Off-plan apartments in The World Islands, Dubai

Apartments here are hotel rooms and suites with a title deed, priced from around $380K to just under $1M.

That structure changes the arithmetic. The operator handles bookings, housekeeping and maintenance and takes a share of the revenue, so an owner receives a net figure rather than a rent cheque, and the return moves with occupancy through the year. There is no tenant to find and no vacancy in the usual sense, but no fixed income to count on either.

The isolation is the risk and the appeal at once. Guests come for a setting that cannot be copied on the mainland, which supports the nightly rate; that same isolation leaves the property dependent on the operator running the crossings, the restaurants and the service properly. Handover between 2025 and 2027 keeps the wait short by Dubai standards, which matters more than usual here, since a resort earns nothing until it opens and the operator’s track record only becomes visible once it does. What each launch costs, and what the operator takes, is set out with the listings above.