Area ROI breakdowns, project overpricing signals, and developer track-record analysis. Data-driven — not promotional.
* month to date. The median moves with the mix of units sold, not only with prices.
Off-plan sales, January to November 2026. Click an area for its full breakdown.
Percentage complete as reported to the DLD, 5 Nov. 15 projects left out: the register shows an impossible figure above 100%. Anything well short of complete this late in the year will not hand over on time.
Payment plans are the primary sales tool in Dubai's off-plan market. Developers compete aggressively on structure — 60/40 post-handover, 1% monthly instalments, 80/20 with handover balloon. Some of these structures genuinely improve investor returns. Others are clever packaging that hides full pricing risk. This guide explains what to look for, what to avoid, and which developer structures are currently leading the market.
Developer Track RecordThis page counts, from the Dubai Land Department project register, how many of each major developer's projects are past the completion date the developer itself filed, and how many of those are still unfinished. The table is recalculated every morning from the register. It does not rate developers on opinion, and no developer pays to appear here.
Market SignalSearch for which Dubai projects are running late and you will find a great deal of writing about your rights when a project runs late, and almost nothing about which projects those are. The law firms explain Article 23 and the grace period. The portals explain that delays happen. Nobody names anything. The Dubai Land Department register can, because developers file a completion date and a construction percentage against every project. Read on 5 November 2026, it lists 321 projects with a completion date in 2026. For 160 of them that date has already passed and the project is not recorded as finished. That is 50% of this year's cohort, and it is a matter of public record rather than opinion. This page is re-read from the register every morning. Below is what it says today, including the projects furthest behind, with the caveats that apply.
Developer Track RecordMost pages about Ellington describe its design. This one uses the Dubai Land Department record instead: what buyers paid in 2026, the completion date Ellington filed for each project, and how far construction has got. The DLD recorded 2,660 off-plan sales across 18 Ellington projects between January and October 2026 (sales snapshot of 26 October). Prices run from AED 1,459 per square foot at Windsor House in Dubai South to AED 3,458 at The Meriva Collection on Dubai Islands. On the register read on 30 October 2026, five older Ellington projects have passed their filed completion date without being recorded as finished, and every Ellington project on the register shows an open escrow account.
Buyer GuideThe purchase price is only part of the cost. This guide separates official Dubai Land Department fees from an example broker commission and explains what overseas buyers should check. The worked example is for a ready apartment bought through a registration trustee, with the buyer paying the full transfer fee by agreement; actual costs depend on the transaction.
Area ComparisonIn Dubai Land Department off-plan apartment sales from January to October 2026, the median one-bedroom sale was AED 1,141,021 in JVC and AED 1,209,633 in JVT. These are separate groups of recorded sales, not matched apartments or current asking prices.
Developer Track RecordMost Binghatti project lists are copied from the developer's own marketing. This one is built from the Dubai Land Department register and recorded sales. Read on 27 October 2026, Binghatti had registered 16 projects and 13,891 units in 2026, about 2.5 times the next developer; 3 of those projects had no open escrow account; and of its older projects on the register, 12 were past the completion date filed with the DLD and not yet finished.
Developer Track RecordBinghatti and Ellington are often set against each other as speed against quality. The Dubai Land Department register lets you check the parts of that story that are on record: how many projects each has, how far they are built, whether they are past the completion date the developer filed, and what buyers paid. Read on 27 October 2026, Binghatti had 35 projects on the register and Ellington 8; neither had one cancelled.
Developer AnalysisEmaar and DAMAC are the two developers most buyers compare first. This page sets them side by side on public records only: Dubai Land Department sales and registrations, the DLD owners-association register for service charges, and company facts from official announcements. It does not grade either developer. The table reads the latest copy of each DLD dataset we hold, and each row says when that data was read.
Market SignalDubai approved the AED 9bn Metro Gold Line in April 2026: 42km, 18 underground stations, opening 9 September 2032. Buried in the station list is the part that matters for off-plan buyers — JVC, Arjan (Miracle Garden), Business Bay, Meydan, Al Barsha South, Dubai Production City, Dubai Hills, Nad Al Sheba and Mina Rashid all get stations. Several are affordable communities that have never had metro access. This page maps every station to the communities and projects it touches, and we log the price benchmarks now so the before-and-after is on the record.
