Nakheel opened expressions of interest for Bay Estate at 10:00 on 25 September 2026: 357 townhouses and villas set around two swimmable lagoons on Dubai Islands, off the Deira coast, with 60 villa plots alongside. Nakheel has no public price list or project page yet, so every price, size and date below comes from its sales material to registered brokers, as reported by Al Masdar Al Aqaari and brokers who hold the pack. Treat each one as indicative, confirmed at SPA. This is our read of the case, written the way we brief a client in person.
Start with the islands. Dubai Islands covers 18.6 sq km off Deira: five islands with about 57 km of coastline and 21 km of beach. Parts of them are already open, with three hotels of about 1,570 rooms, the Souk Al Marfa waterfront market, trading since 2021, Nakheel's 248-berth marina and a Blue Flag beach. About 3,400 homes sold on the islands between January and August 2026, worth AED 12.4bn. Nakheel puts the airport 18 minutes from Bay Estate and DIFC and Downtown 28; at weekday peak we would allow 30 to 45 minutes. Bay Estate will have "a dedicated connection to the mainland", in Nakheel's words, though that link has no published route or date yet.
The community is built around water. Nakheel's material describes two swimmable lagoons, a marina and a waterfront promenade, and a beach club with a pool, a private gym, dining and a children's area, with pool clubhouses, landscaped open space, a community mosque and neighbourhood shops closer to the houses. There are three collections: Verda comes first and holds every house type, Cala sits nearest the shoreline, and Agora is the social hub with the shops and the marina.
The release leans to townhouses: 98 three-bedroom and 78 four-bedroom townhouses, 134 four-bedroom attached villas and 47 four-bedroom garden villas. The three-bedroom townhouse averages AED 5.9M for about 3,100 sq ft on a plot of about 2,400. The attached villa averages AED 7.2M, and the Plus version, with an extra floor, AED 8.9M for about 5,300 sq ft, the most floor area in the release at about AED 1,680 per sq ft. The garden villa, the only detached house here, averages AED 10.0M on the largest plots, about 6,500 sq ft; a pool and the garden landscaping are outside the price. These are averages, so entry units sit below them.
Now the price per foot. Across the release the average works out at about AED 1,870 per sq ft of net sellable area. On the Dubai Land Department register, Emaar's The Oasis registered AED 1,912 to 2,168 on its 2026 launches, and Grand Polo and The Heights launched at similar levels. Palm Jebel Ali frond villas resell at AED 2,283 to 2,976, and the median apartment on Dubai Islands sold at AED 2,749 per sq ft over the last twelve months. Sea-front villas usually trade well above homes beside an inland lagoon; Bay Estate asks the inland price and adds the islands' beaches.
It is also a house for about the price of an apartment. The median three-bedroom apartment on Dubai Islands sold for AED 5.50M over the last twelve months, about AED 400,000 less than the three-bedroom townhouse average, which comes with a garden of its own and lagoons inside the community.
Two facts cut the other way. Per sq ft, Bay Estate townhouses and garden villas cost 11% to 39% more than 2026 resales at Bay Villas, Nakheel's earlier project on the same islands, which hands over three to four years sooner. The premium buys a newer masterplan with its own lagoons and beach club, and whether that is worth it is a personal decision. And the market has cooled: ValuStrat puts Dubai values 10.2% below February 2026, and its August index shows villas 1.7% lower than a year earlier, their first annual fall in five years.
The Bay Villas story is worth knowing. In February 2024 hundreds of buyers queued overnight, and Nakheel sold all the houses on offer in the first two phases within hours (Bloomberg, via Fortune). The register now shows how those buyers have done: most mid-2026 townhouse resales sit 5% to 10% above the 2024 price, garden villas are flat to 10% up, and one garden villa resold 11% below its seller's price. Nakheel's 2023 Palm Jebel Ali villas also sold out at launch, and their 2026 resale price per foot is roughly where it started. Demand for Nakheel's island homes is deep on day one; the gains since have been modest and uneven by type.
The payment plan is date-based and gives you time. On a three-bedroom townhouse at the AED 5.9M average, you pay 20% plus the 4% DLD fee at booking in October 2026, about AED 1.42M; 40% in six instalments from March 2027 to April 2029, about AED 2.36M; and the last 40%, another AED 2.36M, at handover, estimated for January 2031. Nothing falls due for about 21 months before the keys, and banks usually lend on off-plan villas at handover, so that is the window to arrange a mortgage.
The queue matters. EOIs are ranked strictly by submission date and time together with the deposit, a refundable AED 100,000 lodged through a registered broker. Incomplete submissions rank lower and bulk submissions are refused. Allocation is expected in October, though Nakheel has not set a date. With 47 garden villas in the release, queue position counts most there.
We run the townhouse at three prices per foot that other communities register today, and none of them is a forecast. At the Bay Villas townhouse resale midpoint, AED 1,529, the home is worth AED 4.74M and you are about AED 1.49M behind after the DLD fee and a 2% resale fee, with the 40% balance still owed. At The Oasis midpoint, AED 2,040, it is worth AED 6.32M, roughly break-even after fees. At the low end of Palm Jebel Ali frond resales, AED 2,283, it is worth AED 7.08M, about AED 800,000 ahead. Our rule is to buy only if the purchase still works at the first line.
Bay Estate suits families moving up from an apartment, buyers who want water and the city in the same week, and long-horizon owners who can hold to 2031 and fund the balance even in a weaker market. It does not suit anyone who needs rent or a sale before handover, or anyone for whom the lowest price per foot on the islands matters more than the lagoons and the beach club. In a queue ranked by time, the home to register for is the one that fits your life and your budget at the first line of the arithmetic.
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