Dubai Islands

Dubai Islands is the newest coastline in the city and the least finished. Nakheel reclaimed the islands off Deira years ago under another name, let them wait, and then relaunched them as a set of beach and marina districts with a new bridge to the old city, a mall, a run of resort hotels and, from the first launches, a wave of residential towers and villas that has made the islands one of the busiest off-plan markets in Dubai. What exists today is a beach, a mall, several hotels, the first handed-over buildings and a great many cranes.

The place

The islands sit off the coast of Deira, reached by a bridge from the old city and a second bridge across the creek's mouth, with the old airport a short drive inland. The first island holds the beach, the mall, the marina and the hotels that opened first, with the residential plots along the beachfront and the inner waterways; the further islands are planned as quieter residential and resort districts and are at an earlier stage. A promenade runs along the developed beachfront.

The islands were reclaimed under the name of Deira Islands and lay unused for years while the city built elsewhere; the relaunch under the new name came with a new plan, a new bridge and a new price. Buyers should read the older name in any record they find, and should know that the plan has changed once and could change again.

It is a place to buy into a plan more than a place to move into today, and the difference between the two is the whole of this page.

What you get

Apartments in beachfront and waterway towers, from studios to large layouts, and villas and townhouses in the islands' residential clusters, almost all of it sold off-plan by a wide range of developers, from the master developer to the city's luxury and volume names. The first buildings have handed over; most have not. Finish and management will vary building by building, as they do everywhere many developers build at once, and the recorded prices will show it as the resale market forms.

Getting around

By car, over the bridges to Deira and the old city, with the old airport minutes away, Downtown and Business Bay a reasonable run and the Marina far. There is no Metro on the islands; the nearest stations are in Deira, a short drive. Inside the islands the roads are new and quiet. The bridges are the islands' only way off and will carry all of the traffic the plan brings; buyers should have that in mind.

Day to day

The mall carries the supermarket, the cinema and the chains, the beach and the marina carry the weekends, and the hotels' restaurants carry the evenings for now. The islands' own neighbourhood retail is following the handovers. Schools sit in Deira and along the creek, a drive away, and nurseries will follow the residents. It is early, and a resident today lives among building sites with a beach at the end of them.

Who it suits

Investors, above all, who have made the islands one of the city's busiest off-plan markets on the strength of a new coastline near the old city. Buyers who want a beachfront home at prices below the Palm's and will wait for the district to finish around them. People who work in Deira, the old city or the old airport and want a new flat on the sea within minutes of the desk.

It suits people less well who want to move into a finished neighbourhood, who need a school within reach, or who want quiet from construction for the next several years.

Buying and renting here

The register here is mostly a record of off-plan resales, and this page keeps them apart from the sales of finished homes for good reason: a launch price for a tower handing over in a few years is not what a completed flat beside it is worth, and the islands' completed record is only beginning. Buyers off-plan should know the developer's record, the handover date and the payment plan remaining, and should read what the same developer's finished buildings elsewhere actually fetched. As buildings hand over, their own pages will carry their recorded prices, and the tables here will fill.

The developers here range widely, and the difference between them is the whole of the risk: a launch by a developer with a long record of finishing towers is a different thing from a launch by a new name, at any price. The register's finished-sale record for each developer's other buildings is the evidence, and this site carries it building by building.

The letting market is forming with the handovers; for those homes that are let, the official index caps a renewal while a new lease follows the market.

Projects to know

The master developer's beachfront towers and villa clusters on the first island are the anchor; the luxury developers' beachfront residences and the volume developers' waterway towers are the rest of the first wave. The table below shows where the islands' sales are actually happening, and every project has its own page.