The Italians are betting on the Arab brick. Travel to the rapidly growing Emirates, among futuristic skylines, favorable taxation and high incomes that attract European capital
The roaring spirits of the future have been meeting in the United Arab Emirates for years now. Dubai, the capital Abu Dhabi with its spectacular museums, the coastal emirate Umm Al Quwain gathered around the island of Siniya are growing at an impressive speed. They scale the sky with ever more daring skyscrapers, conquer areas of the Persian Gulf with artificial islands (here they call it Arabian, for honor of their country), transform desert areas into green destinations. All at cyclopean measures.
For example, our Milan with its skyline of glass and concrete seems like a little toy compared to what comes from nothing, thanks to feverish works that don’t stop even at night, in the new urban additions of Dubai and its surroundings. All you have to do is look out from a skyscraper – onto the always lively Marina with restaurants, lights, clubs, shops – to have the impression of being in Metropolis, the city that the visionary Fritz Lang described in the 1927 film, but without the shadows that that masterpiece put before everyone’s eyes. Nothing strange if such a reality, with a stable economy, streamlined bureaucracy and enviable security (there are no maranzas), acts as a driving force for the real estate market, attracting European investments.
Even tricolors: Italy is in fact among the first five countries to focus on this type of investment. Very simple: buy a house in Dubai, and in other areas of the Emirates. Buy it on paper, perhaps after a visit to the developers’ offices who show future urbanizations on gigantic models, true works of art in their own way.
They are not chosen by nabobs, even if the high-spending ones find what they want. A new and furnished two-room apartment, in residential towers and villas equipped with the same services as a five-star hotel (concierge, swimming pools, fitness areas, access to a private beach), costs 180 thousand euros, 260 thousand for a three-room apartment. We have no intention of waving the goodness of real estate investments in the Emirates, but it is not lost on us that similar prices are competitive to those in Italy (for example the high prices of Milan, or of a hundred or more tourist resorts in the Bel Paese) and can give interesting returns, putting the properties up for rent or reselling them in the short term given the practically guaranteed growth in value.
Telling us about the trend, and introducing us to some Italian investors, from the small mechanical industrialist from Turin, to a family from Brescia, to the Milanese who intends to move to Dubai to understand which business to set up, are the men of Gabetti Middle East, since 2022 the first Italian real estate brokerage group that operates locally as a partner agency of the Gabetti Group, operational since 1950, with a widespread network of over a thousand agencies. Since its founding, the UAE office has seen notable sales success, generating capital gains of up to 30 percent in two years for the buyer.
Ross Bellantoni, general manager of Gabetti Middle East, explains: «The investor who paid for the apartment on paper, let’s say 100 thousand euros, equal to 50 percent of the price, after just two years and shortly before the final balance is able to resell it for 230 thousand euros. The appeal is all there: we sell around 300 apartments a year, of various sizes. Our work in the Emirates paves the way for other international expansions. Gabetti International is being born, with offices in New York and Miami.”
Profitable, and not the last reason for the sales success, is also the rental of the purchased property, again managed by Gabetti Middle East. Not to mention the tax aspects, which are much less burdensome than in Italy. Fabio Bardelli, head of sales at Gabetti Middle East, says: «If previously Italians turned to us mainly to invest in Dubai, today the request turns to locations that are still little explored, but in strong development. Suffice it to say that in Umm Al Quwain, 40 km north of Dubai, with the creation of Downtown, a 20 billion dollar master plan which includes 11 km of coastline, 150 thousand new residents will arrive thanks to the opening of a new free zone area, the establishment of high tech companies and a new commercial cargo port. Last but not least, it is located 20 minutes from Wynn Al Marjan Island, where the largest casino in the world will be built, which will attract 20 million tourists a year. Those who choose Siniya, the Maldives of the Emirates, are instead looking for sea and nature, comfort and luxury at affordable prices.”
Some numbers make the excitement of this area better understood. In the first half of 2025, Italy exported goods worth approximately 2.28 billion euros, with an increase of 22.5 percent compared to the previous year. In the city of Dubai alone, Italians are third in the world in real estate transactions, after Indians and English, for a total value of around 35 billion euros. The Italian community in the Emirates numbers over 20 thousand people, with as many as 600 of our businesses. And tourists are growing strongly: in 2025 around 10 million, with a prevalence of Chinese and (look at that!) Italians.
Some will say: but the Emirates are a sort of big amusement park, all lights, when it’s not tacky. Wrong. In recent years, the tourist offer is not just that of the skyscrapers to look up at, or the dancing fountains that shoot water and music every evening on the artificial lake between the Dubai Mall and the Burj Khalifa. About 30-40 minutes from Dubai, in the desert, there is Terra Solis, a luxury campsite with elegant lodges, all dedicated to electronic musical culture, in collaboration with Tomorrowland, an international festival. Then there is Abu Dhabi, a city of profound culture, where the soul of the Emirates has the opportunity to fully express itself.
It is also a city of art, with a Louvre branch (in collaboration with the Paris branch) in the Saadiyat Cultural District: it is one of the most visited museums in the Middle East. And within this year, the contemporary Guggenheim museum will also open, designed by Frank O. Gehry, with an unmistakable shape that recalls the famous Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, also by the same architect.
