In 2029, Dubai’s first skyscraper, the World Trade Centre, will turn 50 years old. When it was built, the 39-storey tower was an outlier, an ambitious spindle that stuck out in a low-rise landscape. Now it’s almost hard to see, dwarfed by soaring new additions. The first rash of those skyscrapers went up around the turn of the century, continuing until the Great Recession of 2008 upended the emirates’ fortunes.
Almost two decades later, Dubai is thriving. Residential sales in the third quarter of 2024 reached Dh120bn ($32.7bn), according to CBRE, and Knight Frank’s 2024 Destination Dubai Report projected the year’s spending by top-end homebuyers (those with a personal net worth in excess of $20mn) would hit $4.4bn, a rise of 76 per cent year on year. Its most recent Wealth Report, published this month, showed property prices in Dubai rose 147 per cent over the past five years. Savills has increased its Dubai team from 3 to 100. Dubai’s neighbouring cities are watching closely — in their different ways looking to emulate or distance themselves from Dubai in a bid to attract new residents.
One keystone of Dubai’s success has been in the more diverse profile of buyers, says Michael Lahyani, founder of PropertyFinder — the local answer to Rightmove or Zillow — largely thanks to the now six-year-old Golden Visa programme. It was introduced specifically to encourage foreigners to treat Dubai as more than just a tax-free pit-stop for a couple of years — and it seems to be working. After the Gulf Cooperation Council buyers came a flurry of Russians and Indians: “It’s for entertainment purposes, a place to go for a weekend,” says Lahyani.
In 2025, though, an increasing number of buyers are coming from Europe and North America. A recent study by migration consultancy Arton Capital, for example, flagged that 37 per cent of Germany’s wealthiest are now emigration-prone, with the UAE a prime destination. There is also a rise in American arrivals. Leigh Williamson is a Canadian who moved to Dubai 18 years ago, and has been a Sotheby’s agent for 11 of them; she says her client base has 20 per cent more Americans than a decade ago. Typical was the billionaire to whom she sold an apartment in one of the highest profile, internationally branded developments; they snapped it up as a convenient additional home within easy reach of both Europe and Asia. “We’re also seeing Iranian, Indian and Middle Eastern Americans moving back to the region to be closer to family,” she says Williamson.
“Buyers who bought to flip used to be the majority, but that’s changing,” says Lahyani. A rise in rental costs has also nudged more expats towards buying, he adds: “You can get anywhere between six and eight per cent yield unleveraged. So a lot of the buyers are buying to live in.”
Longer-term planning has reshaped construction, too, pivoting towards families. Shahab Lutfi is chief executive of H&H Development, which has worked on brands including Jumeirah and Four Seasons and its own branded residence, Eden House. “The demand for houses is very high — with what we’ve launched so far, we’re picking up lots of expats who live in Dubai but couldn’t find the right product,” he says, of the departure from identikit high-rises. Lutfi’s Eden Hills project launched in November last year and he says 130 houses have sold so far, starting from $5mn for a 7,446 sq ft property. Even when high rise developments are built now, there’s a shift towards larger homes. Lutfi’s initial floor plans for the first Eden House tower maxed out at three-bedroom apartments, but he now tells architects to include four- and five-bedroom options.
Behind the scenes, the government now regulates construction more rigorously, in order to offset the risk of repeating the crash that happened in the wake of the global financial crisis. “In 2007, Dubai was the Wild West, and heavily in debt,” says Sotheby’s Williamson. Andrew Cummings, head of residential for Savills Middle East, also notes that buyers have greater safeguards: “When you buy off plan now, all the money goes into escrow, and the land department is very regulated.”
Neighbouring cities are quietly taking note. Capital of the UAE Abu Dhabi has adopted a different approach to development — in part, thanks to the security of its vast energy stockpile (it has 96 per cent of the UAE’s oil reserves, and just surpassed Oslo to become the world’s richest city in terms of assets managed by sovereign wealth funds, with $1.7tn). The focus here is less on smaller apartments with maximum mod cons for mid-level execs, and more on larger, family-friendly footprints that will offer a true sense of both home and hideaway. It’s also reflected in the pace of day-to-day life. “It’s a lot more measured and not in a rush. There isn’t the hustle and bustle of Dubai,” says Michael Lahyani. “Families like it, and it has some of the nicest beaches, and hundreds of natural islands.”
