Off-plan costs more than ready in every Dubai area we can measure

The standard argument for buying off-plan in Dubai is that you get in cheaper. Pay early, pay in stages, and let the developer's launch price do the work while the building goes up.

We checked it against the register. Every residential sale the Dubai Land Department has recorded, 1,128,438 of them, with the last twelve months read separately. The argument does not survive contact with the data.

Off-plan is the more expensive half of the market

In the twelve months to 15 July 2026, the median Dubai apartment sold off-plan at 1,828 AED per square foot. The median ready apartment sold at 1,384. That is a 32 percent premium on the unbuilt one, across 121,248 off-plan sales and 37,412 ready ones.

Villas are closer but point the same way: 1,772 off-plan against 1,533 ready, a 16 percent gap.

In all 30 areas we can measure, off-plan cost more

The citywide number could be a mix effect. Off-plan launches cluster in new districts, ready stock sits in old ones, and comparing the two across the whole city compares neighbourhoods as much as it compares products. So we cut it area by area, and only kept areas with at least 150 sales of each type.

Thirty areas qualify. In thirty of them, off-plan is more expensive per square foot. Not one area anywhere in Dubai, at this sample size, is currently selling unbuilt apartments below the price of finished ones.

Area (as the register names it)	Commonly called	Off-plan AED/sqft	Ready AED/sqft	Premium
Nad Al Shiba First	Meydan Racecourse	3,524	1,572	+124%
Al Hebiah Fifth	Damac Lagoons, Remraam	1,838	931	+97%
Dubai Investment Park Second	Dubai Investments Park	1,462	751	+95%
Al Hebiah First	Motor City	1,945	1,000	+95%
Marsa Dubai	Dubai Marina	3,809	1,971	+93%
Al Warsan First	International City Phase 1	1,231	650	+89%
Wadi Al Safa 5	Dubailand Residence Complex	1,486	817	+82%
Nadd Hessa	Dubai Silicon Oasis	1,692	942	+80%
Al Thanyah Fifth	Jumeirah Lakes Towers	2,420	1,462	+66%
Madinat Al Mataar	Dubai South	1,660	1,066	+56%
Al Hebiah Fourth	Dubai Sports City	1,444	932	+55%
Burj Khalifa	Downtown Dubai	3,811	2,539	+50%
Business Bay	Business Bay	2,711	1,868	+45%
Al Barsha South Fourth	Jumeirah Village Circle	1,569	1,301	+21%
Al Wasl	City Walk	3,269	2,791	+17%
Al Khairan First	Dubai Creek Harbour	2,589	2,341	+11%
Hadaeq Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid	Dubai Hills Estate	2,444	2,312	+6%
Al Merkadh	Meydan, Sobha Hartland	2,110	2,051	+3%

The full thirty-area table sits in the data behind this report, and we will send it to anyone who asks.

What the size of the gap actually tells you

The interesting number is not the premium. It is the spread of the premium, from 3 percent to 124 percent, because the two ends mean different things.

Where the gap is small, the ready stock is new. Dubai Hills Estate at 6 percent, Meydan and Sobha Hartland at 3 percent, Dubai Creek Harbour at 11 percent: these are districts where the finished buildings were finished recently, to a similar standard, by the same developers. A buyer there is choosing between two versions of nearly the same thing, and the register says the unbuilt version carries almost no premium at all.

Where the gap is enormous, you are not looking at one market. Dubai Marina's ready median of 1,971 is set by towers from 2005 to 2012. Its off-plan median of 3,809 is set by a handful of new waterfront launches. International City Phase 1 at 650 against 1,231 is the same story in the other price bracket. The 93 percent and the 89 percent are not the cost of buying early. They are the price of a different building.

That distinction is the whole practical point. A premium of 3 to 20 percent is a decision about time and cash flow. A premium of 80 to 120 percent is a decision about which building you want, and the off-plan discount argument has nothing to do with it.

What we are not saying

We are not saying off-plan is a bad purchase. A payment plan that defers half the price until handover has real value, and buyers pay for that value in the headline price, which is part of what this gap is. Nor are we saying the premium will not be earned back by the time the building completes: two of those years are unrecorded future, and the register cannot see them.

What we are saying is that the sentence "off-plan gets you in cheaper" is not true of Dubai in the twelve months to July 2026, in any area large enough to measure. If it is being used to justify a purchase, the number to ask for is the ready price per square foot in the same area, and then the question is whether the difference is 5 percent or 90 percent.

You can check any specific project against its own area on our off-plan register, and the resale listings show what finished stock is being asked for in the same places.

Use these numbers

Every figure here is free to reproduce with attribution and a link back to this page. If you want the full thirty-area table, a single area's history, or this cut for a particular developer, ask us and we will send it.

This is issue 2 of the Doment Dubai Data Report. Each one takes a claim the market repeats and answers it by counting.