Area ROIJumeirah Village Circle is the default answer for Dubai yield buyers, and most guides quote a 7% yield for it. The records say something more useful. Setting new rent contracts registered with Ejari (July to September 2026) against what buyers actually paid at the Dubai Land Department (January to September 2026), a new one-bed in JVC yields 5.6% gross and a resale one-bed 6.5%. The gap between those two numbers is the whole off-plan versus resale question.
Area ROISobha Hartland and Dubai Hills Estate are the two master communities most buyers weigh against each other off Al Khail Road. On Dubai Land Department sales from January to September 2026, new-build homes in Sobha Hartland sold at a higher price per square foot than in Dubai Hills Estate, AED 2,748 against AED 2,464, while Dubai Hills apartments rent for more on new Ejari contracts. That combination gives Dubai Hills the higher gross yield on every unit size we can compare.
Developer Track RecordDanube is best known for the 1% monthly payment plan, and most lists of its projects come from that marketing. This one comes from the Dubai Land Department project register: the completion date Danube filed for each project, the construction progress the register reports, and the sales recorded in 2026. Seven Danube projects are on the register. Four are 2026 launches completing in 2029. The other three, Sportz in Dubai Sports City and Viewz 1 and 2 in JLT, have already passed the completion dates Danube filed.
Developer Track RecordHRE Development has four projects on the Dubai Land Department register, but they are large: about 4,870 units between them. Skyhills I is finished, Skyhills II is nearly done, and Sakura Gardens, launched in 2026, is the biggest of the four at 1,429 units.
Developer Track RecordImtiaz registers each building through its own company (Imtiaz Ja, Imtiaz Ghd, Imtiaz Cove and others), so its projects are easy to miss on the Dubai Land Department register. Taken together, Imtiaz has 20 projects on the register: three finished in 2026, a cluster of four Raw District buildings that are among the best-selling launches of the year, and smaller buildings across Dubai Islands, Dubailand Residence Complex and JVC.
Developer Track RecordAll six Nshama projects on the Dubai Land Department register are in Town Square (Al Yelayiss 2 on the register), and all six were registered in 2026. None has started construction on the register yet. Completion dates run from May 2028 to May 2029, and prices sit between about AED 1,540 and AED 1,940 per square foot.
Developer Track RecordObject 1 builds compact towers in JVC, JVT and Al Satwa, registered under Object One Real Estate and Obj1 Real Estate Development. The Dubai Land Department register lists 12 of them. The gap to watch is between filed dates and progress: several Object 1 towers are filed to finish in 2026 while showing between 10% and 55% built.
Developer Track RecordSalman Khan Towers is the name people are searching for after GB Realty and Jacob & Co announced a luxury housing project on Airport Road, Mohali, with two of its towers carrying his name. Prices have not been published yet. This page sets out what is confirmed about the Mohali towers, and then the part you can act on today: the Dubai projects his name and his Mohali partner are already attached to, with what buyers actually paid, in rupees. What Salman Khan owns personally is not public; the Dubai Land Department does not publish owners' names. Endorsements sell launches. What they do to the price is a different question, and the Dubai Land Department's sales records answer it: for each star-linked project, this compares what buyers actually paid per square foot with the rest of its district in 2026.
Developer Track RecordSamana Developers is known for pools on balconies and long payment plans. On the Dubai Land Department register it has 18 projects under a dozen Samana companies. They split into two groups: older JVC, Arjan and Studio City buildings that are past their filed completion dates, and a wave of 2026 launches, mostly in Jabal Ali Industrial Second, completing in 2029.
Developer Track RecordEvery "top 10 Dubai developers" list is somebody's opinion. Bayut's own guide says outright that it is not a ranking, Sotheby's is an editorial pick, and the sites that do claim to rank by delivery are usually selling something. This one is counted: 713 projects on the Dubai Land Department register, grouped by who registered them. It ranks scale, not quality — and the most useful number on this page is that 308 of the 418 developers on the register have exactly one project.
