Business Bay registered 6,870 apartment sales, and 42.4% were off-plan

Over the last 12 months the Dubai Land Department registered 6,870 apartment sale transactions in Business Bay, inside the AED 200,000 to AED 2.5 million band. Off-plan accounted for 42.4% of them. The median price paid was AED 1,425,001, and the median unit measured 70.8 sqm.

One figure here does more work than the rest. 42.4% off-plan means the clear majority of sales, 57.6%, were resales between owners. In most of Dubai's high-volume communities that ratio runs the other way.

When most sales come from a developer, your future buyer is choosing between your completed apartment and a launch down the road with a payment plan and a handover date in the future. You are the expensive option that needs the money now.

Business Bay is not shaped that way. The majority of buyers here bought an existing unit from an existing owner, at a price both sides agreed. That is the transaction you will one day be on the other side of, and there were thousands of them in the last twelve months.

It also means the price you pay is being set by a real market rather than a price list. Developers publish a rate card and hold it. Owners negotiate. The 6,870 figure tells you how many negotiations concluded, and a market that concludes this often gives you comparables to argue with.

| Business Bay, registered DLD sales, last 12 months | Value |

| Sale transactions (apartments, AED 200,000 to AED 2.5 million) | 6,870 |

| Median transaction value | AED 1,425,001 |

| Off-plan share of transactions | 42.4% |

| Median unit size | 70.8 sqm |

| Studio transactions | 2,255 |

| One bedroom transactions | 2,937 |

| Two bedroom transactions | 986 |

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

The Land Department register records this community under two spellings, and each carries part of the year's activity. Counting only one of them understates the market by thousands of transactions. The 6,870 above merges both. If you read a Business Bay transaction count that looks materially lower, that is usually why.

One bedroom units led with 2,937 transactions, studios followed at 2,255, and two bedroom units at 986. The median unit of 70.8 sqm sits with that shape.

The two bedroom pool is the thin one. 986 transactions across a year is still a working market, but it is roughly a third of the one bedroom pool, and you should expect to wait longer and price more carefully when you sell. If you are buying the two bedroom because it feels like the safer asset, check that assumption against how many of them actually changed hands.

A median of AED 1,425,001 is the midpoint of 6,870 different deals. Half of them were below it. Your job is to land on the right side of that midpoint, and that comes down to the tower, the floor, the view and the number on your contract.

Ask for the building's service charge per square foot and who sets it. Ask what the last three comparable units in the same tower actually registered at, not what the current listings ask. Listings are hope. Registered transactions are what someone paid.

Send us the tower, the unit, the size and the price on the table. Oliva checks it against registered transactions in the same building and the same area, against the supply still due to hand over nearby, and against the service charge, then tells you what 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.