Bluewaters Island: sales, prices per sq ft and its two projects (2026)

Bluewaters is a small district, and the register shows it. Every home here is a flat in one of two projects: Bluewaters Residences, ten finished buildings, and Bluewaters Bay, two buildings sold off-plan. Between them they registered 126 sales in the 12 months to 2 November 2026, 90 ready and 36 off-plan.

With so few sales, treat every median on this page as a rough guide. The headline AED 4,058 per sq ft rests on 77 sales, not 126. The release of the register flags 47 of the year's sales as outside its normal price band, and this record's medians leave them out. Those are the island's most expensive homes: their median price was AED 12.6 million. They're counted in the totals; they just aren't in the middle price.

Ready homes sell for more per sq ft here than off-plan ones: a median AED 4,628 in Bluewaters Residences against AED 3,723 in Bluewaters Bay. Both are far above the all-Dubai median of AED 1,725.

The count is close to a year earlier's: 126 sales against 148 in the 12 months before. What the register can't tell you is what sellers are asking today, or anything about one home's floor, view or condition. It records what sold, when, and for how much.

The island was unveiled on 13 February 2013 and construction began on 20 May that year. It has four kinds of use: entertainment, hotels, homes and shops. Its landmark is Ain Dubai, a 250 m observation wheel that Wikipedia lists as the world's tallest since October 2021, and Madame Tussauds Dubai opened here in September 2021.

That mix matters if you're thinking of living here. Wikipedia calls the island a popular tourist destination, forecast to draw more than three million visitors a year, so you'd be living beside an attraction. The homes are in two groups, and the register's building names show them: Bluewaters Residences 1 to 10, and Bluewaters Bay Building 1 and Building 2.

In the DLD's register the island isn't an area of its own. It sits inside the area Marsa Dubai, with Dubai Marina, JBR and Dubai Harbour. Until February 2026 the DLD also named a master project, Bluewaters Island, which held Bluewaters Residences. Bluewaters Bay was never filed under it, so this record finds the island's sales by the master project and by the two project names.

Because every sale on the island carries one of those two names, the count is complete, including the months since March 2026 when the release stopped naming master projects.

The island's history in the register is two launches and the quiet years between them. Bluewaters Residences sold off-plan in 2017 and 2018, and in 2019 the register shows 407 sales, 377 of them ready, as the buildings were handed over. Then the count settled at between 100 and 200 a year.

The second launch was Bluewaters Bay. Its first sale was registered on 18 January 2023, and it registered 700 sales that year, which is why 2023 stands out with 858 sales worth AED 4.98 billion. Since then it has added about fifty a year.

Take the launches away and what's left is the resale market in Bluewaters Residences: 158 sales in 2023, 122 in 2024 and 104 in 2025. That's the number to keep in mind if you own or want a finished home here: about ten sales a month across ten buildings. In all, the register holds 2,309 sales on the island worth AED 13.6 billion.

2026 isn't finished, so don't set its 88 sales beside a full year.

A median is the middle sale: half of the homes sold for more per sq ft and half for less. On an island with about 150 sales a year it can move a good deal from one year to the next just because different flats happened to sell.

The clearest line is Bluewaters Residences on its own. Its median was AED 2,209 per sq ft in 2021, AED 3,170 in 2022 and AED 4,080 in 2023, and it has stayed above AED 4,000 since: AED 4,264 in 2025 and AED 4,668 for 2026 to 2 November. Bluewaters Bay has moved far less, from AED 3,661 at its launch in 2023 to AED 3,811 in 2026 so far.

Remember what those medians leave out. In 2025 only 34 of Bluewaters Residences' 104 sales fell inside the release's price band; most of the rest sold above it and aren't in the figure. So the middle of all its resales is likely higher than the line shows, and this record can't say by how much.

For the 12 months to 2 November 2026, the island's ready homes, at AED 4,628 per sq ft, sold far above those of Marsa Dubai as a whole, the DLD area it sits in, at AED 1,956, and above Palm Jumeirah's ready homes, at AED 2,644.

The table gives each size its median price and the middle half of prices: a quarter sold below the lower figure and a quarter above the higher one. Read the counts beside them. The one-bedroom median rests on 31 clean sales, the two-bedroom on 28 and the three-bedroom on 15. Four- and five-bedroom flats sold too, 10 of them, but too few had a clean record to give a median.

The two projects are priced differently, so the split matters more than usual. A ready one-bedroom in Bluewaters Residences sold for a median AED 5.22 million and an off-plan one in Bluewaters Bay for AED 3.03 million. For two bedrooms it was AED 7 million ready and AED 5.51 million off-plan.

The top of the market is large for so small a place. 47 of the year's 126 sales were for AED 10 million or more, and the highest registered price was AED 90 million. Across all Dubai, the median one-bedroom flat sold for AED 1.25 million in the same 12 months.

Rents aren't in this register, so this record gives none and works out no yield. For a rent, use the DLD's Rental Index, which the section on checking explains.

There's no long list of towers to search here, so this section has two short tables instead. The first sets the two projects side by side, year by year. The second lists the twelve buildings as the register named them.

In the first table, read each project's sales and price together. Bluewaters Residences is the finished part of the island: almost all its sales have been ready since 2019. Bluewaters Bay is the off-plan part, and every one of its 832 sales so far is off-plan, so none of its prices is a resale price yet.

