DUBAI: For as little as 500,000 dollars you can buy your own home on an island off the coast of Dubai, an island that has been built in the shape of a palm tree.

If it seems like a fantasy island, keep dreaming, because its real. Hamza Mustafa, a sales executive at the Palm in Dubai says: “There’s a palm tree in the water off the coast of Dubai, the biggest manmade island in the world, the Palm Jebel Ali, which is 750 hectares of land.”

The homes Mustafa offers won’t be ready until 2005. His customers can only see the Palm as a model, or from satellite photographs that show the shape of the palm tree emerging from the shallow waters off the Imoted Aran Emirates.

But that hasn’t stopped Mustafa from selling condos and villas to Americans, Europeans, Arabs and Asians. The first 2,000 have sold for between 500,000 dollars and 1.4 million dollars.

With a big laugh, Mustafa says, “It’s open to anybody who has money.”

The government of Dubai owns the Palm development and when homes there went on sale in May 2002, Dubai announced that foreigners could now own select property outright. That’s a first in the history of the UAE.

According to Elaine Jones, managing director of Aesteco property management, a development consultancy in Dubai, “The whole business of real estate has changed dramatically over the last 18 months because the possibility of foreigners being able to own property has changed the whole way forward.”

This city of nearly two million people is situated in one of the driest desert climates on the planet. Even so, the construction boom all along the outskirts of the city is phenomenal, spreading out along the desert coastline of the Gulf.

There are even plans for the world’s first underwater hotel, and another artificial island in the shape of a map of the world.

Jones expects that 18 to 35,000 new residential properties will come onto the market in the next three years and that most will be bought by foreigners. This building boom has made Dubai the fastest growing city on the Arabian peninsula.

Given the fact that Dubai regularly endures summer temperatures that top 45 degrees Celsius, the appeal of this city may not be obvious. But after September 11, some home buyers thought Dubai, with its stable government, looked like a safe place to invest their money.

“I think understandably a lot of money came in from Europe and the Americas after 9/11 and has been invested here, but I couldn’t possibly quantify it,” says Jones.

Linda Mahoney came from Canada more than 20 ago and is the managing director of the real estate company, Better Homes. She says Americans are also coming because Dubai is very cosmopolitan.

Dubai’s population is nearly 90 per cent foreign, hailing from practically every country in the world. The nearby industrial park of Jebel Ali looks like a who’s who of corporate America. CNN, IBM, General Motors, Mastercard and Jockey are just a few of the dozens of American businesses that operate tax and duty free in Dubai.—dpa