Dubai Marina

Dubai Marina was the first place in the city where people learned to live in a tower by the water and walk to dinner. Emaar dug a canal inland from the sea, lined it with a promenade, built the first six towers on its bank and sold the plots around them, and the district that grew up over the following years became the address most people abroad picture when they think of living in Dubai. It is older now than it looks, which is the most useful thing to know about it.

The place

The Marina is a long canal with the sea at one end and a loop of towers around it. On the seaward side is Jumeirah Beach Residence, a separate community with its own guide, whose beach is the Marina's beach in everything but name. On the inland side, across Sheikh Zayed Road, are Jumeirah Lake Towers and the offices of Media City and Internet City, where a large share of Marina residents work. Bluewaters, with the observation wheel, sits on its island at the mouth of the canal.

Inside the loop the district has three parts. The original cluster around Marina Walk, where the first towers stand and the promenade is busiest. The tall cluster at the western end, where the highest residential towers in the city crowd together above the yacht club. And the quieter stretch between them, along the canal's inner bank, where the newer and larger buildings have gone up.

What you get

Apartments, and only apartments, from studios to some of the largest penthouses in the city. The oldest buildings are around Marina Walk and have the settled feel and the maintenance questions of towers in their third decade. The tall cluster holds the towers built at the height of the first boom, many of them with hundreds of flats. The newer buildings on the inner bank and at the Marina Gate end are the district's premium stock.

The Marina is a market of views. A flat facing the water, a flat facing the sea over JBR, a flat facing the road, and a flat facing the tower next door can share a floor plan and sell for very different prices, and the register records the difference. Floor level, the building's cooling arrangements and its service charge do the rest.

Getting around

This is the most walkable district in Dubai. The promenade runs the length of the canal, the bridges cross it, and most residents can reach a supermarket, a gym, a dozen restaurants and the tram without a car. The Dubai Tram runs through the Marina and connects at both ends to the Metro's Red Line, whose two nearby stations sit on Sheikh Zayed Road and now carry sponsors' names.

Driving is the weak point. The loop road and the few exits onto Sheikh Zayed Road and towards JBR congest at the peak and on weekend evenings, when the beach traffic arrives, and parking for visitors is scarce. Residents park under their buildings and learn the back ways out. The airport is a long run; Media City and Internet City are minutes.

Day to day

Marina Walk and the promenade carry the cafes and restaurants, with the stacked dining rooms of Pier 7 and the Marina Mall at the centre. Supermarkets sit in most podiums. The yacht clubs and the boats give the district its particular pleasure: an evening on the water is an ordinary thing here. The beach is a few minutes' walk through JBR, and Bluewaters is reachable on foot across its bridge.

There are no schools in the Marina itself. Families use the schools in the Meadows and the Springs across the road, or further out along Al Sufouh, and nurseries operate in several of the towers.

Who it suits

Professionals who work in the free zones across the road and want to walk to dinner. Couples and single people who came to Dubai for the life the postcards show. Owners who intend to let, because the Marina's tenant market is deep, international and quick, and short-stay operators run a large share of the district's furnished flats. Buyers who want a large penthouse with a sea view, which the tall cluster and the newer towers supply.

It suits large families less well, and anyone who wants a garden, quiet or a school on the doorstep should look inland.

Buying and renting here

The Marina rewards diligence more than most districts because its buildings span such a range of ages. Two towers on the same stretch of canal can differ in the condition of their lifts and pools, in whether cooling is billed through the building or the utility, in the size of their service charge and in the strength of their owners' association, and the recorded sale prices here show those differences plainly. The tables on this page and the building pages beneath it list what completed flats actually sold for; the league table ranks every building with enough recent sales.

Off-plan is a smaller share of the Marina than of the newer districts, but it exists at the Marina Gate end and along the inner bank, and this page keeps it apart from resales. For tenants, the official index caps a renewal while a new lease follows the market, and in a district this popular the two can sit far apart; furnished short-stay lets are common and not every building permits them.

Buildings to know

The six original Emaar towers around Marina Walk are where it began. Cayan Tower, with its twist, and the Princess Tower are the tall cluster's landmarks, alongside Elite Residence, Ocean Heights and Marina Pinnacle. Marina Gate and the Jumeirah Living tower are the newer premium addresses at the eastern end, LIV Marina the newest on the inner bank, and Le Rêve remains the district's quiet grand address. The league table below ranks them by what their homes have actually fetched.