Buying GuideWhen you buy an off-plan property in Dubai you do not get a title deed. You get an Oqood registration, and the title deed only exists once the building is finished and the unit transfers to you. People go years without realising the difference, and some find out at handover that the registration they assumed was done was never filed. Checking takes a few minutes and you can do it yourself.
Project Analysis22 off-plan projects appeared on the Dubai Land Department register in the last 30 days, to 11 Oct 2026. One of them already has an open escrow account; the rest do not yet. Together they are recorded at AED 2.42bn. The busiest area was Madinat Al Mataar with 5. This list comes from the register itself, not from developer press releases, so a project is here on the day the Land Department records it.
Buyer GuideEvery off-plan project in Dubai is supposed to sell through an escrow account — a ring-fenced bank account, one per project, that your payments go into and that the developer cannot freely draw from. That is the law. It is not the reality of every project you will be shown. We read the DLD project register on 1 October 2026. Of the 387 projects registered for 2026, 285 have an escrow account open and 102 do not. Those 102 account for AED 25.73 billion of declared project value. Six of them have already started construction. A project without an open escrow account is not necessarily a scam — most are simply registered and not yet cleared to sell — but it is not a project you should be handing a cheque to, and some of them are being marketed anyway.
Market SignalAn escrow account is the legal gate for selling an off-plan unit in Dubai. Until one is open the developer cannot lawfully take your money. So "escrow is open" gets used in marketing as though it means the project is away. It does not. Reading the Dubai Land Department project register against the DLD transaction register, 72 of the 285 projects with escrow open have no recorded purchase at all this year — 25 per cent of them. Between them they carry AED 23.7B of declared project value and 19,435 filed units. This is not a list of bad projects. It is the gap between permission to sell and evidence of selling, and it is worth a question before you pay a deposit.
Market SignalA service charge is the annual bill every Dubai apartment owner pays to the owners association for running the building — security, chillers, lifts, pool, insurance, the reserve fund. It is charged per square foot of your unit, it is approved by RERA, and it is the one cost buyers consistently leave out of a yield calculation. It should not be a mystery. The Dubai Land Department publishes the approved rate for every registered owners association, and this page reads 1,532 residential buildings straight out of that register. No estimates, no agent figures, no averages borrowed from last year. The headline: the median is AED 17.05 per square foot. On a 900 sqft one-bedroom that is AED 15,350 a year, every year, whether the flat is let or empty. But the median hides the thing that actually matters — the spread.
Market SignalService charges are the largest controllable gap between a JVC apartment's headline yield and the income you keep. This page reads the approved rate for every JVC residential building on the Dubai Land Department owners-association register — 138 of them — rather than quoting a range and telling you to go and check. The median is AED 17.14 per square foot. On a 600 sqft one-bedroom that is AED 10,287 a year; on 900 sqft, AED 15,430. That is close to the Dubai-wide median of AED 17.05, which makes JVC an ordinary community on price — and an unusually risky one on spread.
Market DataUBS published its Global Real Estate Bubble Index on 25 September 2026 and Dubai's score rose to 1.16 from 1.09, fourth of the 23 cities surveyed, which the coverage turned into "bubble risk rises as price growth stalls". The Dubai Land Department register can test the second half of that sentence, because every off-plan sale is recorded there with a price and a size. Read month by month it says two things that sound contradictory: the typical price paid has fallen 39% since January, while the price per square foot has barely moved. Both are true, and the gap between them is the whole story.
Buyer GuideTo get a 10-year Golden Visa through property in Dubai you need a property bought for AED 2 million or more, and it can be mortgaged. That is the rule on the Dubai Land Department's own service page, last updated on 8 September 2026. The part most buyers miss is the document list: the DLD asks for a title deed, which an off-plan buyer only receives at handover. Below is the rule as the DLD states it, what it means if you are buying off-plan, and the 31 off-plan projects whose typical 2026 sale already clears AED 2 million, from 81,190 sales recorded in the DLD register up to 2026-09-18.
