Dubai Marina · Retail · Dubai

Retail space in Dubai Marina, 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, and Ejari records what a tenant actually signed. 16 sales and 398 leases in this district say something the listings do not.

16 registered sales · AED 51.04M · 398 registered leases · 1 January – 14 July 2026 · Source: Dubai Land Department
What this district actually trades
Ready
2,108
AED / sqft · 16 deals
Median ticket AED 2.95M
Median unit 1,504 sqft · Off-plan: 0 deals, too thin to publish

Not one off-plan sale registered here in six months. This district trades one side of the market only — which means there is no second price to check the first against, and no comparable from the other half of the cycle. That is not a flaw in the data; it is the fact you are buying into.

What that does to the yield
398 registered retail leases in Dubai Marina clear a median of AED 268,291 per year on 1,220 sqft — that is 229 AED/sqft. The tenant pays that rate regardless of when the building was finished. So the purchase price is the only variable.
Ready @ 2,108
10.9%
Vacant lets higher than tenanted. The 398 contracts split: 137 new leases at a median 259 AED/sqft, 261 renewals at 220. A ready unit bought empty and let at the new rate reaches 12.3%; the same unit bought with a sitting tenant on a renewal delivers 10.4%. That 1.8-point spread separates two purchases that look identical in a listing.
Gross, before service charge, vacancy, and agency cost — a ceiling, not a forecast.

Month by month

Median AED/sqft · complete months only, July excluded as partial
MonthDealsMedian AED/sqft
January 202633,000
February 202661,961
March 202633,000
May 202611,711
June 202622,258

The median held between 1,711 and 3,000 across 5 complete months — a 75% 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 2.95M actually buys here

Ready stock · 16 registered sales · whole segment: 16 deals
10th percentile
2.01M
smallest tickets clearing
Median ticket
2.95M
1,504 sqft typical
75th percentile
3.89M
larger-floorplate territory
90th percentile
4.67M
above this is rare

The entry point is where most assumptions break. A tenth of registered sales here cleared under AED 2,011,770, and the top decile starts at AED 4,668,960 — a 2-fold range inside one district and one segment. A quoted “Dubai Marina price” without a size attached to it is not information.

Dubai Marina against everything else

Median AED/sqft, registered retail sales, same window · districts with 10+ deals and registered rent
Motor City →
4,700
Al Satwa →
3,878
Jumeirah Village Triangle →
2,338
Dubai Marina
2,108
Jumeirah Lakes Towers →
1,967

Dubai Marina registered 16 retail sales in the period. Motor City registered 50. 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
Retail
2,108
16 deals · AED/sqft
Apartments
1,828
947 deals · AED/sqft

A commercial foot in Dubai Marina costs 1.15 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 Dubai Marina?
Across 16 registered sales between January and July 2026, the median was AED 2,951,130 at 2,108 AED/sqft. 16 of those were ready stock, clearing AED 2,951,130 at 2,108 AED/sqft. The other side of the market is too thin here to publish a median against — which is itself worth knowing before you buy.
What rent does a retail unit in Dubai Marina actually achieve?
398 registered leases show a median of AED 268,291 per year on a median 1,220 sqft, which is 229 AED/sqft/year. The number splits: 137 new leases sign at 259 AED/sqft, 261 renewals sit at 220 — a vacant unit lets for more than a tenanted one delivers.
What yield will a retail unit in Dubai Marina produce?
Against the registered rate of 229 AED/sqft, ready stock at 2,108 produces roughly 10.9% gross. Both are before service charge, vacancy and agency cost, so treat them as ceilings rather than forecasts.
Is a retail unit more expensive per foot than an apartment in Dubai Marina?
Yes — 2,108 against 1,828 across 947 registered apartment sales, so 1.15 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 Dubai Marina compare with other Dubai retail unit districts?
Motor City 4,700 across 50 deals, Jumeirah Lakes Towers 1,967 across 35 deals, Jumeirah Village Triangle 2,338 across 15 deals, Al Satwa 3,878 across 11 deals. Dubai Marina registered 16 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?
Send the unit you are looking at. You get it checked against the DLD comparables above — what was actually paid in the same building, at the same size, in the same month. Free, no obligation, no subscription.
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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.