Dubai off-plan by bedroom: what a studio, 1 BR or villa costs

A median studio is 375 sqft at AED 828K. A median 2 BR is 1,237 sqft at AED 2.53M.

The ladder runs from 7,540 studio records at a median AED 828K to 348 records labelled six bedroom or larger at AED 19.0M. Floor area moves with it: 375 sqft, 754 sqft, 1,237 sqft and 1,912 sqft at the median for the four rungs most people shop. Price per sqft does not move with it at all, which is the whole point of the next finding.

Each column is computed on its own records, so the price median and the size median in a row need not describe the same listing. 42,489 of 42,490 priced Dubai records carry a bedroom label.

The rung-by-rung community rankings behind this table: studios, one bedroom, two bedroom and three bedroom.

Studio stock asks the most per sqft, AED 2,280, and five bedroom stock the least at AED 1,633.

A studio asks a median AED 2,280 per sqft against AED 1,916 for a one bedroom: AED 364 more per sqft, 19% above the larger unit, for the smallest thing on the price list. The whole Dubai market medians at AED 2,021. That inversion is not a district mix artefact: of the 25 Dubai communities carrying at least 20 priced records of both kinds, 22 price their studios above their one bedrooms, with a median gap of AED 212 per sqft inside the same community.

Bathrooms, kitchens and circulation do not shrink in proportion to the floor plate, which is most of the gap. Read against the community ladder in cheapest communities per sqft.

The second bedroom is the dearest floor area on the way up, AED 2,179 per extra sqft.

Take each rung against the one below it and divide the difference in median price by the difference in median floor area. Moving from a studio to a one bedroom buys 379 extra sqft for AED 672K, AED 1,773 per extra sqft. The step from 2 BR to 3 BR is the dearest of the first three at AED 2,179 per extra sqft, and the marginal rate then collapses: the step to 4 BR costs AED 895 per extra sqft, 2.4 times cheaper for the same square foot of floor. It rises again only at the top of the table, AED 2,611 per extra sqft from 5 BR to 6+ BR, across a 5,207 sqft difference in median size.

Medians of two separate populations, not a tracked upgrade: the extra sqft column is what the market charges for the bigger cohort, not a quote for adding a room to one unit. Ticket multiple is the higher rung's median price over the rung below. The last row spans 5,207 sqft, so its rate describes a different market rather than a further step along the same one.

The practical reading on a fixed budget: the second bedroom is the costliest square foot to add, and past 3 BR the extra area gets cheaper per sqft even as the ticket keeps climbing. Entry budgets under AED 1M are mapped in off-plan under AED 1M.

The middle half of one bedroom sizes stops 248 sqft short of where two bedroom sizes start.

Half of Dubai's one bedroom stock sits between 697 and 857 sqft, and half of the two bedroom stock between 1,105 and 1,446 sqft: 248 sqft of clear air between the two middle halves, and 0 of the 56 Dubai communities with at least 20 records of each show any overlap between those bands at all. The crossover happens between communities, not inside them. A median one bedroom in Dubai Harbour is 1,236 sqft, larger than a median two bedroom in Dubai Investments Park at 806 sqft, and 26 of the 56 communities clear that bar.

The four communities with the largest median one bedroom, then the four with the smallest median two bedroom, from the 56 carrying 20 or more priced records of each. Floor areas are as published and usually include balconies, which no listing states consistently.

So a bedroom count is a specification, not a size: two listings can both say two bedroom and differ by 341 sqft inside the middle half alone. Every community page publishes its own size quartiles.

Studios run from AED 1,269 to AED 4,070 per sqft depending on the community.

28 Dubai communities carry at least 20 priced studio records, 7,462 studios in total. Al Warsan is the cheapest at AED 1,269 per sqft, a median 486 sqft asking AED 565K. Dubai Maritime City is the most expensive at AED 4,070 per sqft on 414 sqft, asking AED 1.65M, which is 3.2 times the cheapest median per sqft for a unit 72 sqft smaller.

The six cheapest and the six most expensive of 28 qualifying communities, cheapest per sqft first. Entry price is the 25th percentile asking price of that community's studios, a fairer floor than the single cheapest listing.

The full ladder is studio price per sqft. Note how little the size column moves against the price column: a studio is roughly 375 sqft almost everywhere, so the community is doing the pricing, not the floor plan.

