Distressed units in Emaar's Dubai communities β and Emaar's own 2026β2031 delivery schedule
Emaar does not publish handover dates for individual buildings β but it does publish a delivery schedule to its investors, community by community and year by year. This page reproduces that schedule, explains what a concentrated completion window means for an individual seller's timing, and stays honest that genuinely below-original-price Emaar stock is uncommon.
Last verified 2026-07-22 Β· How we assess these
- Founded
- 1997
- Ownership
- Publicly listed (DFM: EMAAR)
- Homes delivered
- 82,723
- Under construction
- 52,787
- Scheduled 2027β28
- 23,120 homes
- Below-OP availability
- Uncommon β premium developer
Qualitative profile β not a market-price figure. Per-community price data lives on the linked area guides.
Emaar Properties is the developer that built the master communities most people picture when they think of modern Dubai β Downtown Dubai and the Burj Khalifa, most of Dubai Marina, Emirates Living, Arabian Ranches, and the newer Dubai Hills Estate, Dubai Creek Harbour, Emaar Beachfront, Emaar South and The Valley. It is a publicly listed company (Dubai Financial Market: EMAAR), which matters when you are buying second-hand: Emaar's finances, delivery record and escrow discipline are a matter of public record rather than private reputation.
The scale is the thing to hold in your head. Emaar Development PJSC β the group's UAE build-to-sell arm β reported 82,723 homes delivered and 52,787 more under construction as at 31 March 2026, with 92% of that pipeline already sold. This is a large, state-adjacent, value-holding institution, and nothing on this page suggests otherwise. Distress on distress.ae always belongs to an individual seller's circumstances, never to the company that built the building.
What that scale does create is timing. Homes do not complete evenly β they complete in clusters, because they were launched in clusters. When a community takes several thousand completions in one year, several thousand individual owners reach their final payment in the same window, and a small share of them will need to move rather than complete. That is a fact about calendars, not about Emaar and not about any one seller. The schedule below is Emaar's own; what you do with it is the rest of this page.
When Emaar's current projects are scheduled to complete
Emaar does not publish handover dates for individual buildings. Its project pages, brochures and press releases carry launch dates, payment plans and renders β not completion dates. Emaar's own Dubai Hills FAQ simply tells buyers to ask a sales advisor. So any tower-by-tower "handover calendar" you find on a property portal is that portal's estimate, not Emaar's statement, and we will not publish one.
There is one place Emaar does state its timing publicly, because as a listed company it has to: its investor filings. Emaar Development PJSC β the group's UAE build-to-sell arm β files an expected delivery schedule by master community and by year. Below is that table, reproduced exactly as filed, with a link to the source document so you can check every figure yourself.
| Community | Delivered | Under construction | 2026 (Q2βQ4) | 2027 | 2028 | 2029 | 2030 | 2031 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Downtown Dubai | 21,746 | 1,132 | 35 | β | 1,097 | β | β | β |
| Emaar Beachfront | 3,612 | 2,261 | β | 697 | 1,337 | β | 227 | β |
| Dubai Marina | 5,298 | 666 | β | 440 | β | β | 226 | β |
| Arabian Ranches | 4,360 | β | β | β | β | β | β | β |
| Arabian Ranches II | 1,665 | β | β | β | β | β | β | β |
| Arabian Ranches III | 3,067 | 1,152 | 1,152 | β | β | β | β | β |
| The Valley | 1,372 | 7,243 | 982 | 1,816 | 2,736 | 860 | 849 | β |
| Emirates Living | 14,968 | 277 | 277 | β | β | β | β | β |
| Emaar Towers | 168 | β | β | β | β | β | β | β |
| Dubai Hills Estate | 10,738 | 9,752 | 1,708 | 3,326 | 2,216 | 2,502 | β | β |
| Umm Al Quwain | 277 | β | β | β | β | β | β | β |
| Rashid Yachts & Marina | 282 | 4,290 | 521 | 789 | 1,266 | 659 | 1,055 | β |
| The Oasis (for Emaar Properties) | β | 671 | β | 380 | 253 | 38 | β | β |
| Address Marjan Island | β | 1,184 | β | β | 1,184 | β | β | β |
| The Oasis | β | 1,670 | β | β | β | 1,013 | 657 | β |
| Grand Polo Club and Resort | β | 3,101 | β | β | β | 3,101 | β | β |
| Business Bay | β | 689 | β | β | β | β | β | 689 |
| The Heights Country Club & Wellness | β | 1,263 | β | β | β | β | 1,263 | β |
| Dubai Creek Harbour | 11,714 | 7,916 | 1,051 | 1,901 | 755 | 2,855 | 1,354 | β |
| Emaar South | 3,456 | 5,388 | β | 381 | 2,546 | 1,620 | 841 | β |
| Zabeel Square | β | 1,748 | β | β | β | 1,748 | β | β |
| Expo Living | β | 2,384 | β | β | β | 1,004 | 1,380 | β |
| Total | 82,723 | 52,787 | 5,726 | 9,730 | 13,390 | 15,400 | 7,852 | 689 |
Source: Emaar Development PJSC β Q1 2026 Investor Presentation, p.27 βExpected Delivery Scheduleβ. Figures as at 31 March 2026, reproduced as filed. An em dash means nothing was scheduled for that year.
