Business Bay

Business Bay is what happens when a business district gets built next to the most photographed skyline in the region and then fills in with apartments.

The appeal is straightforward: you are central. Dubai Mall and the Burj Khalifa are a canal-side walk away, Sheikh Zayed Road is immediately there, and there is a genuine tenant pool of people who work locally and want to stop commuting.

The risk is just as straightforward. This is a large district built out by many different developers over many years, and the variation between towers is enormous — in build quality, in management, and in what the annual service charge does to an investor’s return. Two apartments of the same size, in buildings a hundred metres apart, can be very different assets. We will tell you which is which.