Loreto at DAMAC Hills

Furnished flats by the fairways

Loreto is one of the apartment buildings inside DAMAC Hills, the golf community DAMAC Properties built in Dubailand, and it is complete rather than coming. The apartments were handed over furnished: neutral schemes lifted with a little colour, and kitchens already equipped. For a buyer that removes the fit-out stage entirely, which is why buildings like this tend to appeal either to owners who want to move in over a weekend or to landlords who want a unit that can be listed as soon as the transfer clears.

The mix runs from studios up to three-bedroom apartments, so the building holds both single occupiers and families. What sits around it does the heavy lifting: DAMAC describes DAMAC Hills as a self-contained community of villas, apartments and hotels, built around the Trump International Golf Club Dubai, with parkland approaching four million square feet given over to themed areas: a skate park, stables, tennis courts, a football pitch, lakes and quiet gardens. The building itself runs to 43 storeys on the developer's own count, so the outlook changes considerably between the lower and the upper floors.

Because the building is finished, availability is a moving target: it depends on which owners are selling and on what DAMAC still holds. No starting price is published for Loreto, so a real figure only exists against a real apartment. Wincasa Properties, an authorised sales partner of DAMAC Properties, checks both sides and sends prices in writing. Contracts on developer stock are signed with DAMAC Properties, instalments go into the project's escrow account under Dubai Land Department rules, and the broker never takes purchase money.