Five projects, 2,261 homes, 99% sold. Only Beachgate by Address (90% built) and Address The Bay (69%) were past two-thirds at the reporting date; Bayview Tower 1 & 2 stood at 44%, Seapoint at 36%, and The Bristol had not started.
Twenty-one phases, 7,243 homes, 98% sold. Three phases were finished (Farm Gardens, Elora, Lillia) and Rivana stood at 94%, while ten phases were below 50% built and three had not started.
Twenty-two projects, 9,752 homes, 96% sold β the largest concentration in Emaar's portfolio. Seven were between 78% and 100% built at the reporting date: Golf Grand (100%), Elvira (95%), Parkside Views (95%), Park Gate (88%), Greenside (85%), Vida DHE (83%) and Club Drive (78%). The other fifteen were at 71% or below, one of them not yet started.
Nineteen projects, 4,290 homes, 88% sold β the least-built large community in the portfolio. Only Sunridge (100%) and Seascape (80%) were past three-quarters; eleven projects sat at 34% or below and four had not started.
Eighteen projects, 7,916 homes, 90% sold. Four were at 78% or above β Canopy (100%), The Cove II (93%), Creek Waters 2 (79%) and Creek Waters (78%) β while nine were below 60% built and three had not started.
Twenty-one phases, 5,388 homes, 94% sold. Only Fairway Villas 2 (87%) was past halfway; the ten other phases carrying a figure were at 48% or below, and eleven had not started.
How Emaar resales become distressed
- The deadline is legal, not emotional. Above 80% construction completion β where an owner sits when the final payment falls due β Dubai's Law No. (19) of 2017, Art. 11(a)(4)(a), lets the developer keep everything already paid and still claim the balance, or ask the DLD to auction the unit at the buyer's cost. Walking away is the worst available option, so an owner who cannot complete has a deadline rather than a choice.
- Resales cluster right before completion. Property Monitor's COO told Khaleej Times in October 2024 that "the majority of off-plan resales these days are for properties that are within 12 months of completion" β which is why a delivery schedule is also, indirectly, a resale-supply calendar.
- The market-wide backdrop is published. Fitch Ratings told The National in January 2026 that around 120,000 units were scheduled for handover across Dubai in 2026 and that the volume would "likely put pressure" on prices and rents.
- Schedules slip, and that cuts both ways. Knight Frank's Q1 2026 review found 34% of the units due across Dubai in 2026 were still under 20% built, and expects just 95,649 of a forecast 144,888 to complete on time β so treat any completion year as a plan, not a promise.
- Keep the size of this honest: off-plan resales were only 9% of all off-plan transactions in Dubai in 2025, which Khaleej Times reads as evidence most buyers are long-term holders rather than flippers. The pre-handover exit channel is real but narrow.
- None of this applies to Emaar's mature communities. Downtown, Emirates Living and Arabian Ranches have little or nothing left under construction, so there is no completion cluster there at all β a below-market unit in those communities is one seller's circumstances and nothing more.
Emaar communities with distressed inventory
Each community below links to its area guide, where the current distressed listings and the real DLD price data for that location live. Distress concentration varies sharply by community β the notes say where it actually shows up.
End-user heavy and value-holding; below-OP is occasional and individual-seller driven, not structural.
Master-developed by Emaar; deep resale liquidity, so distress here is about seller urgency against abundant comparables.
Newer Emaar-led master plan; some post-handover investor exits, but a premium address that broadly appreciates.
Still handing over in waves β the clearest pocket of genuinely below-OP Emaar off-plan exits.
Newer off-plan townhouse community on the DubaiβAl Ain road; on-plan investors exiting before handover surface below-OP units.
Off-plan community near Al Maktoum airport; investor-heavy and milestone-driven, so exit-before-handover pressure appears here.