Buyer GuideDubai's off-plan market looks simple from the outside: pay a deposit, wait for the building, collect rent or sell. The reality involves RERA registration, escrow accounts, DLD fees, SPA review, and a landscape of developers ranging from government-backed to newly launched. This guide gives you the information to buy correctly — not just the marketing version of how it works.
Area ComparisonArjan and JVC cost almost the same per purchase — a median AED 1,078,000 against AED 1,066,939 — but Arjan is about 9% more expensive per square foot, at AED 1,717 against AED 1,573, according to the Dubai Land Department transaction register, off-plan sales January to 17 September 2026. The reason is what sells: 45% of Arjan's recorded sales are studios, while JVC's largest category is the one-bedroom at 50%. Smaller units carry a higher price per foot, so the same budget buys noticeably less space in Arjan. The two are neighbours in Al Barsha South — Arjan is registered as Al Barsha South Third and JVC as Al Barsha South Fourth — which is why they are compared so often and confused almost as often.
Area ComparisonDubai Creek Harbour costs about 6% more per square foot than Dubai Hills Estate — AED 2,622 against AED 2,470 — and recorded 1,956 off-plan sales against Dubai Hills' 718, according to the Dubai Land Department transaction register, off-plan sales January to 17 September 2026. Both are Emaar master communities, which is why buyers weigh them against each other: Creek Harbour is the waterfront option near Ras Al Khor, Dubai Hills the green, established one.
Area ComparisonDubai Hills Estate costs about 36% more per square foot than DAMAC Hills — AED 2,470 against AED 1,810 — and its median off-plan sale is AED 2,543,395 against AED 1,270,170, according to the Dubai Land Department transaction register, off-plan sales January to 17 September 2026. The premium is not only price: Dubai Hills sells more space, with 39% of recorded sales two-bedroom and 17% three-bedroom, where DAMAC Hills is 62% one-bedroom. Both are villa-and-apartment master communities built by major developers — Dubai Hills by Emaar, DAMAC Hills by DAMAC — which is why they are compared.
Area ComparisonDubai Islands costs about 11% more per purchase than Dubai Maritime City — a median AED 2,869,230 against AED 2,590,500 — yet Maritime City is about 10% dearer per square foot, at AED 3,159 against AED 2,861, according to the Dubai Land Department transaction register, off-plan sales January to 17 September 2026. Dubai Islands sells larger homes at a lower rate per foot. The other contrast is supply: Dubai Islands recorded sales across 110 developments, Maritime City across 42.
Area ComparisonDubai South is about 10% cheaper than JVC per purchase — a median AED 959,000 against AED 1,066,939 — but about 7% dearer per square foot, at AED 1,684 against AED 1,573, according to the Dubai Land Department transaction register, off-plan sales January to 17 September 2026. The explanation is the unit mix: 47% of Dubai South's recorded sales are studios, which carry a high price per foot, while JVC is led by one-bedroom apartments. The lower ticket in Dubai South buys a smaller home. The bigger difference is scale. Dubai South recorded 12,309 off-plan sales across 106 developments; JVC recorded 4,248 across 150.
Buyer GuideA project sold to you as being in JVC arrives on your Oqood registration as Al Barsha South Fourth. Dubai South becomes Madinat Al Mataar. Dubai Islands becomes Palm Deira. None of this is an error — it is the difference between the name a developer markets and the cadastral district the Dubai Land Department files the land under — but almost nobody explains it, and it causes real confusion when the paperwork does not match the brochure. Below is the official DLD district for each community we could confirm. Every entry is checked the same way: we take projects we track in a marketed community and look up where the Land Department register files them. A district is listed only when at least two different projects agree.
Market SignalDubai home prices are being reported as falling year-on-year for the first time since 2021. The headline is a median, and a median moves for two completely different reasons: the same home costing less, or people buying smaller homes. Those are opposite conclusions for anyone deciding whether to buy, and the headline figure cannot tell them apart. The Land Department transaction register can. We pooled every recorded off-plan sale in 2026 — 79,459 rows with a price, January to 7 September — and took the median once per month over the whole pool. Between January and August, the last complete month, the median price fell 38.9%. Over the same months the median price per square foot fell 7.3%, and the median home shrank from 878 square feet to 703. In June the most-bought home in Dubai stopped being a one-bedroom and became a studio. That single change accounts for most of the number in the headline.
