How do you find an apartment in Dahab?

Exhausted, I listen to Biohazard. It fits like a glove. For two months I’d searched in vain for an affordable flat in Dahab for our little family. Flat prices in Dahab had been high for a long time. This year, monthly rents have finally broken through the sound barrier into full-blown madness. Greed and arrogance are killing a paradise. It is infinitely sad.

No problem has just one cause. Nor do the accommodation prices in Dahab. Supply and demand. Estate agents and millionaires. Egyptian wannabe ‘estate agents’ in all the Facebook groups are advertising prices of US$3,000 and more for a month in a beachfront flat this year. A lovely two-bedroom apartment between the second and fifth rows starts at US$750. Further inland, you can get small, spartan and often dark rooms from US$250.

My personal highlight is the XXL barrel in the Lighthouse area. You know the one. Its 16 m² are available for a mere US$500 a month. The marketing, however, is in dire need of improvement. I suggest the advertising slogan: “Here, even yoga becomes porn”. The rate of rent inflation in Dahab has apparently been at 100% for years. Annually. Even foreigners are leaving Dahab because they can no longer afford it.

I’ve spent a quarter of my life travelling. For a long time. Now with a family. I’ve visited more countries around the world than I’ve missed out on. Never before have I searched so long and in vain for an affordable, nice flat for a month. Not luxury and not a ramshackle hovel, just mid-range. Neither in Thailand, nor in the Philippines, not in Hawaii, nor in the south of France or Tarifa have I ever wasted 35 hours and 200 messages on this. I have friends in Dahab. But none of them could help. Dahab is mad. So beautiful. And completely bonkers.

I’ve given up. We’ve booked a hotel and a camp with excellent reviews. We’d love to be in an apartment and support local families rather than international hotel chains. But if you can get a whole month in a four-star all-inclusive hotel in Dahab (with four flights :-) for less money than a beach apartment, then something’s not quite right, is it? The best idea I can think of? To skip one of the two flights for two two-week all-inclusive holidays in Dahab and only fly once.

I’ve got a joke for you:

Me: Hello, hotel in Dahab, can you give us a quote for a month?
Hotel: 6000.
Me: Egyptian pounds? With breakfast? For how long?
Hotel: US dollars. Without breakfast. One month.
Me: On booking.com I can book a month with you for $450.
Hotel: Ah. OK. Then make it $500.
Me: Let me think. Isn’t the point of haggling to get a better deal? Booking.com is cheaper, even on a daily basis. They take 14% from you. I’d much rather leave the money with you directly than with an online monopoly. But not if you’re more expensive than your resellers.
Hotel: Ok, then pay us directly, including tax. We’ll offer you a bigger room.
Me: Pictures, please!
The hotel sends exactly the same pictures as on Booking.com.

If you don’t want to cry after dozens of conversations like this, all you can do is laugh. Or scream. Or both. I don’t blame the ‘brokers’ or us foreigners alone. But when both sides come together on the internet, and especially in all those truly toxic Dahab Facebook groups, everything explodes – and everyone dies. That’s when clueless foreigners publicly ask for apartments at prices worthy of a world-class city. Publicly. That stirs up greed. A lot of greed. Facebook pushes that greed right to the top. Greed kills paradises. It always has.

Just for fun, I asked a lawyer who was aggressively advertising on Facebook with “Property investments in Dahab offer extreme returns”. He seems to be right. He wants $300,000 for his small house with two 40m² flats.

What can we all do to change this? First of all: share this post. Link to it. Spread the word. Everyone should find it and get informed. Currently, some idiotic blogs are seriously recommending searching for accommodation in the Dahab Facebook groups. That’s absolute nonsense! Instead, every visitor should first consider how their lowered Porsche will fare on Dahab’s speed bumps. Some laugh. Others cry. The rest shout, especially on Facebook.

Dahab has big plans. It is currently transforming into Egypt’s second Mediterranean coast. Egyptian lawyers are promising foreigners on Facebook, through targeted advertising, “incredible returns” on investments in new property in Dahab. They might soon be cutting off our kitesurfers’ air in the lagoon. Toxic as can be. The local population, some of whose families have lived in the Sinai for a hundred years or more, are increasingly being pushed to the outskirts of Dahab.

I love the wind in Dahab. The mountains. The sea. Dahab is beautiful. But the people are becoming increasingly ugly. The apartment that cost $450 in October is now $650 in March. By autumn, he’ll definitely be asking for $900. People, be beautiful again! Be sensible! Spend your money on what’s worth it to you. But don’t bring paradise down through arrogance and greed.

How do you find an apartment in Dahab?

• Forget all the Dahab Facebook groups! That’s the most important thing. I received several offers from ‘estate agents’ who claimed to be the owners. Later, they themselves admitted it ‘belongs to a friend’. Even if you do manage to get hold of a genuine owner, you’ll just waste endless amounts of time here. In my case: 35 hours and 200 messages – and I really wasn’t asking for much.
• Never book anything without inspecting the accommodation in person. I’ve been travelling to Egypt on and off for 25 years. There’s hardly a country where photos differ more from reality. The photos are often straight out of One Thousand and One Nights. Book a cheap hotel for a few days via Booking.com and look for suitable flats once you’re there. No hot water, no internet, the filthiest kitchen ever, plaster falling from the ceiling, cockroaches in the bathroom, the whole room stinking of sewage through the drain, everything broken – yet the pictures and reviews looked great.
• Please don’t post publicly what you high-earning New Yorkers are willing to pay for a small beach apartment in Dahab. Instead, say “low budget” or “luxury”. The standard price for a simple apartment near the beach was still around $200 in 2022.
• If you really must post in those toxic Facebook groups, then post exactly what you’re looking for: location, size, rooms, washing machine, Wi-Fi, etc., and ask for the location, photos and price straight away for all offers. Anyone who doesn’t provide this information IMMEDIATELY in their FIRST reply is either trying to hide something – or wants to charge far more than the flat should cost.

My thanks go to many dear friends who tried to help us. To my lovely taxi driver (only a 30% increase within a month). To my friends from England, Egypt, and the USA. And simply to everyone who clearly stated what they wanted – instead of wasting my time with dozens of messages and demanding a decision without quoting prices. We’re now travelling to other countries again. Countries where apartment prices aren’t completely crazy…