The Journal

At the top end of private education, the largest fees are usually found where schooling becomes residential. Parents are not paying only for lessons, but also for accommodation, supervision, meals, pastoral care, sport, university guidance and the everyday running of large boarding campuses.

Whisky has long since moved beyond the pleasure of the glass. Its rituals are so familiar — the heavy bottle, the cut crystal, the slow pour — that we almost take them for granted. At the very top end, rare whisky now sits comfortably beside art, watches and jewellery, valued not only for what is in the bottle, but for scarcity, provenance, design and the patience behind it.

Long before it became one of Dubai’s most recognisable landmarks, the Dubai Frame was a competition idea by Fernando Donis. The proposal was disarmingly simple. Instead of adding another tower to a skyline already crowded with them, it offered a frame through which old and new Dubai could be seen.

Even regional uncertainty, it turns out, is not enough to keep the world's wealthiest buyers away from a good address.

A decade ago, the UAE’s most expensive homes were often described through the usual markers of luxury like marble staircases, private cinemas, pools, garages and beachfront views. Those things still matter, of course. But at the very top of the market, they no longer explain the price on their own. The real money now attaches to something harder to repeat, such as a rare plot, a protected view, a serviced address, or a piece of coastline that has become all but impossible to recreate.

Dubai’s short-term rental market has moved well beyond the early phase of holiday-home investment. What began as an alternative to hotel stays is now a mature part of the city’s residential landscape, shaped by tourism, business travel, relocation demand and a steady appetite for furnished homes.