Every price-per-square-foot comparison between Dubai areas carries a hidden assumption: that the transfers behind each number are the same kind of sale. Often they are not, and the difference is large enough to invert a decision.
Dubai Land Department records whether a transfer is off-plan or a completed property. Across the eight areas we track, that split ranges from almost nothing to almost everything — inside the same 90-day window, inside the same bedroom count. Figures below are the 90 days to 2 August 2026, apartments only, with the transfer count behind each share.
The forward-sales end
JLT is the extreme. Of its 472 one-bedroom transfers, 83.1% were off-plan. Two-beds ran 84.1% of 276 transfers, three-beds 87.2% of 78, and even studios 57.0% of 86. Across every size, JLT's price line is built mostly from sales into buildings that are not finished.
DIFC is the same shape on thinner counts: 87.0% of its 54 one-bedroom transfers, 80.5% of 82 two-bedroom, 82.1% of 28 three-bedroom. No studio transfers were recorded in the window.
The completed-stock end
Dubai Marina is the opposite, and it is the reference point for the whole market. None of its 37 studio transfers were off-plan. One-beds ran just 10.4% of 221 transfers, two-beds 21.4% of 206, three-beds 20.2% of 94.
When you need a sanity check on what a finished Dubai apartment actually trades at, Dubai Marina is the area to look at — it is as close to a pure completed-stock signal as this data gives us.
Palm Jumeirah starts there and moves the other way as units get larger: 0% of 16 studio transfers, 27.8% of 36 one-bedroom, 33.0% of 91 two-bedroom, and 56.5% of 46 three-bedroom. Its three-bedroom market is now majority forward sales.
The middle
Downtown Dubai sits in a band between a quarter and a third throughout: 32.3% of 31 studio transfers, 23.5% of 162 one-bedroom, 29.0% of 138 two-bedroom, 36.2% of 58 three-bedroom.
Business Bay runs higher and peaks at one-beds: 35.3% of 187 studio transfers, 50.4% of 377 one-bedroom, 45.8% of 212 two-bedroom, 38.6% of 57 three-bedroom.
Dubai Creek Harbour and Creek Beach shows the cleanest gradient in the data: 51.0% of 192 one-bedroom transfers, 43.1% of 209 two-bedroom, 26.3% of 57 three-bedroom. That is a district visibly moving from forward sales into completed stock — and its yields are the most stable across bedroom counts of any area we track.
Why this changes what the number means
An off-plan price is not a market clearing price for an apartment you can rent out. It carries a handover date that may be years away, a payment plan that spreads the cost, and a developer's view of what the finished building will be worth. Buyers accept different terms for it, and pay differently because of them.
A completed-property transfer is a price someone paid for a building that exists, that can be inspected, and that can produce rent next month.
Put those side by side without noticing the difference and you can reach conclusions that are exactly backwards. JLT one-bedrooms transferred at a median AED 2,330.39 per square foot. Dubai Marina one-bedrooms transferred at AED 1,763.41. On the face of it JLT is the more expensive area for a one-bed — by nearly a third.
Now put the rent beside it. JLT one-bedrooms rented at a median AED 94.31 per square foot a year across 945 registered contracts. Marina one-bedrooms rented at AED 105.21 across 1,720 contracts. So JLT rents lower and transfers higher, which is why its one-bedroom gross yield reads 4.05% against Marina's 5.97%.
That is a real gap, but the honest reading is not "JLT one-beds are a bad investment". It is that the JLT price line and the Marina price line are measuring different populations of sale. One is dominated by forward sales into buildings that are not finished; the other by completed stock. The rent line, by contrast, is completed stock in both cases — you cannot register an Ejari contract on an apartment that does not exist yet. So the yield calculation is putting a completed-stock rent over a largely off-plan price.
The three questions this should make you ask
Am I comparing like with like? If you are choosing between two areas on price per square foot, check the off-plan share on both sides first. Where they differ by fifty or sixty points — Marina's 10.4% against JLT's 83.1% at one bed — the comparison needs qualifying before it can carry a decision.
What is the completed-stock price in the area I am actually buying in? The blended figure will not tell you. If the area runs 80%+ off-plan, the blended median is mostly telling you what forward sales cleared at.
What am I buying, and when does it earn? This is the part that gets lost. An off-plan purchase does not produce rent until handover. Any yield you calculate against an off-plan price is a yield you will not receive for as long as the building takes to complete — and the rent it eventually earns will be set by the market on that future date, not today's.
Where this is most worth checking
Palm Jumeirah three-bedrooms ran 56.5% off-plan across 46 transfers, at a median AED 12,215,260 and AED 4,340 per square foot — the highest per-foot figure we record, on the segment with the lowest gross yield in our data (2.84%). Both facts deserve to be read together rather than separately.
The honest limit on all of this
Off-plan share tells you the mix of transfers. It does not tell you the price of completed stock in an area where completed stock rarely trades — with 78 three-bedroom transfers in JLT and 87.2% of them off-plan, roughly ten completed sales sit behind the remainder. That is too thin to publish a separate median from, so we do not.
That is the disclosure, not a hedge: the count is the information. Where a segment is thin, treat the figure as directional and go and look at the specific building before you commit money to it.
The off-plan share, the transfer counts and the rent side all update weekly on our Market Gauge.
Sources, checked 2 August 2026
- Property sale transfers, off-plan flag, and registered rental contracts — Dubai Land Department open data, apartments only (flat, studio, penthouse), 90 days to 2 August 2026, via the Solayra Market Gauge feed.
- Every share is shown with the transfer count it was calculated from. Dubai Creek Harbour and DIFC recorded no studio transfers in the window.
Solayra Holiday Homes Management runs short and mid-term letting for owners and investors across some of Dubai’s most sought-after areas — including Dubai Marina, JBR, Downtown, DIFC, and Dubai Creek Beach. Every apartment is DTCM registered and priced against extensive market data, and you see the occupancy and every dirham as it earns. See what your apartment could be doing on the Market Gauge, read what we do for owners, investors, investment companies and agents & partners, or write to us at owners@solayra.com.
