UAE's big cash business chance: On the back of your car

There are those who laugh off the craze, wondering what is in a number plate. But there are also those who see in the number plate a clever investment.

The highest price raised for a number plate was at an auction in Abu Dhabi, where number plate ‘1’ was sold for a world-breaking record of Dh14 million in 2008.

Million-dirham bids are not uncommon in the auction hall, and number plate value only seems to increase.

Mohammad Al Khouri, a Lebanese automobile dealer from Dubai visits the plate auction regularly. However, he could care less about the plate attached to his car. He comes there as an investor.

“It is a lucrative business. I never saw it as an investment option, but there is a lot of money going around here. People go at great lengths just to capture that particular number plate. If they cannot find it on the auction, they will try to hunt it down elsewhere,” tells Mohammad.

After he has spotted an attractive number plate Mohammad starts advertising it through several classified websites. He lets potential customers bid up against each other, until he is happy with the highest bid.

Waiting for a couple of months will increase the revenue of the investment. Although the mark up depends on the number plate and the buyer, a year-to-year increase of 100 per cent is not unusual. The British website Regtransfer.co.uk, exposing the mark up of 15 different number plates recorded a rise of 438 per cent at the highest (plate OBR 133N) and 45 per cent at the lowest (2 RRD), year-to-year.

“Among the buyers, most of them think of this as an investment,” says a frequent action-goer. “A unique number significantly increases in value over the years and can be resold for a considerable profit. Some investors buy art, or property to sell it off later. In the UAE they buy number plates.”

What constitutes value is sometimes difficult to say, but in general business people seem to agree that the less the digits, the higher its price. Single-digit plates do specifically well, but the lower two-digit combination also guarantees great demand.

"Repetitive digits are in demand too. The other day I saw a car with the number plate D 5050. No one else shared my total admiration for it, but that has to be the best number plate out there,” says a car lover on a forum about the best number plates on the road.

“It is important to know what is hot and what is not, and in order to do this you need to know what is on the market,” explains Mohammad.

“Distinguished number plates are not released just like that; it is carefully monitored what is on the market and based on that certain plates will be released, or held back. So for your investment to be successful you need to be on top of this.”

Or, you just need to be lucky.  Little did he know when Hussein Homsi, a Syrian sales manager in Dubai purchased his car with the number plate C 3636 thirty years ago.

“When I bought my car I did not realise that ‘C 3636’ would make me rich one day. At that time number plates were not fashionable as they are now. But when I became aware of this I started looking into the bids it would get. I have just sold it for Dh75,000,” says a happy Hussein.

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.