Cummings says comparable properties are around 20 per cent cheaper there than in Dubai — up to around $800 per sq ft for the W Abu Dhabi on Yas Island, compared with $1,300 at the W in Dubai Harbour. There are occasionally even better bargains, he confides. “A 20,000 sq ft villa? I sold a client one in Dubai for Dh90mn [$24.5mn] and called them and said ‘Do you want to buy the same thing, but half price, in Abu Dhabi?’ ” Some of Williamson’s clients “are thinking they’d rather be up there and do the 45-minute drive down to the bling-bling fast-paced city for work, then go back to something a little more quiet,” she says.
Cash-rich Abu Dhabi has also staked a claim on cultural capital, with partner outposts of both Louvre and Guggenheim museums, intending for those to shorthand its perhaps more highbrow approach to high-end living. There’s more everyday fun to be had, too. “It’s turning itself into a lifestyle destination — the sheer number of times I’ve been in Abu Dhabi for events recently: we went to see Kevin Hart, Ed Sheeran and Michael McIntyre there,” Cummings says.
Elsewhere in the region, it’s a different story. Qatar, which has so faithfully followed Dubai’s template in its gleaming built environment, hasn’t seen the same surge in real estate sales. In part, that’s because it is less expat-friendly than Dubai — attitudes towards alcohol remain conservative, for instance — but it’s also thanks to the lack of tourism. “Tourism to Dubai breeds familiarity,” says Cummings; moving to the Gulf often starts with a vacation. “And how many friends have gone on holiday to Doha?” (There were 18.7mn visitor overnights in Dubai last year, versus just 5.08mn in Qatar, according to data from the respective governments.)
Ras Al Khaimah, or RAK, is the other intriguing emirate: it’s where gambling will soon be permitted for the first time, with a $3.8bn Wynn-branded complex opening on Al Marjan Island in 2027 and planned residences from Nobu, Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton. “It’s a relatively quiet emirate, known for its ceramics and nature, but it’s where Dubai was in 2005,” says PropertyFinder’s Lahyani. There are more than 60 luxury developments in the pipeline there, with prices starting from Dh700,000 (around $190,000) and many sales open; the first, Playa del Sol, is scheduled for delivery in the second quarter of next year, but the majority are slated for 2027-28. “There are also a lot of first time developers,” Lahyani adds, “and prices are lower than Dubai considering that it’s a smaller, more nascent market”.
As part of new construction in Ras al-Khaimah, Four Seasons is building a new beach resort and residential area Perhaps the most interesting potential in the region is a little farther away, on the island nation of Bahrain. Historically, this former British protectorate was the most outward-looking country — it was a trading post on the Silk Road, driven in part by its world-class pearls, and was wealthy as a result. Then the petrodollar revolution elsewhere in the region disrupted its dominance. But now Bahrain is racing to catch up with Dubai and Co, as the skyline fills with cranes to build luxury branded residences from the likes of Kempinski and Waldorf Astoria. “They’re very well priced, at sub $1,000 per square foot,” says developer Shahab Lutfi, “and Bahrain is a beautiful country”.
Bahrain’s authorities are taking a different approach from those in Qatar, and including urban regeneration in their master plan. For example, they didn’t demolish the historic old town, Muharraq, as the Qataris chose to do in Doha to make way for a new Design District. Rather, they established a moratorium on demolition before handing it over to a cultural task force to renovate and adapt it. Work started in the early 2000s and was only completed late last year, and includes the 17-building Pearling Path, which tells the story of that centuries-old industry via a series of old warehouses, offices and homes.
Architect Noura al Sayeh has overseen the programme for the government since its inception. “It’s the largest historic city remaining in the Gulf, and we want to add new layers of value,” she says, noting that the transformation of the area is bringing renewed interest in residency there. “Housing is at the heart of all cities, and there’s nothing at this scale in the Gulf Cooperation Council. We hope the development will continue in this organic way.”
Later this year, you’ll be able to live like a local there for the first time — at least temporarily — when the Murad House, one of the anchors of the Pearling Path, will open as a seven-room, Bahraini-operated boutique hotel.