Market SignalReports this week describe Dubai preparing for tens of thousands of new homes by the end of the year. The number moves depending on who is counting, and it is almost always given in homes. The Land Department register cannot answer it in homes — it does not publish unit counts for this view — but it can answer a narrower question precisely, and that question is more useful anyway: of the projects filed to hand over in 2026, how many are actually close to being finished? Read on 2 September, the register lists 321 projects with a 2026 completion date. Four months remain. Eighty-seven of them are 90% built or more. Thirty-nine are under 20%, and eleven of those are logged at exactly zero.
Market SignalReports describe strong Dubai pre-sales for homes under construction, with demand keeping pace with supply. The first half of that is true and the second half is worth checking, because both quantities are published and neither requires an opinion. Counted from the Dubai Land Department register on 1 September 2026, buyers made 76,384 off-plan purchases in Dubai this year. Over the same period 373 projects were registered carrying 88,926 units. That is 16% more units registered in 2026 than were bought in 2026 — and it counts only this year's registrations, not the stock already in the pipeline from previous years. Meanwhile the monthly purchase rate has fallen in each successive quarter.
InfrastructureDubai will award AED 55 billion in contracts for the Al Maktoum International Airport expansion before the end of this year, reported on 26 August. That is the moment the corridor thesis stops being a forecast and starts being concrete poured. It is also the moment to ask what has already been committed on the strength of it, because the Dubai Land Department register answers that precisely. Across the eleven districts running from Madinat Al Mataar through Jebel Ali and Dubai Investment Park, buyers recorded 18,061 off-plan purchases in 2026 across 168 developments — 24.2% of every off-plan purchase made in Dubai this year. Nearly one buyer in four is already on this corridor. What the register also shows is the gap between when they take handover and when the airport arrives.
Area ComparisonThese two districts sit beside each other in the Dubailand belt, are built by the same developer, and transact within 4% of each other per square foot. Al Yelayiss 1 — the registered name for DAMAC Islands 2 — recorded 3,327 purchases in 2026 at a median of AED 1,822 per square foot. DAMAC Hills recorded 469 at AED 1,756. The difference between them is not price. It is that DAMAC Hills has a golf course, schools, parks, restaurants and residents today, and Al Yelayiss 1 has construction filed at between 0.18% and 0.33% against completion dates in 2030.
Area ComparisonThese two Dubai districts sell almost exactly the same product to almost exactly the same buyer, at more than double the price. Business Park — the Mercedes-Benz Places and Binghatti City cluster in the Meydan corridor — recorded 1,556 purchases in 2026 at a median of AED 3,581 per square foot. City of Arabia, in the Dubailand belt, recorded 2,105 at AED 1,714. In Business Park, 67% of recorded sales were studios. In City of Arabia, 71%. Neither district is selling family homes. Both are selling small investor apartments, and one of them costs 2.1 times as much per square foot than the other.
Area ComparisonBoth of these districts are priced on the same idea — that Al Maktoum International Airport and the Jebel Ali corridor will reshape southern Dubai through the 2030s. Both transact at almost identical rates: Dubai South at AED 1,596 per square foot across 10,732 recorded purchases in 2026, Downtown Jebel Ali at AED 1,546 across 1,280. A 3% difference. What is not similar is what you are buying into. Dubai South has 69 developments recording sales this year. Downtown Jebel Ali has 9.
Market AnalysisThe AED 220 million sale of Villa Avatea at Amali Island was reported this week as one of Dubai's largest residential transactions of 2026. We checked it against the Dubai Land Department register and the claim holds — it ranks fourth among built-property sales, and only four transactions all year reached that level. Pulling the data to verify one villa surfaced something larger. Across all 110,169 Dubai property sales recorded in 2026 to date, transactions filed as land account for 7.8% of the count and 36.2% of the money — AED 124.6 billion. The single largest deal of the year was not a penthouse. It was a AED 3,130,300,000 plot at Tilal Binghatti, more than seven times the biggest home sale. But 'land' in this register is a broader category than it sounds, and understanding what it does and does not contain changes how every headline Dubai total should be read.
