Area Guides

Nakheel began reclamation at Palm Jumeirah in 2001. Land and basic infrastructure were in place by 2004, building began in 2006 and the first residents moved in during 2007. The island is a trunk of apartment buildings, a spine, residential fronds lettered A to P, and an outer crescent of about 17 km carrying the hotels and resorts. KEO, the consultant that designed the villas and supervised construction, puts the total at 1,400 villas across the fronds in three categories: Garden Homes, Town Homes and Signature Villas. The price range shown reflects current Private Office listings.

Emirates Hills is Emaar's gated plot community wrapped around the Montgomerie golf course, within Emirates Living. It is substantially a build-your-own address: plots run from roughly 12,000 to 45,000 sq ft and owners commission their own homes, which is why built-up areas and architecture vary so widely from one villa to the next. Sectors are lettered, and E, L, P, R, V and W all appear in current listings. Sub-communities include Montgomerie Hills, Dyaar Al Hambra and the Montgomerie Maisonettes. The price range shown reflects current Private Office listings.

Dubai Hills Estate is a joint venture between Emaar and Meraas covering 11 million sq m, roughly 2,700 acres, positioned as the first phase of Mohammed Bin Rashid City. The masterplan provides for more than 4,400 villas and townhouses alongside around 22,000 apartments, with 1.45 million sq m of parks and open space and a 54 km cycle route. Villa sub-communities include Golf Place, Sidra, Maple, Fairway Vistas, Majestic Vistas and the Emerald Hills plots. Several are still handing over.

Jumeirah Golf Estates was developed under Dubai World's Leisurecorp and now sits under wasl, which published a masterplan for its next phase in May 2025. It holds two Greg Norman championship courses, Earth and Fire, with Fire opening in January 2010. The Earth Course has hosted the DP World Tour Championship since 2009 and is contracted to do so until 2031. Residential sub-communities include Redwood, Wildflower, Sanctuary Falls, Olive Point, Lime Tree Valley and Sienna Lakes. Earth and Fire are the names of the two courses. Some listings use them as addresses, which is a mislabelling. The price range shown reflects current Private Office listings.

Emaar launched The Oasis in June 2023 as a masterplan of more than 100 million sq ft in Dubailand, off Sheikh Zayed bin Hamdan Al Nahyan Street. It provides for over 7,000 residences across phases including Palmiera, Mirage, Address Villas Tierra and the Lavita mansions. Nothing has been handed over. Infrastructure works began in October 2024, Palmiera is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2027, and Address Villas Tierra is targeted for 2028. Anyone buying here today is buying off-plan or on resale from a first-phase buyer.

Discovery Dunes is Discovery Land Company's first Middle East project, developed with Dubai South Properties in the golf district of Dubai South beside the Jetex private jet terminal. Its Tom Fazio course, the first in the UAE, opened to members in December 2025. The structure is unusual. It is a private members club of roughly 340 memberships, of which around 198 are land plots, and buyers are vetted through an application process. Membership comes with ownership and cannot be bought separately.

There is no community called Jumeirah Golf Estates 2. That name is used by agent lead-generation sites for a genuine project whose correct name is Jumeirah Golf Estates: The Next Chapter, announced by wasl on 14 May 2025. The masterplan covers 4.68 million sq m at Me'aisem First, between Mohammed Bin Zayed Road and Sheikh Zayed bin Hamdan Al Nahyan Street, and provides for 12,345 new units. Nothing has been delivered. Early releases are named Pinewood Estate Homes, Ashwood Estates and Cedarwood Estates.

Al Barari was founded in 2005 by Zaal Mohamed Zaal and remains privately held. It covers 15.3 million sq ft, of which the developer states more than half is green space, and it is one of the few Dubai communities built around its planting. Sub-communities include The Residences, The Nest, Ashjar, Chorisia, Ixora, Lunaria, Les 8, The Reserve, and the newer Altissima and Fountain Drive. Desert Leaf sits inside The Residences as one of its clusters. The price range shown reflects current Private Office listings.

Nakheel built Jumeirah Islands from 2003 as 46 residential islands holding 736 villas, each cluster arranged around a lake. Homes follow three recognised layouts, Garden Hall, Master View and Entertainment Foyer, with a separate run of 31 five-bedroom Mansions. Built-up areas run from roughly 5,100 to 7,200 sq ft on plots of 8,600 to 14,000 sq ft, so the value sits in plot and water frontage. The stock is now twenty years old, condition varies widely, and a large share of sales are renovated or extended homes. The price range shown reflects current Private Office listings.

District One sits within Mohammed Bin Rashid City and is developed by Meydan Sobha, with construction running from 2013 and villa phases released in stages. Around 1,500 villas and 18 mansions are arranged in three architectural styles, Modern Arabic, Mediterranean and Contemporary. The centrepiece is a licensed Crystal Lagoons installation, stated at 7 km of water with 14 km of shoreline, which is an engineered waterbody, chemically managed under licence. For most buyers the substantive draw is position: low-rise villa land a short drive from Downtown and Business Bay. The price range shown reflects current Private Office listings.

Emaar unveiled Polo Homes in 2007 and delivered it in 2009 as 71 detached villas set around the polo fields of the Dubai Polo and Equestrian Club, inside Arabian Ranches. At launch, plots ran from 15,551 to 39,611 sq ft with built-up areas of 6,777 to 15,563 sq ft, which places these among the largest private plots in any Emaar community. Villa types are lettered, with A, B, D, F and K in circulation. The price range shown reflects current Private Office listings.

The World is a group of 300 reclaimed islands announced in 2003, with reclamation finished in 2008 and development stalled for years afterwards. Only a handful of islands are operational today, among them the Anantara resort and the Heart of Europe cluster. The residential story is Amali Island, a merger of the Uruguay and Sao Paulo parcels being developed by Amali Properties across roughly 1.2 million sq ft. It is 24 residences, under construction, with completion stated for the first quarter of 2027. Nothing has been handed over. The price range shown reflects current Private Office listings.

La Mer is a Meraas beachfront development in Jumeira 1, opened in October 2017 across roughly 13.4 million sq ft of existing and reclaimed land. It has changed a great deal since. La Mer South closed in 2022 and reopened in November 2024 as J1 Beach, a run of licensed beach clubs and restaurants operated by Merex Investment. The Roxy cinema and the waterpark have been cleared, and Meraas is building Solaya on the northern side. Residential stock is limited and varied, from the 147 Sur La Mer townhouses to Harrisoni, a scheme the developer lists as two villas. The price range shown reflects current Private Office listings.

Downtown Dubai is Emaar's two square kilometre district around the Burj Khalifa, the Dubai Mall and the Dubai Fountain. Prime residential sits in the Opera District, laid out around Dubai Opera, which opened in 2016 with 2,000 seats. Emaar's towers there include Il Primo, Forte, Grande and Act One Act Two. Il Primo Tower 1 completed in 2023 at 356 metres over 79 floors, designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox, and the complex holds 119 apartments in four, five and six bedroom formats. The price range shown reflects current Private Office listings.