Prime waterfront; rarely discounts β branded, high-ticket stock that holds even when mid-market Emaar softens.
Established villa community, end-user owned; distress is individual (relocation, mortgage exit), not oversupply.
Before you buy Emaar off-plan
None of this makes Emaar a bad buy β it makes it a value-holding one, which is the opposite of a bargain bin. The honest opportunity is narrow and specific: an individual Emaar off-plan investor in a still-handing-over community who needs to exit before completion, priced under recent same-building resales. That is a real below-market deal; a whole-brand discount narrative is not.
Use the community guides below to go one level deeper: each links to the area page where the current distressed inventory and the real DLD price data for that community live. Verify every discount against recent same-building DLD-sold prices, confirm the payment stage and NOC threshold with Emaar directly, and treat any 'distressed Emaar' headline with the scepticism a blue-chip developer earns.
Frequently asked about Emaar
When do Emaar's projects actually hand over?
Emaar does not publish handover dates for individual buildings. Its project pages, brochures and press releases carry launch dates and payment plans, and its own Dubai Hills FAQ tells buyers to ask a sales advisor for timing. The only place Emaar states delivery timing publicly is its investor filing, which gives it by master community and by year rather than by tower β that is the table reproduced on this page, taken from Emaar Development PJSC's Q1 2026 investor presentation (figures as at 31 March 2026). Treat any tower-by-tower handover calendar published elsewhere as that website's estimate, not Emaar's statement, and confirm your own project's status on the Dubai REST app.
Which Emaar communities have the most homes completing soon?
On Emaar's own filed schedule, 9,730 homes were scheduled across its communities for 2027 and 13,390 for 2028. The largest 2027 concentrations are Dubai Hills Estate (3,326), Dubai Creek Harbour (1,901) and The Valley (1,816); in 2028 it is The Valley (2,736), Emaar South (2,546) and Dubai Hills Estate (2,216). For scale, Dubai Hills Estate had 10,738 homes delivered in its entire history to 31 March 2026, so its 2027 figure alone is close to a third of that. Mature communities like Downtown, Emirates Living and Arabian Ranches have little or nothing left under construction.
Are Emaar properties ever genuinely below original price?
Yes, but it is the exception rather than the rule. Emaar is Dubai's blue-chip developer; its flagship communities (Downtown, Dubai Marina, Emirates Living) have largely appreciated, and its off-plan frequently trades at a construction-phase premium. Genuine below-original-price (below-OP) resales do appear β most often in newer, still-handing-over investor communities like Dubai Creek Harbour, The Valley and Emaar South, where an on-plan buyer needs to exit before completion. Treat any listing claiming a deep Emaar discount with scepticism and verify it against recent same-building DLD-sold prices.
Which Emaar communities have the most distressed inventory?
The newer off-plan master plans that are still handing over in waves β Dubai Creek Harbour, The Valley, Emaar South and parts of Emaar Beachfront β because those carry a higher share of investor buyers who may need to exit before or at handover. Emaar's mature, end-user-heavy communities (Downtown, Marina, Emirates Living, Arabian Ranches) hold value, so below-market stock there is driven by individual seller urgency rather than any structural oversupply.
Does Emaar deliver its off-plan projects on time?
Emaar has one of the stronger delivery records among Dubai developers, and as a publicly listed company (DFM: EMAAR) its project progress and escrow position are more transparent than most. That reliability is good news for buyers β but it also means Emaar produces fewer of the stalled-project distress situations that generate forced sellers elsewhere. Always check the specific project's registration and escrow status on the Dubai REST app before committing to an off-plan resale.
Can I resell an Emaar off-plan unit before handover?
Usually yes, but Emaar sets a minimum percentage of the purchase price that you must have paid before it will issue the No Objection Certificate (NOC) needed to transfer an off-plan unit β and that threshold varies by project and changes over time. Confirm the current figure with Emaar directly before relying on it; do not take a broker's number. The resale is then registered with the DLD (Oqood re-registration for off-plan), and the buyer typically reimburses the amount you have already paid plus any agreed premium. Our off-plan exit guide walks through the full process.
Is buying a below-market Emaar unit a good investment?
It can be, precisely because Emaar stock tends to hold value β a genuinely below-market entry on a value-holding asset is a better risk profile than a deep discount on oversupplied stock. The catch is that genuine below-market Emaar units are scarce and get competed for quickly, so a cash buyer who can close fast holds real leverage. As always, verify the discount against recent same-building resale prices and price in service charges before treating a low headline number as a deal. This is general information, not personal investment advice.