Market AnalysisDubai's July off-plan sales figure made the rounds this week at around AED 16.8 billion. Reading the Dubai Land Department's own transaction register for the same month we count 9,621 recorded off-plan sales totalling AED 15.96 billion — close enough that the difference is almost certainly methodology rather than error, and small enough not to be the story. The story is what nobody published alongside the total: where those billions actually went. Across 896 projects and 101 districts the concentration is extraordinary. Madinat Al Mataar in Dubai South took AED 2.24 billion — 14% of the entire month — across 2,277 transactions. Jumeirah Second took AED 810 million from 21.
Developer Track RecordDubai's weekly transaction figures made the news this week on the strength of a single sale: a Binghatti apartment reported at around USD 17 million. Headline sales like that shape how a developer is understood, and Binghatti is increasingly written about as a luxury brand — Bugatti, Mercedes-Benz, Jacob & Co. We read the Dubai Land Department transaction register for every Binghatti development and found something the headlines do not show. Across 38 developments the company recorded 4,425 purchases in 2026, spanning AED 1,371 to AED 7,374 per square foot — a 5.4-fold spread inside one developer. And 2,546 of those purchases, 58% of them, are in developments where the median price is under AED 1 million.
Market AnalysisDubai completed 104 real estate projects worth over AED 111 billion in the first half of 2026, delivering 24,537 homes — the strongest half for handovers since 2008, reported across Gulf News, Khaleej Times, Arabian Business and others this week. The same coverage notes that new launches are slowing. Both statements are about the past. We read the Dubai Land Department project register to answer the question the numbers actually raise: what does the pipeline behind those handovers look like, and does it support another year like this one? The register holds 364 projects registered for 2026, covering 87,405 units and AED 105.1 billion. 138 of them are filed to complete in 2028. As of 21 August 2026, 90.1% of the entire cohort was logged at under 1% construction.
Developer Track RecordDubai attracted 186 new real estate development companies between January and mid-August 2026 — roughly 25 a month — according to Dubai Land Department figures reported this week. The coverage has treated that as a confidence story, and in one sense it is. But nobody has asked the obvious follow-up question: are they opening escrow accounts? We read the DLD project register for all 227 developers with a 2026 registration and checked every one. First-time registrants are more than two and a half times as likely to be selling without an open escrow account as developers with a track record, and AED 19.1 billion of declared project value sits behind that gap.
Developer Track RecordThese two get compared constantly because they appear to sell the same thing — accessible off-plan apartments on long, easy payment plans, to buyers who want in with as little capital as possible. The Dubai Land Department register shows they are not doing the same thing at all. Azizi recorded 9,988 purchases in 2026 at a median of AED 1,764 per square foot; Danube recorded 1,945 at AED 2,980. One sells volume at the floor of the market. The other sells a smaller number of considerably more expensive units on a payment plan that makes them feel cheap.
Developer Track RecordVincitore is a smaller Dubai developer with an unusually distinct product — ornate, European-styled buildings in a market where almost everything else is glass and grey. It runs three active developments: Aqua Dimore and Aqua Flora in Dubai Science Park, and Wellness Estate in Majan. Across all three the Dubai Land Department recorded 219 purchases in 2026. The prices people actually paid are considerably above the advertised entry points, and the payment plans are the most aggressive of any developer we cover.
Area ComparisonThese are the two districts a budget-conscious Dubai buyer ends up choosing between, and on price they are almost indistinguishable — a median of AED 1,137,429 in Dubai South against AED 1,084,951 in the Dubai Land Residence Complex, a difference of under 5%. Studios dominate both. What separates them is not what you pay. It is what you are betting on, how much supply is landing on top of you, and how carefully you need to check the developer.
MethodologyEvery statistic on this site comes from the Dubai Land Department's own open data — not from developer marketing, not from portal listings, and not from estimates. This page exists so that anyone, including a journalist or an analyst who wants to quote us, can see precisely how a number was produced and reproduce it themselves. It also sets out plainly what this data cannot tell you, because a source that only lists its strengths is not being straight with you.
