Our Deliberate Housing Decision in Doha

So let me first tell you that in the Middle East, a big draw, a big thing that companies do is pay for housing.

And that is something that I would say almost all employers do.

They either provide the housing for expats or they give you a housing allowance.

And I had the option to have either one.

So either I could receive a housing allowance and get my own accommodations or...

I could go with school provided accommodations.

And so that may sound like a crazy thing because I know like in the US, no one like pays your mortgage for you or pays your rent for you.

But you have to understand when you're picking up and leaving your life in your home country and you're coming over to a place like Doha, Qatar, one way that they can really draw people into doing that is by providing something above and beyond a salary because you have to draw people in.

And so housing and utilities are often included in the contract.

So that's something different about the Middle East, but it's not unique to Doha.

Like when I lived in the United Arab Emirates, it was the same thing.

They provided an apartment because it was just my husband and I at the time.

And then when I lived in Saudi Arabia, they provided an apartment again.

It was a two bedroom and it was actually like smaller than the one I had in the United Arab Emirates.

It worked.

And then also we are now in a position where we have four kids.

So when I was negotiating a contract, I was like, well, what kind of housing are they going to be able to provide for a family of six? Like that's a big family.

And even though we did live in a tiny house last year, as many of you who've listened for a while know, we downsized and we were in a tiny house last It's still a big family, you know, like I don't know that we could survive in like a two bedroom apartment.

And some employers are used to just having like a single person come over or a married couple or maybe a married couple with like one kid or two kids.

So I was very curious when I got my offer as to like, were they going to even be able to provide housing, etc.? ? So I definitely made sure I asked a lot of questions about housing.

And in the end, in my contract, I did negotiate a villa.

And a villa is typically in a compound, even though there are some that are not in compounds.

but typically a villa is in a compound and it is sometimes attached to others like a condo would be where you have like a three-bedroom or a four-bedroom house but they call it a villa it's sort of like a townhome there might be two of them connected to each other or there might be like three of them connected to each other it just depends on how they're built but It's not like an apartment building.

It's more like a condo that has its own separate entrance.

But sometimes they are connected to each other or you do share a wall.