Some of the leading property developers in the world headed to Lancashire for the Blackburn Dubai Property Expo.

The event was held over two days in the Glass Marquee at the Stanley House Resort and Spa and attracted Dubai property firms such as SRM Real Estate, Danube Properties and Mag 777.

The town of Blackburn may not be somewhere most people would think of when searching for investors for some of most luxurious properties on the planet.

But exhibitors said they had been pleasantly surprised with the calibre of people who had been visiting them who had genuine interest in the booming United Arab Emirates property market.

Riaz Munshi, who is originally from Blackburn, moved to Dubai and said he was delighted to be bringing the exhibition to the region. He revealed the location had been suggested to him by Blackburn’s Zuber Issa who was proud of his home town and the wider region.

Reeyaz Moosa, of SRM Real Estate, said: “Although I moved away 25 years ago it was great to be back and I do come back often and I have a lot of friends here.

Blackburn is an untapped market. People are interested in Dubai but nobody has come here to do an exhibition. So we thought why not?

There is wealth in the surrounding areas. We normally do the events in London, Birmingham, India and Pakistan, all over the world. 

We had about a hundred people come through the door and it was a lot of quality people.”

Exhibitors said they had had a steady flow of people coming to visit the hotel and it was ‘refreshing’ to meet potential customers from the North of England as many events of this type tend to take place in London.

Irram Al Ali, of Pantheon Development, is based on one of Dubai’s most famous stretches, Sheikh Zayed Road.

She said: “With a lot of our buyers from the north we thought it would be a good opportunity to meet the people of Blackburn and surrounding areas.

It was very much similar here (compared to larger cities) and I would say we had a lot more serious clients and ready investors. We have projects in the Jumeirah village circle with prices starting as little around £140,000 and there are also long-term payment plans.”

She said a lot of UK investors were seeing the benefits of investing in Dubai, adding: “They have seen the growth and maybe a lot of people have plans of actually moving out there eventually.”

David James, of Mag 777, which is based in Dubai Sports City, said: “Blackburn is a different location and actually leans well to the demographic of buyers that are coming to Dubai now.

So we know that the UK is the number one buying country for Dubai at the moment and has overtaken Russia and China. It has been good with the calibre of people coming through the door who were genuinely interested in buying in Dubai.

For us it is about building relationships with people and putting them on their journey and helping them along the way.”

Yasir Butt, of Danube Properties based out of London, added: “We have all kinds of properties – from affordable, luxury to ultra-luxury.

Starting prices are around £150,000. You can get fully furnished apartments and rental can be managed by the company itself. We have a lot of buyers from the UK so the main reason we have an office in the country to present to our UK clients.”