Developer Track RecordThese are the two developers Dubai buyers compare when they have decided quality matters more than yield. On the measures the Dubai Land Department register can verify they look remarkably similar — both registered around 4,000 units in 2026, both have perfect escrow compliance, both sell at a premium. The differences are in shape rather than standard: Sobha builds three enormous projects, Emaar builds twenty-seven smaller ones, and one of them will hand your keys over three years sooner than the other.
Developer Track RecordBy recorded transactions, Azizi is the biggest seller of off-plan property in Dubai. The Dubai Land Department register shows 9,988 purchases across 58 Azizi developments in 2026, at a median of AED 731,881 or AED 1,764 per square foot — the lowest of any major developer. It also registered nine new projects this year, and one of them, at 1,276 units the largest, entered the register without an open escrow account.
Developer Track RecordDAMAC recorded 6,134 off-plan purchases in Dubai in 2026, second only to Azizi, at a median of AED 2,208,245 or AED 1,870 per square foot. Almost all of that volume came from one place: the DAMAC Islands 2 clusters, which between them account for more than 2,600 sales. It registered fifteen new projects this year — and two of them entered the register without an open escrow account.
Developer Track RecordSobha registered only three projects with the Dubai Land Department in 2026 — but they total 4,120 units and AED 4.36 billion, making it the second-largest developer by unit volume behind Binghatti. Buyers paid a median of AED 2,903 per square foot across 1,365 recorded purchases, well above the mid-market. Every escrow account is open. And the completion dates are the longest of any major developer: 2030, 2031 and 2032.
Market DataThis page reports what Dubai developers actually filed with the Dubai Land Department in 2026, rather than what they announced. Analysing the DLD's open project register as of 5 August 2026, we count 359 registered projects, 79,806 units and AED 103.0 billion in declared project value. One developer accounts for 13.7% of all units. And 102 of the 359 projects — 28% — had no open escrow account at the time of the snapshot. Figures on this page are recomputed from the register and dated; cite the snapshot date alongside any number you use.
Market SignalOn 9 September 2029, Dubai's Metro Blue Line opens with 14 stations across 30km — and three of them land inside International City, one of the cheapest freehold districts in Dubai. Metro access has historically been one of the strongest single drivers of rental and resale value in Dubai. This page records what these areas cost today, before the line opens, so the repricing can be measured rather than guessed at.
Market SignalAlmost every 2027 forecast you will read is written by someone who earns commission when you buy. This one is not. The central question for 2027 is simple and uncomfortable: Dubai is delivering an extraordinary volume of new homes into a market that has already run hard for four years. Here is what the supply numbers actually imply, which segments are exposed, and which are not.
Buyer GuideMost guides still repeat the old AED 750,000 rule as if nothing moved. Dubai's investor-visa framework was adjusted in 2026, and the practical effect is that the entry point for a property-linked residency is lower and more nuanced than the number most brokers quote. Here is what to verify before you buy a property specifically to get a visa.
Market SignalDubai has moved to formally regulate shared housing — bed spaces, partitioned rooms and multi-tenant apartments that hundreds of thousands of residents actually live in. Almost every article written about it so far is aimed at landlords and operators. This one is for the people living in these units: what changes, what protections you gain, and what it means for your rent.
Buyer GuideShort answer: yes. Foreign nationals can buy and fully own property in Dubai — you don't need to be a resident, and you can complete the purchase from overseas. Here's exactly how foreign ownership works in 2026, where it applies, and what you need to buy.
Buyer GuideForeigners can buy and fully own property in Dubai — no residency required, and you can buy from abroad. Since 2002, Dubai has allowed 100% freehold ownership for all nationalities in designated areas. This guide is the honest version: where foreigners can actually buy, what it really costs, the payment plans that make it accessible, how property links to the Golden Visa, and how to avoid the common traps — with real projects you can start from.
Buyer GuideA Dubai off-plan payment plan looks attractive on a brochure — '1% per month', '60/40', 'post-handover payment plan'. But the numbers rarely tell the full story. Understanding exactly when money leaves your account, what triggers each payment, and what happens if the developer delays is the difference between a deal you can manage and a deal that stretches you to breaking point.
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