Al Furjan

Al Furjan is the villa community that got a Metro station, which changed what it was. Nakheel laid it out on the Jebel Ali side of the city between Discovery Gardens and Jebel Ali Village as neighbourhoods of villas and townhouses in traditional and contemporary styles, and for its first decade it was a quiet suburb for families who worked at the port and the free zone. Then the Metro's extension to Expo City put two stations on its edges, developers filled its apartment plots, and it became one of the busiest mixed markets on that side of the city. The name means "the neighbourhoods": furjan is the plural of fareej, the Gulf's word for a small cluster of houses whose families know each other, and it says what the plan is.

The place

The community sits between Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Road and the Gardens, with Discovery Gardens on one side, Jebel Ali Village on another and Expo City a short drive to the south. Its original quarters are villa and townhouse neighbourhoods on quiet loops, with pools, parks and a school inside the gate and a retail pavilion at the centre. Around and between them, along the main roads and near the stations, apartment buildings from many developers have gone up, and the community's newest villa neighbourhood has been added at its edge.

Jebel Ali Village, the old low-rise community beside it now being rebuilt as a villa neighbourhood, and the Gardens, Nakheel's mature rental community, are its neighbours on the city side; Discovery Gardens' apartment blocks are on the other. Tilal Al Furjan, the community's own newest villa neighbourhood, built by the master developer on its last villa land, sits at the edge nearest the highway and trades as the top of its market; Murooj Al Furjan, in an east and a west half, is the other villa neighbourhood of that generation.

The result is two communities in one: the settled villa streets and the new apartment quarter, sharing a name and a pavilion.

What you get

Villas and townhouses in the original neighbourhoods, in the developer's traditional and contemporary layouts, now mature, with gardens and shared pools; Tilal Al Furjan, the newer villa neighbourhood with larger contemporary houses; and apartments, from studios to family flats, in the mid-rise buildings from a wide range of developers along the main roads. The apartment buildings differ more than the villas do: in finish, management and parking, and the recorded prices per square foot show it.

Getting around

The two Metro stations on the community's edges reach the Marina, the Media City offices, Sheikh Zayed Road and Expo City by train, which is rare for a villa community and is why the apartment quarter exists. By car, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Road and Sheikh Zayed Road are minutes away, the Marina is close, the free zone and the port are next door, and Downtown and the airport are long runs. Inside the villa neighbourhoods the streets are quiet; along the main roads the construction traffic is real.

Day to day

The pavilion at the centre carries the supermarket, the cafes and the daily services, with a second retail centre in the newer quarter, and Ibn Battuta Mall is at the community's edge. The school inside the gate is one of the better-regarded in the district, with more in Jebel Ali Village and the Gardens nearby and nurseries in the neighbourhoods. The parks and pools carry the weekends; the beach at JBR is a short drive.

Who it suits

Families who want a villa or townhouse near the Marina end of the city without the Marina's prices, and who value a school inside the gate. Tenants and buyers of apartments who want a new flat with a Metro station in walking distance. Investors, who have made the apartment quarter one of the busier letting markets on this side of the city. People who work at the port, the free zone or Expo City.

It suits people less well who want a finished, uniform community: the villa streets are settled but the apartment quarter is still being built.

Buying and renting here

The register separates the villa market from the apartment market here, and this page shows both. The original villas and townhouses trade as ordinary resales with a settled record, layout by layout; the register files a house sold with its plot against the plot, and this page reads those sales correctly. The apartment buildings trade on their own merits, and the gap between the well-run ones and the rest is plain in the recorded prices. Off-plan launches are constant on the apartment plots and are kept apart from resales here.

The villa neighbourhoods were built in phases and the earlier ones have the mature gardens; the apartment quarter has been built almost entirely in the last few years and is still handing over. A buyer of either should read the project's or the building's own page for what its layouts actually fetched, because the community's two halves have moved at different speeds.

Buyers of apartments should look at the owners' association, the service charge and the parking allocation before the asking price. For tenants, the official index caps a renewal while a new lease follows the market.

Neighbourhoods and buildings to know

The original villa and townhouse neighbourhoods are the community's settled core, Tilal Al Furjan its top end, and the apartment buildings near the stations its volume. The table below shows where the community's sales are actually happening, and every project and building has its own page with every recorded price.