Off Plan Buyers in Dubai Are Paying 27% More Per Square Foot Than Ready Buyers

We took 18,587 registered Dubai Land Department sales and compared off plan against ready for the same unit type in the same community. In 54 of 60 comparisons off plan cost more. The median gap was 27%. In six cases off plan was cheaper. Here is every number.

The headline number

Across the Dubai market, ready apartments registered at a median of AED 1,415 per square foot. Off plan registered at AED 1,742. That is a 23% gap.

But a raw market comparison is close to meaningless. Off plan sells more studios. Studios always cost more per square foot than three bedroom units. So part of that gap is unit mix, not price.

So we controlled for it. We compared ready against off plan only where both were in the same community and the same bedroom count, and only where each side had at least ten registered sales. That produced 60 clean comparisons covering 6,295 sales.

The median off plan premium across those 60 comparisons was 27%. Put the other way round, a buyer choosing ready stock over off plan paid about 21% less per square foot for the same size of home in the same community.

39 of the 60 comparisons showed a premium of 20% or more. 22 showed 40% or more.

The 25 largest gaps

Where off plan was actually cheaper

This is the part most articles leave out. In six of the 60 comparisons the off plan buyer paid less per square foot than the ready buyer.

Dubai Marina is the clearest case. One bedroom apartments registered at AED 2,401 per square foot ready against AED 1,833 off plan. That is off plan coming in 24% below the resale market, from 132 ready sales and 12 off plan sales.

Anyone telling you off plan is always overpriced has not looked at Dubai Marina. Anyone telling you off plan is always the smarter entry has not looked at Business Bay three bedrooms.

Why the premium exists, honestly

A 27% gap is not proof that off plan buyers are being cheated. Three real things sit inside that number and we are not going to pretend otherwise.

1. You are paying over years, not today

Most off plan in Dubai sells on a 60/40 or 70/30 plan across three to four years, often with a post handover tail. A ready purchase needs the full amount now, in cash or through a mortgage at prevailing rates.

Spread a 27% premium across four years of interest free instalments and a large part of it is the price of the finance, not the price of the property. That is the developer’s actual product. It is not free, but it is not theft either.

2. You are not comparing the same building

Ready stock in Jumeirah Lakes Towers, Silicon Oasis and Dubai Marina includes towers completed 15 to 20 years ago. Off plan is new. Newer buildings carry newer layouts, a developer warranty and no immediate refurbishment cost. Some premium for that is normal in every market on earth.

This matters most in the communities with the biggest gaps. Silicon Oasis studios at 96% and Dubai Production City one bedrooms at 93% are not like for like on age, whatever the bedroom count says.

3. You are taking construction risk

A ready apartment produces rent from month one. An off plan unit produces nothing until handover, and handover dates move. The premium is paid for a home that does not exist yet.

So should you buy ready instead of off plan?

We are a brokerage that sells both. We are not going to tell you one is always right, because our own data says it is not.

Ready is usually the better buy when

• You want rental income now rather than in three years.
• You can fund the purchase and the premium in your community is above 40%. Twenty two of our sixty comparisons were.
• You want to see the actual view, the actual finish and the actual service charge before you commit.
• You are buying where the ready market is deep and liquid, which usually means more transactions on the ready side than the off plan side.

Off plan is usually the better buy when

• The gap in that specific community and unit type is small or negative. Dubai Marina one bedrooms, Jumeirah Village Triangle studios and Jumeirah Lakes Towers studios all registered cheaper off plan than ready in this period.
• You cannot fund a ready purchase outright and the payment plan is what makes the purchase possible at all.
• The ready alternative in that community is materially older and would need work.
• You are buying a first release in a community with no ready stock, where there is no comparison to make.

How we did this

We downloaded the transaction file from the Dubai Land Department open data portal covering 30 June to 18 August 2026. It contained 29,284 records.

We removed mortgages and gift transfers, because they are not arms length sales. We kept residential units only. We removed records with a transaction value under AED 100,000, a size under 150 square feet, or an implied price per square foot outside AED 200 to AED 20,000, which are data entry artefacts rather than real sales. That left 18,587 sales.

Sizes are converted from square metres at 10.7639 square feet per square metre. All figures are medians, not averages, because a handful of very large sales would otherwise distort every community.

We used medians per community and bedroom count, and required at least ten registered sales on each side of every comparison before publishing it.

What this analysis cannot tell you

• It is 50 days, not a year. This is one window. It is a snapshot, not a trend. We will publish the same comparison every month so the trend becomes visible.
• It does not adjust for building age or quality. Bedroom count is a crude control. A 2008 tower and a 2029 handover are not the same asset.
• It does not adjust for payment terms. A dirham paid in 2030 is not a dirham paid today.
• Some communities are dominated by one project. Where a single developer launch drives most of the off plan volume, the off plan figure describes that launch more than it describes the community.

Frequently asked questions

How much more does off plan cost than ready property in Dubai?

Across 60 like for like comparisons of registered Dubai Land Department sales between 30 June and 18 August 2026, off plan cost a median of 27% more per square foot than ready property of the same bedroom count in the same community. The equivalent ready discount is about 21%.

Is ready property in Dubai 30% cheaper than off plan?

Close, but the honest figure is 21% cheaper on a like for like basis, which is the same thing as off plan being 27% more expensive. The 30% figure appears in individual communities rather than across the market. Business Bay three bedrooms, Palm Jumeirah two bedrooms and Silicon Oasis studios all showed gaps far larger than 30%.

Is off plan property in Dubai a bad investment?

Not by default. In six of our 60 comparisons off plan registered cheaper than ready. Dubai Marina one bedroom apartments registered 24% cheaper off plan than ready in this period. The premium varies enormously by community and unit size, so the question can only be answered for a specific community and unit type, not for the market as a whole.

Which Dubai communities have the biggest off plan premium?

In this period the largest like for like gaps were Business Bay three bedrooms at 135%, Palm Jumeirah two bedrooms at 121%, Silicon Oasis studios at 96%, Dubai Production City one bedrooms at 93% and Motor City one bedrooms at 87%.

Why is off plan more expensive if the property does not exist yet?

Three reasons carry most of it. The buyer pays over three to four years rather than immediately, which has a real financing value. The building is new, while much of the ready comparison stock is 10 to 20 years old. And the developer prices in the construction and delivery risk the buyer is taking.

Where does this data come from?

The Dubai Land Department open data portal, which publishes registered transactions. These are prices buyers actually registered, not asking prices advertised on property portals. Advertised prices and registered prices are different numbers and we label which is which on every page of this site.