Owning your own private island is pretty much item number one on your bucket list if you can afford it. Nicolas Cage has an island. Leonardo DiCaprio has an island. Now, you can have an island as well — assuming you’ve got a few hundred million dollars lying around.
Believe it or not, islands go up for sale all the time.
Seriously, just look at these listings . There’s something for everyone here, from a tropical oasis to rugged, pine-covered islands in the Great Lakes. You’ll just need a few hundred grand at the very least.
This one’s in a different category.
In order to afford View Island , located in the red-hot real estate market of the United Arab Emirates, you’ll probably need to move up a couple of tax brackets.
This will set you back £360m.
In American dollars, 360 million pounds works out to $463,490,000. You might want to round that up to half a billion dollars to cover, y’know, construction of your dream home and so on.
Why’s it so expensive?
The island for sale, View Island, is no ordinary island. For starters, it wasn’t there a few years ago. It’s one of five islands constructed in the Arabian Gulf for tourism purposes in 2013.
If you move there, you’ll have neighbors.
The larger chain of man-made islands is known as Al Marjan Island. The chain, just up the coast from Dubai, has a number of tourist attractions operating, but some are still under construction.
Why’s it selling for so much?
Honestly, this isn’t really intended to be a billionaire’s playground. The real value comes from tourism revenue. If a buyer handled things intelligently, they could recoup their investment several times over.
View Island is crucial to the island chain.
It’s described as the “heart and soul of Al Marjan”. Even though it’s still under development, it’s not empty — it’s already home to a couple of luxury hotels.
What else does it offer?
The whole island chain has 14 miles of coastline and four miles of beaches for travelers to enjoy the warm blue waters of the Arabian Gulf. Naturally, there’s a marina as well.
Taxes are favorable too.
Dubai has been open for business the past three decades, and View Island is no exception. Developers say the area offers a super-low tax rate, along with nearby airports for travelers.
It’s still somewhat of a work in progress.
But this can be seen as an advantage for an ambitious developer. It’s more or less a blank slate, in a major tourist destination with expensive real estate. The possibilities are there.
It’s not a total blank slate, however.
As a manmade island, it was specifically constructed to be easily accessible from land, and it has the infrastructure in place to build just about anything a developer might want.
It’s a way to get in on the ground floor.
True, £360m isn’t cheap — in fact it’s literally the most expensive island for sale in the world right now. But considering Dubai real estate prices, it could turn out to be a bargain.
Would you go for it?
I know, I know, nobody can afford it. But if you had, say, a billion dollars in your bank account, would you spring for it? Why or why not? Tell us in the comments!
