If you are Hydra Properties customer – and there are 10,000 of you – the chances are you have plenty to say about the property market.
Chances are you made a serious amount of cash by buying and flipping. Or when the music stopped you were left holding the hot potato, and today find yourself staring at negative equity in a falling market.
Not to mention increased costs, change in unit sizes and mortgage and contractual problems.
So who is to blame? On Monday, in an unprecedented move, the CEO of Hydra Properties, Dr Sulaiman Al Fahim, agreed to take part in our first ever live web Q&A. Regardless of your views on Hydra, I think Dr Sulaiman should be applauded for doing so.
Sitting in front of a PC for two hours, scrolling through hundreds of questions, mostly from angry investors, is not fun. I was sitting next to him, and I know he didn’t enjoy it.
But he did it. While most of the questions were too specific to be answered in a live online session open to the public, his offer to meet every single dissatisfied Hydra investor is genuine.
And his promise to reply to every single question sent during the next two weeks is also genuine – he started doing so at 11.30pm on Monday night, and I have been copied on the replies. He said it, he meant it, and he is doing it.
Many of the issues brought up during the session are currently on the in-tray of Hydra’s new commercial director Ahmed Khalil. The letters demanding payment, and changes to contracts, emanate for Mr Khalil’s desk.
Again, investors have been invited to contact him at [email protected] to pursue their grievances.
If you have an outstanding bill with Hydra, or have other problems related to a purchase you made, then I suggest you also contact Mr Khalil.
His mobile number is +97150 458 2132, but you didn’t get it from me. He has placed himself in a Hydra hot seat, and as Dr Sulaiman did yesterday, he too now needs to provide some answers.
In a falling market, there are very few happy stories to emerge. You never hear anyone boasting of how well they have done, how much money they have made.
Only heartache, and some genuine personal tragedies. Some borne of out greed, some out of naivety, many out of bad timing.
Hydra has begun the process of addressing those stories, and on a case by case basis. I hope other big developers will follow suit.
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