Villas and townhouses in Dubai: what they cost and what is in stock

The house market starts at around AED 698 000 — a townhouse on the far edge of the city, in a community beyond the established districts. The median across districts is about AED 8 595 000. In Emirates Hills, on the Palm and in Dubai Hills the numbers run into the tens of millions. Every figure on this page is recomputed nightly from our own stock, not copied from a quarterly report.

A villa stands on its own plot with land on every side; a townhouse shares one or two walls with its neighbours. In practice the difference shows up in price per square foot and in running costs: less land, less glazing and, as a rule, a smaller cooling bill. Broker feeds blur the line — the same community sends both types through mixed together — so the table below counts them as one market.

Yes, in freehold zones — which is most of the areas where houses are built at all: Arabian Ranches, Dubai Hills Estate, Damac Lagoons, The Valley, Jumeirah Park, the Palm. Neither citizenship nor residency is required; ownership is registered with the Land Department in the buyer's own name.

Yes. The two-year investor visa threshold is AED 750 000 and the ten-year Golden Visa is AED 2 million, and a house almost always clears the second one. What counts is the value on the contract, not the number of properties: one villa at AED 2M gives the same visa as several flats adding up to it.

A villa. The service charge is calculated from plot size and the community's shared areas, and on top of it come cooling a much larger volume, pool and garden maintenance, and insurance. The exact figure depends on the community and the built-up area: before a deal we show the actual bills for the specific community.