Arjan · Retail · Dubai

Retail space in Arjan, priced by what was paid

Every portal in Dubai shows you what a seller is asking. The Land Department records what a buyer actually transferred. Across 51 registered retail sales in this district, those two numbers are not close — and the gap is not where most people look for it.

52 registered sales · AED 164.68M · 263 registered leases · 1 January – 14 July 2026 · Source: Dubai Land Department
The same district, the same 7 months
Off-plan
3,399
AED / sqft · 29 deals
Median ticket AED 3.50M
Median unit 1,019 sqft
2.0×
Ready
1,697
AED / sqft · 23 deals
Median ticket AED 1.97M
Median unit 1,010 sqft

A foot of Arjan retail under construction costs 2.0× a foot you can walk into tomorrow. Quoted as one blended average the number describes neither market and misleads both buyers.

What that does to the yield
263 registered retail leases in Arjan clear a median of AED 155,000 per year on 1,023 sqft — that is 153 AED/sqft. The tenant pays that rate regardless of when the building was finished. So the purchase price is the only variable.
Ready @ 1,697
9.0%
Off-plan @ 3,399
4.5%
Vacant lets higher than tenanted. The 263 contracts split: 130 new leases at a median 159 AED/sqft, 133 renewals at 147. A ready unit bought empty and let at the new rate reaches 9.4%; the same unit bought with a sitting tenant on a renewal delivers 8.7%. That 0.7-point spread separates two purchases that look identical in a listing.
Gross, before service charge, vacancy, and agency cost — a ceiling, not a forecast. Both figures use the same registered rent, so the ratio between them is the honest part. And the caveat that matters: an off-plan unit earns nothing at all until handover, so its real first-years return is not 4.5% but zero.

Month by month

Median AED/sqft · complete months only, July excluded as partial
MonthDealsMedian AED/sqft
January 202682,2033,5001.6×
February 2026221,6523,3962.1×
March 202681,3312,0951.6×
April 202631,9073,5051.8×
May 20262—2,562—
June 202653,3363,5571.1×
July 202641,4012,7011.9×

The median held between 1,849 and 3,407 across 6 complete months — a 84% spread. Any single comparable you are shown sits somewhere in that band, and where it sits is the difference between a fair price and a story.

What AED 1.97M actually buys here

Ready stock · 23 registered sales · whole segment: 51 deals
10th percentile
1.35M
smallest tickets clearing
Median ticket
2.68M
1,018 sqft typical
75th percentile
4.00M
larger-floorplate territory
90th percentile
5.80M
above this is rare

The entry point is where most assumptions break. A tenth of registered sales here cleared under AED 1,351,638, and the top decile starts at AED 5,800,026 — a 4-fold range inside one district and one segment. A quoted “Arjan price” without a size attached to it is not information.

Where the off-plan money went

Projects with 5+ registered off-plan sales · median AED/sqft
Butterfly
3,396
Binghatti Hillcrest
3,500
Ready stock, any building
1,697

Butterfly alone took 13 of the 28 off-plan sales — 46% of that side of the district in a single project. Concentration like this matters: when one building sets the median, the “district price” you are quoted is really that building's price.

Arjan against everything else

Median AED/sqft, registered retail sales, same window · districts with 10+ deals and registered rent
Motor City →
4,700
Business Bay →
2,880
Arjan
2,700
Majan →
2,437
Jumeirah Lakes Towers →
1,967

Arjan registered 51 retail sales in the period. Business Bay registered 64. Depth is what makes an exit possible: a district that prices itself off hundreds of comparables does not depend on whoever happens to show up.

Every district on this list has its own page, built the same way from the same register. All districts →

A commercial foot against a residential one

Same district, same window
Offices
1,535
72 deals · AED/sqft
Retail
2,700
51 deals · AED/sqft
Apartments
1,598
1,843 deals · AED/sqft

A commercial foot in Arjan costs 1.69 times a residential one. That premium is ordinary for a district with real business demand — and it is the number to hold up against any pitch that treats the two as interchangeable.

