The ones worth investing in. And honesty about the ones to skip.
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An apartment in Dubai gets sold as a lifestyle. The skyline view. The nice pool on the 40th floor. Many of those promises are real. What the Instagram post leaves out is that two apartments in the same tower can be a fine home and a bad buy, and telling them apart is not always easy. You simply have to know this market from the inside. That's why we have a strong partnership with a building company and manage our own buildings here. Browse what is listed above. And please talk to us before investing in apartments in Dubai.
Get in touch01 / DG Capital
You buy the apartment. But you live with the building. And a lot of what decides whether that apartment was a good idea has nothing to do with the apartment itself.
Take service charges. Every tower bills you per square foot each year for upkeep, and the range is big. A cheap-looking unit in a badly run building can quietly hand back its whole yield in charges, or leave you paying for a gym nobody fixes.
Then there's who else owns around you. When half a tower gets flipped to short-stay rentals, you get the noise, the suitcases in the elevator, the wear, and the good long-term tenants drift off.
The finishes matter too: those balcony pools and designer lobbies? Those are the first things to look tired when the developer cut corners.
02 / DG Capital
Look, in Dubai neither is automatically better than the other. Both can work and both carry different risks.
01
Obviously you can walk into a ready apartment, you feel the light and the noise, you rent it out from day one. And right now, it often costs less than a comparable off-plan unit, just as resale homes elsewhere tend to be cheaper than new builds.
02
Off-plan lets you pay in stages as the tower goes up, but you're trusting a render and a completion date. Its real advantage is timing: buy in at the very start of a new community, and if the area develops well, later buyers won't get units at the price you paid.
are the value end, where most first apartments get bought. Solid rental demand. Sensible prices, but still maturing, with construction and traffic you’ll live alongside for a while.
are liquid and always in demand, though you’re paying a premium, sharing the place with a lot of tourists, and carrying higher service charges.
is central and dense, good for renting, a little less peaceful to permanently live in.
are the lifestyle tier and genuinely lovely, with a brand markup baked into the price and running costs to match.
It depends. Known a few years ago as early-bet-areas, the times have changed. Some prices aren’t attractive anymore – you should talk to people who know the market very well.
The most important thing in real estate is understanding the market, and we know the Dubai market very well. With 15 years of experience we never changed our approach to be the ones who truly stand by the side of our customers.
15
Years in Dubai real estate
86%
of our tenants renew
RERA
Licensed, based in Dubai
Metrical Developments
Our building partner
Second reason: We have our own big investment projects. Together with our building partner Metrical Developments, we realize buildings with units who meet the need of investors. Our management keeps a tower residential instead of letting it slide into a short-let hotel. And that's a big reason our tenants tend to stay: 86% of them renew. We're RERA licensed, based in Dubai, and we'd rather show you nothing than an apartment we wouldn't live in or want ourselves.
Get in touchFAQ
Four things people skip:
Note: A great apartment in a neglected or half-Airbnb'd building is a worse buy than an ordinary apartment in a well-run one.
Ready if you want certainty, rent from day one and, at the moment, often a lower price than comparable off-plan units. Off-plan if you want staged payments and the chance to get into a new community early, before prices rise, and can carry the wait.
They're the annual fee every Dubai building charges per square foot for maintenance, security and shared facilities, and they vary enough between towers to make or break the numbers. A low purchase price means little if the charges are high or the building is run into the ground. We factor them in before you buy.
It depends whether you'll live in it or rent it out. To live in, established communities with amenities and less construction tend to feel better day to day. To rent, you want proven tenant demand and manageable service charges.
Yes, with a holiday-home permit from Dubai's tourism department, and in the right building it can earn well. The catch is the flip side of the same coin: a tower full of short-lets is a worse place to live and can drag on long-term value. We'll be straight about which buildings suit short-term rental and which you'll regret buying into for it.