Madinat Al Mataar sold 12,402 apartments in a year, and 96.6% of them were off-plan

Over the last 12 months the Dubai Land Department registered 12,402 apartment sale transactions in Madinat Al Mataar, inside the AED 200,000 to AED 2.5 million band. Off-plan accounted for 96.6% of them. The median price paid was AED 890,000, and the median unit measured 61.0 sqm.

Read the two headline numbers together. The 12,402 says a lot of people bought here in a year. The 96.6% says almost all of them bought from a developer, and that changes who you stand next to on the way out.

Most buyers ask what a unit will be worth. Fewer ask who will buy it from them. Transaction depth answers the second question, and the second question is the one that decides whether you exit at a sensible price when your plans change.

12,402 registered sales in a year is a working market. Buyers turn up here every week, not once a quarter. Price a unit against what has actually registered and you are joining a queue that is moving. In a thin market you wait for the single buyer who wants your exact layout in your exact month, and that buyer sets the price, not you.

Depth is not a promise of appreciation. It is a promise that a market exists. Those are different things, and the second one is what protects your capital when you need the money back.

Off-plan made up 96.6% of registered sales here. That tells you where the stock comes from and who your competition will be.

When almost every sale is a developer sale, your future resale sits on the same shelf as the next launch down the road. The developer offers a payment plan, a handover date in the future, waived fees and a building nobody has lived in. You offer a completed unit and ask for the money now, or close to it. Some buyers prefer that certainty. Many do not, and they will use the developer's terms as a lever on your price.

There is a second consequence. Off-plan volume at this level means handover waves. Units registered today arrive as physical apartments later, in clusters. If your exit lines up with a large handover nearby, you are selling into fresh supply while other individual owners try to do the same thing in the same month.

None of that makes the area a bad buy. It means the entry price has to carry the risk, and you should know the handover schedule of the towers around you before you sign, not after.

| Madinat Al Mataar, registered DLD sales, last 12 months | Value |

| Sale transactions (apartments, AED 200,000 to AED 2.5 million) | 12,402 |

| Median transaction value | AED 890,000 |

| Off-plan share of transactions | 96.6% |

| Median unit size | 61.0 sqm |

| Studio transactions | 5,821 |

| One bedroom transactions | 4,305 |

| Two bedroom transactions | 2,054 |

Sales figures are registered Dubai Land Department transactions over the last 12 months, apartments only. The unit type counts cover the common types and do not add up to the total.

Studios led with 5,821 transactions. One bedroom units followed at 4,305, and two bedroom units at 2,054. A median unit of 61.0 sqm fits that shape.

This is a small-ticket market. Your eventual buyer is most likely another investor buying for rent, or a first-time buyer stretching to own something. It is not a family trading up. So the things that make a family pay a premium, a second bathroom, a usable dining space, a school five minutes away, matter less here than the things that make a tenant sign: the layout, the light, the service charge and how long the lift takes in the morning.

If you are buying the two bedroom, understand that you are buying into the thinnest of those pools. 2,054 transactions is still a real market, but you will wait longer than the studio owner does, and you should pay less to compensate for that wait.

Ask the developer, in writing, how many units in your tower and in the neighbouring towers remain unsold. Ask for the handover quarter. Ask for the projected service charge per square foot and who set it. Then price your unit against registered transactions, not against the brochure and not against what a nearby agent says a similar unit is listed at. Listings are what someone hopes to get. Registered transactions are what someone actually paid.

Also look at the spread inside the area. A median of AED 890,000 is the midpoint of 12,402 different deals, and plenty of those deals were better or worse than the middle. Your job is to land on the right side of that midpoint, and that comes down to the specific building, the specific floor and the specific price on your contract.

Send us the tower, the unit number, the size and the price on the table. Oliva checks it against registered transactions in the same area, against the off-plan supply still due to hand over around it, and against the service charge, then tells you what we think the unit is worth and where the risk sits. Sometimes the answer is do not buy this one. Oliva is a Dubai brokerage with no paid placements, so no developer pays us to point you at a building. The underwriting costs you nothing.