A two bedroom asks AED 1.27M in Dubai Investments Park and AED 10.9M in Dubai Marina.

Across 61 Dubai communities with 20 or more priced two bedroom records, the market median of AED 2.53M hides a range of 8.7 times from end to end. Dubai Investments Park medians AED 1.27M on 806 sqft at AED 1,626 per sqft. Dubai Marina medians AED 10.9M on 2,101 sqft at AED 5,209. Both are two bedroom apartments in the same city with the same title deed regime.

The six cheapest and the four most expensive of 61 qualifying communities, ranked by median asking price rather than per sqft, because a ticket is what a buyer has to fund. The two orderings are not the same list.

Sorted per sqft instead, the same cohort is two bedroom price per sqft. What each community wants before the keys is in the payment plan study.

18% of priced records are three bedroom or larger, and they cluster in a handful of districts.

7,670 of 42,489 labelled records are 3 BR or larger, against 55% that are studios or one bedrooms. Family stock is concentrated rather than spread: of the 48 Dubai communities with 200 or more labelled records, Academic City is 100% three bedroom or larger across 460 records and Damac Suncity 100% across 423. By absolute count the largest pool is Dubai Islands with 658 such records, 29% of its 2,306. At the other end Sobha Central is 100% studios and one bedrooms.

The eight most family-weighted of 48 Dubai communities carrying 200 or more labelled records. Share is of records on sale now, not of built homes: a district selling one villa phase at a time reads as more family-weighted than its finished streets suggest. 43 communities clear 20 priced 3 BR records.

Which of those districts hand over when is the delivery pipeline study, and the price ladder for the rung itself is three bedroom price per sqft.

Townhouses ask AED 1,351 per sqft and villas AED 1,770, against AED 2,084 for apartments.

Cut the same records by property type instead of bedroom count and the discount is on the ground, not in the tower. 38,559 apartment records median AED 2,084 per sqft, 1,642 townhouse records AED 1,351, 35% below, and 1,603 villa records AED 1,770. Cheaper per sqft, larger ticket: the 3 BR and larger rungs where those houses sit median AED 4.00M and up, because floor area rises faster than the rate falls.

Property types with at least 100 priced Dubai records, most expensive per sqft first. Type is the developer's own classification, so the duplex and penthouse rows are small and self-selected: they hold the buildings that use the label.

The community-level version is townhouse and villa price per sqft, each house cohort against the all-unit median of its own community.

The median Azizi unit is 671 sqft. The median Nakheel unit is 2,921 sqft.

Of the 21 developers with 300 or more priced records and at least one Dubai project, the middle one builds to a median 1,182 sqft. Azizi medians 671 sqft across 6,567 records, 72% of them studios or one bedrooms. Nakheel medians 2,921 sqft across 460, with 58% at 3 BR or larger. A factor of 4.4 in floor area between two names selling into the same city, which decides the ticket long before the price per sqft does.

The six smallest and the six largest by median unit size, from the 21 qualifying developers. Aggregates cover a developer's full tracked portfolio, Dubai only for most and several emirates for some, so the Dubai project count sits in the last column and a developer with none is left out. Median size describes what a developer builds, not its quality.

Price and size are separate choices: compare this ordering with developers by price per sqft and developers by pipeline.

What a bedroom label does not tell you.

Everything above is an asking price published in a developer inventory, never a transaction, a valuation or a resale price. 82% of the 42,490 priced Dubai records are true per-unit rows; the rest are unit-type entries a developer publishes once for a repeated layout, which weights a tower's typical plan rather than each apartment in it. The bedroom label is the developer's own, which is why a record labelled studio can carry 1,204 sqft or ask AED 4.03M. We do not silently correct those rows, we use medians and quartiles so they cannot move the answer.

The caveat that matters for every cross-bedroom comparison here: each rung carries its own location mix, so part of the AED 364 per sqft studio premium is where studios get built rather than what a small floor plate costs. Finding 02 controls for that only as far as the 25 communities with both bases allow.

Where the data does not support a claim we say so rather than filling the gap. The same discipline applied to prices and delivery is the Q3 2026 market note; the rules themselves are in the methodology. This note reads Dubai; the same rungs across all seven emirates, one page each, are in off-plan by bedroom.