DIFC

DIFC is the financial free zone at the centre of the city, the district of banks, law firms and the courts that apply their own law, and a place a few thousand people also live: in a set of towers among the offices, above the district's restaurants and galleries, a walk from the trade centre and Downtown. It keeps its own property register, separate from the Dubai Land Department's, which is why the tables on this page are empty; what we hold on the market here is what the page shows.

The place

The district lies between Sheikh Zayed Road and Downtown, with the trade centre on one side, the Burj Khalifa a short walk on the other and the Metro's station on the highway edge. Its towers stand around a central avenue of restaurants, galleries and cafes, the district's evening life; the residential towers sit among the office towers with the skyline in their windows.

What you get

Apartments only, from studios to large layouts and penthouses, in a small number of towers, several of them among the city's best finished and best managed, with service charges to match. There are no villas.

Who it suits

People who work in the district and want to walk to the desk and to dinner. Buyers who want a central, well-run tower and are paying for it knowingly. Owners who intend to let to the district's professionals, whose demand is steady.

It suits people less well who want a neighbourhood, green, a school in reach, or the most space for the money.

Buying and renting here

Because the district's sales are registered with its own authority rather than the Dubai Land Department, the register this site reads holds none of them, and the recorded-price tables that fill every other guide cannot fill this one. Buyers here rely on the district's own records and on the market's asking prices, and should read the tower's service charge and its rules before an offer. For tenants, the official index caps a renewal while a new lease follows the market.