Dubai area guides › Community
Dubai Festival City
A guide to living in Dubai Festival City, Dubai — what it sells for, what it rents for, the buildings, and who to ask. Every figure is drawn from the Dubai Land Department’s registers: sales through September 2026, rents through September 2026.
What Dubai Festival City actually sells for — every building, ranked by recorded price →
What Dubai Festival City rents for — recorded tenancies by layout, and the yield →
At a glance
Dubai Festival City in numbers
- Made of
- 13 buildings with a recorded sale history
- Sales on record
- 702 since 2013 — the latest registered 31 Jul 2026
- Tenancies
- 732 registered with Ejari in the last twelve months — 36% new leases, 64% renewals
The guide
Living in Dubai Festival City
Dubai Festival City is a family group's own district on the creek opposite Al Jaddaf: a very large mall, hotels, a golf course, and behind them villa neighbourhoods and apartment buildings on the water, with the airport a few minutes away. Most people know it for the mall; the people who live there know it as one of the quietest settled communities on the creek.
The place
The district lies on the creek's eastern bank between the airport and Ras Al Khor, with the mall and the hotels on the water, the golf course behind them and the villa neighbourhoods and apartment buildings along the creek and the course. Al Jaddaf and Culture Village are across the water; the old city and the airport are minutes; Downtown is a short run over the bridge.
What you get
Villas in the district's own neighbourhoods, in a set of styles on quiet loops around the course, and apartments from one-bedroom flats to large layouts in the buildings along the creek, all by one developer group and consistently finished, now mature.
Who it suits
Families who want a settled villa community with the mall, a school and the golf course inside the gate and the airport minutes away. Buyers of the creek apartments who want the water and the old city in the window. People who fly often.
It suits people less well who want the Marina's life, or the belt's prices.
Buying and renting here
The register separates the villa neighbourhoods from the creek buildings and this page shows both; each project's and building's own page carries its own record. The register files a villa sold with its plot against the plot, and this page reads those sales correctly. There is little off-plan here. For tenants, the official index caps a renewal while a new lease follows the market.
What it costs to buy
What Dubai Festival City sells for
Completed resales over the last three years, by layout — the registered price and the registered floor area. Off-plan launches are counted separately and never folded in.
| Layout | Typical size | Median price | Mean price | Per sq ft | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | 844 sqft | 950,000 | 949,000 | 1,224 | 5 |
| 1 B/R | 1,115 sqft | 1,475,000 | 1,530,635 | 1,270 | 18 |
| 2 B/R | 1,695 sqft | 2,621,500 | 2,749,613 | 1,568 | 98 |
| 3 B/R | 2,535 sqft | 3,600,000 | 3,843,310 | 1,309 | 71 |
Over the last 12 months, 35 completed homes changed hands in Dubai Festival City at a median of AED 3,100,000 — AED 1,571 a square foot, down 1% on the year before.
Every Dubai Festival City building ranked by recorded price, and every sale as registered →
What it costs to rent
What Dubai Festival City rents for
Every residential tenancy registered with Ejari in Dubai Festival City in the last twelve months. Annual rents, medians. A renewal is capped by the RERA index; a new lease is the market.
| Layout | Typical size | Median rent | New lease | Renewal | Contracts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | 400 sqft | 32,550 | 44,000 | 30,975 | 33 |
| 1 B/R | 900 sqft | 86,000 | 97,000 | 58,432 | 224 |
| 2 B/R | 1,452 sqft | 152,000 | 157,000 | 145,000 | 298 |
| 3 B/R | 2,547 sqft | 204,000 | 220,000 | 199,500 | 156 |
| 4 B/R | 3,839 sqft | 301,000 | 311,500 | 280,000 | 17 |
732 tenancies were registered in Dubai Festival City in the last twelve months, 36% of them new leases. A two-bedroom let for a median AED 152,000 a year — AED 157,000 on a new lease against AED 145,000 on a renewal.
The full rental report — rents by year, and the buildings the register names →
What it returns
Gross yield in Dubai Festival City, by layout
Recorded rent per square foot a year over what the same layouts sold for, in the same twelve months. Gross — before service charges and empty months.
| Layout | Rent per sq ft, a year | Resale per sq ft | Gross yield | Tenancies | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 B/R | 93 | 1,626 | 5.7% | 298 | 20 |
A two-bedroom in Dubai Festival City returns a gross 5.7% on the two registers — what tenants paid over what buyers paid, for the same layouts in the same year.
The buildings
Dubai Festival City, building by building
Median price per square foot of completed resales over the last two years, dearest first — too few sales in the last ninety days to rank by activity.
| # | Building | Sales, 24 months | Median per sq ft |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Marsa Plaza - Core 2 | 30 | 1,795 |
| 2 | Marsa Plaza - Core 1 | 63 | 1,762 |
| 3 | Al Badia Residences Building 11 | 11 | 1,279 |
| 4 | Al Badia Residences Building 8 | 8 | 1,205 |
| 5 | Al Badia Hillside Condo 6 | 7 | 1,185 |
| 6 | Al Badia Hillside Condo 4 | 6 | 1,094 |
| 7 | Al Badia Hillside Condo 1 | 5 | 950 |
The 7 with five or more completed resales in two years. 13 buildings in Dubai Festival City carry a recorded history, and each has its own page. The full table →
Questions people ask
Dubai Festival City, answered from the register
How much does it cost to buy in Dubai Festival City?
Over the last 12 months, 35 completed homes changed hands in Dubai Festival City at a median of AED 3,100,000 — AED 1,571 a square foot, down 1% on the year before. Every figure is a transfer registered at the Dubai Land Department, not an asking price.
How much is a two-bedroom in Dubai Festival City?
Completed two-bedroom homes in Dubai Festival City sold for a median AED 2,621,500 over the last three years — typically 1,695 sq ft, or AED 1,568 a square foot — across 98 recorded sales.
What does a two-bedroom rent for in Dubai Festival City?
A two-bedroom in Dubai Festival City let for a median AED 152,000 a year across 298 Ejari contracts registered in the last twelve months — AED 157,000 on a new lease against AED 145,000 on a renewal, which the RERA index caps.
What is the rental yield in Dubai Festival City?
A two-bedroom in Dubai Festival City returns a gross 5.7% — AED 93 of rent per square foot a year over the AED 1,626 a square foot the same layouts sold for, before service charges and empty months. It is measured on 298 tenancies and 20 sales, both registered at the DLD.
How many buildings are there in Dubai Festival City?
13 buildings in Dubai Festival City carry a recorded sale history. Each has its own page with every registered price, and 7 of them have enough recent resales to be ranked by price per square foot.
Is Dubai Festival City still being built?
Of the 73 sales registered in Dubai Festival City in 2025, 0 were off-plan purchases from a developer and 73 were resales of finished homes — an established community trading hands. The register has 702 sales for Dubai Festival City since 2013.
