Featured Image Credit: Knight Frank/Andriy Popov / Alamy Stock Photo
Topics: World News, Money
Emily Brown
Topics: World News, Money
Ever thought about how much you'd pay for a bit of sand? $1? $5? How about $34 million?
For most people, the most they'd be willing to fork out to get their hands on a bit of sand would probably be whatever it takes to make the trip to the beach.
And that's only usually because there's the promise of sunbathing, swimming in the sea and ice cream involved.
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If you're within walking distance of some of the golden stuff, why pay anything at all?
Well, it turns out the location of the sand can play a big part in how much people are willing to pay for it - and on Dubai's Jumeirah Bay Island, a stretch of beach can go for millions.
The man-made, seahorse-shaped island is located away from the mainland, but is accessible by a bridge for those ready to sink their toes into the expensive ground.
On the plot in this story, there are no villas with an ocean view, no bars, not even a little ice cream truck. It's just a 24,500-square-foot empty beach - but still one person was willing to pay 125 million dirhams ($34 million/£42m) for it - and did exactly that on 19 April.
Working out at 5,000 dirhams per square foot deal, the brokerage on the deal, Knight Frank, said the sale was a record-breaker.
“It’s 125 million for sand,” says Andrew Cummings, head of prime residential at Knight Frank in Dubai, told Bloomberg.
“Everything that’s been making the press has predominantly been spectacular villas, it’s been incredible penthouses and all this stuff. But this is just a massive record breaker for a land plot.”
The buyer hasn't been identified, but they provided the seller with a tidy profit of 88.5 million dirham.
The previous owner paid 36.5 million dirhams for the same space two years ago, according to the Dubai Land Department, and simply sat - metaphorically - on the sand while its value went up.
Knight Frank’s Lyndsey Redstone, who worked as a broker on the pricey deal, explained: “Sellers are in quite a strong position at the moment to dictate where the prices are, because there are such limited options available for people to choose from, especially beachfront."
Cummings has explained that there were originally only 128 parcels of land up for sale on Jumeirah Bay Island, all of which were initially sold off years ago.
The sand's new owner, who doesn’t live in the United Arab Emirates, reportedly plans to make more use of the space than the previous owner as they are hoping to use it to build a family vacation home.