DAMAC Properties in Dubai

DAMAC is the largest private developer in Dubai by delivery. Founded in 2002 by Hussain Sajwani, it has handed over more than fifty thousand homes, and in the first half of 2026 it sold more off plan homes by volume than any other developer in the city: 5,706 units worth AED 15.6 billion on Dubai Land Department figures.

It listed on the Dubai Financial Market in 2015 and went private again in 2022, so it no longer files equity accounts. Its bond issuing entity is still rated, which is the route through which anything about its finances reaches the public.

DAMAC Properties at a glance

Track record

DAMAC crossed fifty thousand homes handed over during 2026, which is more than any other private developer in Dubai has delivered. Behind that it reports more than fifty four thousand homes under construction and more than fifty five thousand in planning across over one hundred million square feet. Those two pipeline figures are company boilerplate and are not reconciled with each other, so do not add them together.

On sales it reported AED 36 billion for 2025, which it said made it the top selling private developer in Dubai. The first half of 2026 was strong again: 5,706 off plan homes sold worth AED 15.6 billion, first in the city by volume and second by value on Dubai Land Department data, in a market where off plan primary residential sales totalled AED 92.8 billion.

Its brand partnerships are better established than most, and two details are worth knowing because other sites get them wrong. DAMAC bought the Swiss jeweller de GRISOGONO outright in 2022, so Safa One and Safa Two are not a licensed brand but an in house one. And while Roberto Cavalli’s majority ownership passed to Marquee Brands in a deal agreed in May 2026, DAMAC remains a significant shareholder and the Cavalli branded residences stay fully owned and operated by DAMAC. The Chelsea Football Club partnership is current: the sixth and final tower at Chelsea Residences launched in July 2026.

Best known for

Delivery and handover

The 2026 programme is 8,800 homes, across DAMAC Hills, DAMAC Hills 2, DAMAC Lagoons, Chic Tower in Business Bay and Elegance Tower in Downtown. It awarded more than AED 10 billion of construction contracts in the first half of 2026 to support that.

Community by community, DAMAC Hills is about 85 per cent complete and handed over, with roughly AED 3 billion of active projects left in it. DAMAC Hills 2 has around eleven thousand completed homes across fifty five million square feet, with more than fifteen hundred villas due during 2026. DAMAC Lagoons has infrastructure more than 80 per cent complete and was targeting about 6,300 homes in 2026 against roughly 513 the year before.

That last pair of numbers tells you something useful. Lagoons is at the point in a master community’s life where it stops being a building site and starts being a place, which is usually when the rental market in it becomes real.

Where DAMAC builds

DAMAC is unusual among the private developers in being master developer of its own communities rather than building on land bought from others. DAMAC Hills in Dubailand, which includes the Trump International Golf Club, DAMAC Hills 2, DAMAC Lagoons, DAMAC Islands and Islands 2, DAMAC Sun City, DAMAC Riverside and Akoya Oxygen are all its own masterplans.

Alongside those it builds individual towers in locations it does not master plan: Chic Tower in Business Bay, Elegance Tower in Downtown, DAMAC Heights in Dubai Marina, DAMAC Bay by Cavalli at Dubai Harbour, Chelsea Residences at Dubai Maritime City, and Safa One and Safa Two at Al Wasl by Safa Park. It also builds outside Dubai, in Ras Al Khaimah and in Baghdad.

For an investor the master community point matters. In its own communities DAMAC controls the amenities, the phasing and the service charge regime, so what is promised tends to arrive. The flip side is that the whole district is one developer’s product, so there is less of the variety that tends to support resale values.

Area guides: Business Bay.

Payment plans and what you pay up front

DAMAC has the widest spread of payment terms of any developer I list, and no single standard plan. Across the portfolio you will see 20/60/20, 70/30 and 80/20, and post handover instalments on selected releases. On the two schemes I list, Chelsea Residences is 5/55/40 and DAMAC Islands 2 is 20/55/25.

That 5 per cent booking deposit on Chelsea Residences is the lowest entry payment on this site, and it is the single most useful thing to know about buying from DAMAC. It also means the terms you are quoted depend heavily on which release you are in, so always check the plan for the specific tower and phase rather than assuming a DAMAC standard.

The Dubai Land Department registration fee is 4 per cent of the purchase price. On off plan it is normally paid when the sale is registered on the Oqood system, so budget for it alongside the booking deposit rather than at handover.

What it costs to run

Four things cost you money every year once the keys are handed over. The service charge, set per building and billed per square foot. District cooling, which in some towers is billed separately and in others sits inside the service charge. DEWA for water and electricity, plus a refundable deposit when you open the account. And if you let it, a management fee, usually 5 to 8 per cent of the rent on a long let and 15 to 25 per cent on a holiday let.

DAMAC’s villa communities are generally cheaper to run per square foot than high amenity towers, which is part of their appeal, but the only DAMAC specific figure I could verify anywhere is a single villa cluster at DAMAC Hills 2 and the source does not state the year, so I am not publishing it as a guide.

Service charges are the number most buyers never check and then complain about. Every community has a figure approved by RERA and published on the Dubai Land Department service charge index, which you can look up per building in the Dubai REST app. It is a per building lookup, not a developer average, and the whole developer ranges you see quoted online are not sourced from anywhere. I will pull the approved figure for any building you are serious about before you commit, because on a high amenity tower it is the difference between a gross yield that works and one that does not.

My view on DAMAC

Who DAMAC suits

It suits a buyer who wants a villa or townhouse rather than an apartment, who wants the lowest possible cash outlay to secure a unit, or who wants a branded residence from a developer that owns the brand rather than rents it. The golf and lagoon communities also suit family tenants, which tends to mean longer tenancies.

It suits you less if you want a beachfront or Downtown address, if you need to read audited accounts before you commit, or if you want the terms settled before you start looking. On that last point Binghatti is the more predictable option.

How DAMAC compares

Against EmaarAldar, the other master developer at scale, DAMAC is private rather than government backed and sits a tier below on location, but it asks far less up front. Against Binghatti it has the longer delivery record and the lower booking deposit, while Binghatti publishes accounts and has the more consistent plan. Against Nakheel you are comparing inland golf and lagoon communities with waterfront and island land.

DAMAC Properties: common questions

Figures as published by the developer, regulators and the press, checked in October 2026. Sales rankings are on Dubai Land Department data.