If you want to buy somewhere to live in you will need to put a lot of money in on top of the utilities allowance but you certainly don't need to spend 3M Dhs to get somewhere as nice as (say) Silicon Oasis or an apartment on SZ road if you don't have kids. The allowance will just about cover a mortgage of about 1M Dhs, on top of which you have you water and electricity, housing tax (sorry, "fee") and so on.
However, rental returns in Dubai are still excellent compared to the UK- I don't know about the rest of the world but I think Dubai is near the top. Let's face it, Dubai is a very landlord friendly place. If you want to get into the property market why not buy an apartment and rent it out? Rents can't keep going up at 15% a year every year for ever but it should still be better than the provident fund.