The second table stops in February 2026, because the release of the register stopped naming buildings then. It still tells you something useful: which buildings change hands most. Building 8 and Building 3 of Bluewaters Residences have registered the most sales, and Building 1 the fewest. A building with few sales isn't better or worse; it may simply be smaller or more tightly held, and the register doesn't say which.

Since March 2026 a sale here is known only by its project, so this record can no longer tell you which of the ten Bluewaters Residences buildings a sale was in. The title deed or the sale contract for a specific home names the building.

An off-plan sale is a home bought before it's finished. The DLD registers it as its own type of sale, which is why this record can keep off-plan and ready prices apart.

Bluewaters Bay's first sale was registered on 18 January 2023. It registered 700 sales in 2023, 55 in 2024, 50 in 2025 and 27 in 2026 to 2 November. A sale registered off-plan in a project's later years can be a first sale from the developer or a buyer selling on before handover; the register types both the same way, so this record can't split them.

Its median price in the last 12 months was AED 3.6 million, against AED 6.65 million in Bluewaters Residences. That isn't a like-for-like gap: the sizes sold differ, and Bluewaters Residences' median leaves out its many sales above the release's price band.

The sales register doesn't hold a project's stage or its handover date, so this record states neither. Both are in the DLD's Project Status Enquiry, which shows the completion percentage the DLD has recorded. A date in a brochure is the developer's plan; the percentage is the DLD's record.

The island is 400 m from the JBR shore, so daily life here leans on the mainland for transport. To reach a Red Line train you'd get to the tram in JBR first and change at Dubai Marina station for Sobha Realty. Check that whole journey from the building you're considering, at the hours you'd make it.

On the island itself, Wikipedia lists entertainment, hotel, residential and retail zones. Ain Dubai is the landmark, and Madame Tussauds Dubai opened in September 2021. Those bring visitors, which is part of what you're choosing when you choose to live here.

This record states only what its sources state, so it gives no list of restaurants or facilities by name, and no walking times.

This record names no school, because it read no inspection report for one here. Dubai's school regulator, KHDA, lists every private school in its Education Directory with its overall inspection rating and the school year of that rating. That's the place to see which schools are near and what each was rated, and when.

An area page can tell you what homes sold for. It can't tell you what one building costs to own, how far along a project is, or what a home rents for. The DLD publishes all three, and none of the look-ups costs anything.

In a block of flats, the lifts, the pools and the shared areas are paid for by the owners together, through a yearly service charge. That charge is approved for each jointly owned property through Mollak, the DLD's system for it, so each building has its own figure. Look it up for the exact building and year before you compare prices.

For anything off-plan, the completion percentage on the DLD's own page is the record to read. And for a home you already have in mind, the name and number on the title deed or the sale contract are what you match against all three look-ups: the same building can go by one name on its sign and another in the register.

A question that comes up early is who can buy. Dubai's Regulation No. 3 of 2006, issued on 7 June 2006, sets out the areas where people who aren't UAE nationals may own property. In those areas it allows freehold ownership with no time limit, or a usufruct or a lease of up to 99 years. Freehold simply means you own the home outright, not for a fixed term. The regulation's 2006 list doesn't name Bluewaters, and this record read no official list that does; areas have been added by later decisions. So this page doesn't state the island's ownership status. The DLD, or the title deed or sale contract for a specific home, shows the type of title.

On the cost of buying, the DLD's Property Sale Registration page lists 2% of the sale value for the seller and 2% for the buyer, AED 250 for the title deed certificate, and a trustee office fee of AED 4,000 plus VAT when the sale is AED 500,000 or more. Those are the figures as read on 12 November 2026. Fees and rules change, so check the DLD's page on the day you need them.

Sales data: Dubai Land Department sales transactions, open data via Dubai Pulse, in the release by Dubai Real Estate Data (dubairealestatedata.com), CC BY 4.0. It runs to 2 November 2026, so 2026 is a year so far.

What is counted: every sale the DLD filed under its master project Bluewaters Island, and every sale under the project names Bluewaters Residences and Bluewaters Bay. The island sits inside the DLD area Marsa Dubai, whose other sales aren't counted.

How it's counted: a count takes every registered sale with a valid date, and a value every sale with a price, less any price above AED 50,000 per sq ft, a typing error. A price per sq ft is the median of clean sales of built homes, shown only on 10 sales or more. Hotel units, offices, shops and land count in sales and value, not in home prices.

What changed in the release: it flags many of the island's dearest sales as outside its price band, which keeps them out of medians but not out of counts and values; and from March 2026 it names no master project and no building, so a sale here is known only by its project. It also lists fewer sales a month across Dubai than before: 174,057 in the 12 months to 2 November 2026 against 206,051 in the 12 months before. This record reports what the release holds and doesn't adjust it.

What it can't say: asking prices, rents, service charges, the island's ownership status, which building a sale since March 2026 was in, a project's stage or handover date, or anything about a single home. It doesn't forecast or rate.

Other sources, all accessed 12 November 2026: Wikipedia (Bluewaters Island, Ain Dubai, Meraas, Dubai Tram) and OpenStreetMap for facts and map positions; RTA's Metro and tram stations map; Regulation No. 3 of 2006 on Dubai's legislation portal and Al Tamimi & Company's guide to it; the DLD's Property Sale Registration, Service Charge Index, Project Status Enquiry and Rental Index pages; KHDA's Education Directory.

2026-11-12 · refreshed · Replaced the earlier guide with a record counted from the DLD sales register to 2 November 2026. Sources accessed 12 November 2026.

2026-11-13 · refreshed · Medians recounted: villas the register files as buildings now count.