioneer We have just been offered some discounted opportunities on new landmark projects nearing completion in Manchester City center. It's more like 15%-20% than 30% however.

Have been saying for a while that I think many small investors will get caught out in the NOB markets (Manchester of particular concern) Increasingly seeing stock from developers who are looking to sell unsold stock plots at c. 30 - 40% ‘discount’ to the prices the initial stock was sold for!

Scotland is one of the strongest housing markets in the UK right now. • Up ~4.5–5% y/y • UK average closer to ~2–3% At the top end? Record number of £1m+ sales in Glasgow this year. Interesting stuff relative to the sentiment in other parts of the UK and especially London.

One of the reasons rents are starting to cool off? More first-time buyers are stepping back in. Rightmove data shows the average monthly mortgage payment for a first-time buyer has dropped below £1,000. £1,062 last year £975 this year The average rental price is currently £1,367pcm. Finding the deposit for first time buyers is still likely to be the main barrier to entry, however.

UK inflation printed at 3.0%. Still above the 2% target, but trending down. Why it matters for property: Falling inflation reduces pressure on the Bank of England. Mortgage markets price in that stability and fixed mortgage rates improve before base rate cuts even happen. We’re already seeing better fixed-rate options and more competition at higher LTV.

@landlord_secret Agreed. My only caveat is I see all too often investors chasing yield at all cost. Yield is a reflection of how much risk you are taking in the market.

Serious investors look for cashflow. You cannot predict capital (hope) value. You cannot pay your gas bill with capital. Also anybody that says "In a market where tenants have more choice" is having a laugh! landlordtoday.co.uk/breaking-news/…

@AnneAshworth @ONS I worry the numbers for 2026 are going to be dramatically lower again you.

Stat of the day from @ONS 30,880 homes were completed in England in the third quarter of 2025, against 34,000 in the same period of 2024. The government may still be dreaming of fulfilling its big pledge of 1.5m new homes by 2029. But, like much else, this is a forlorn hope 🏘

UK jobs market is cooling. Wage growth easing. From a mortgage perspective, that’s not bad news. Softer labour data = less inflation pressure = increases the chance rates keep drifting down. Markets are already pricing further base rate cuts. Swap rates (what really drives fixed mortgages) have stabilised and edged lower from their peaks. For buyers: – Rate environment improving – Lenders still keen to lend – Developers offering incentives You can’t time the bottom perfectly. But buying into a stabilising rate cycle feels very different to buying into a rising one.

Interesting shift right now: In Abu Dhabi, apartments are outperforming villas this cycle. Apartments are up 35% vs 14% for villas in 2025. Smaller ticket sizes. ADGM / Reem demand. End-user driven. Freehold still relatively new. Capital flows hit apartments first. Meanwhile in Dubai, it’s largely been the opposite, villas led the charge, apartments lagged because of heavier supply. Point being: “UAE property” isn’t one market.

Will this be one of the greatest generational buying opportunities. Certain projects by Modon on Reem Island, walking distance to ADGM (Abu Dhabi’s financial centre), at around AED 1,800 psf, roughly £360 psf. Put that into context: – Downtown / DIFC comparable stock is now ~£700 psf – Canary Wharf is ~£1,200 psf So you’re effectively getting financial-district adjacency, in a capital city, at a fraction of what equivalent global hubs trade at. And we’re still very early in Abu Dhabi’s cycle. Freehold only opened in 2019. Crazy to think there are still plots this close to ADGM. In 10 years, if AD continues on its current trajectory, people will look back at sub-£400 psf and think this was a generational opportunity.