Questions people actually ask

Answered from the register, not from a brochure
How much does a retail unit cost in Arjan?
Across 51 registered sales between January and July 2026, the median was AED 2,679,131. That median hides the split: ready stock cleared AED 1,973,542 at 1,697 AED/sqft, off-plan cleared AED 3,479,402 at 3,414. The number you should use depends entirely on which of the two markets you are buying in.
Why is off-plan more per foot than ready stock in Arjan?
Part of it is real: off-plan is new build, and the ready stock here is older. Part of it is that off-plan carries no rent until handover, so you are buying future value rather than present income. What the register cannot tell you is how much of the 2.01x is quality and how much is simply what the market will bear.
What rent does a retail unit in Arjan actually achieve?
263 registered leases show a median of AED 155,000 per year on a median 1,023 sqft, which is 153 AED/sqft/year. The number splits: 130 new leases sign at 159 AED/sqft, 133 renewals sit at 147 — a vacant unit lets for more than a tenanted one delivers.
What yield will a retail unit in Arjan produce?
Against the registered rate of 153 AED/sqft, ready stock at 1,697 produces roughly 9.0% gross; off-plan at 3,414 produces roughly 4.5%. Both are before service charge, vacancy and agency cost, so treat them as ceilings rather than forecasts. And off-plan earns nothing at all until handover, which the percentage does not show.
Is a retail unit more expensive per foot than an apartment in Arjan?
Yes — 2,700 against 1,598 across 1,843 registered apartment sales, so 1.69 times. Commercial foot sits above the residential one here, which is worth checking before you assume one is the cheaper way into the district.
How does Arjan compare with other Dubai retail unit districts?
Business Bay 2,880 across 64 deals, Majan 2,437 across 64 deals, Motor City 4,700 across 50 deals, Jumeirah Lakes Towers 1,967 across 35 deals. Arjan registered 51 sales in the period. Depth matters most when you want to sell: a district with hundreds of comparables gives a valuer something to work with, a district with a dozen does not.
You have the district's numbers. Now the one that matters: is the price you were quoted the price this market pays?
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Methodology. Every figure is AED per square foot. The DLD export records area in square metres — median 79.0 across the file — and is converted at 10.764 sqft/m², with the unit decided once for the dataset rather than row by row. Retail means PROP_TYPE Unit with sub-type Shop: the sub-types labelled “Commercial” and “Industrial” in DLD data are almost entirely land, and mixing them in drags the commercial median from 3,302 to 1,919 across Dubai. USAGE_EN is not used to classify sales — every office in the file is tagged “Residential” in that column. Duplicate transaction numbers are collapsed after filtering to Sales, and Mortgage and Gift registrations are excluded. Rent covers 1 January – 14 July 2026 and comes from registered Ejari contracts, filtered to PROP_TYPE Unit above 200 sqft and AED 30,000 to strip flexi-desks and business addresses. Ejari carries no contract number, so lease records are never de-duplicated: identical amounts registered in the same batch are separate units in separate buildings, and collapsing them understates the median rate by 9%. DLD records sales under marketing district names and Ejari under official community names; the two are matched through shared project names, never by hand. Medians throughout, never averages. Districts below 10 registered sales get no page. Registered transactions only: this is what was paid, not what was asked.
Disclaimer. This analysis reflects the independent opinion of OSNOVA Property, based on publicly available Dubai Land Department data at the time of publication. It is not financial, legal, or investment advice, and does not constitute an offer, recommendation, or guarantee of returns, capital appreciation, or rental yield. Yield figures are gross and illustrative. Past registered transactions are not a reliable indicator of future prices. Property investment carries risk, including loss of capital. Verify all figures independently and take professional advice before committing funds. OSNOVA Property is a licensed brokerage and may act for a party to a transaction discussed here.