Crystal Tower

Crystal Tower is priced at roughly AED 1,100 to 1,250 per square foot, and every other fact about it follows from that number. International City is where freehold ownership in Dubai starts, and new-build stock at this rate exists almost nowhere else in the city. The airport is around 9 km away and Downtown about 13, so the discount is not being paid for in distance. It is being paid for in address.

What AED 672,000 buys

The range opens with studios of about 548 sq ft from AED 672,000, alongside 1-bedroom layouts between roughly 515 and 877 sq ft, most of which sit between AED 650,000 and AED 1.05M. 2-bedroom apartments of around 1,025 sq ft begin near AED 1.1M. Sales registered in the building so far cluster between AED 1,080 and AED 1,350 per square foot, close to half of what mid-market waterfront districts ask for comparable new stock, and among the lowest rates on any current Dubai launch.

The range then jumps. 3-bedroom units of 2,325 sq ft and upward are listed from AED 2.5M, with the largest passing AED 3M. Those figures are consistent with the building’s own rate per foot but not with the district around it: International City has almost no transaction history at that level, so an owner reselling one would be setting the comparable rather than referring to one. The small formats are where demand in this location actually sits.

New stock in a district built 20 years ago

International City was laid out in the early 2000s as themed clusters of low-rise blocks, and most of that housing is now around 20 years old, much of it without lifts, with limited parking and maintenance standards that vary sharply between clusters. Dragon Mart sits about a kilometre away and remains the commercial anchor for the whole area. The tenant base is stable and unglamorous: retail and logistics staff, junior office workers, small trading families, people who need to be near the airport and the eastern industrial belt without paying Marina rents.

New construction here is uncommon, and that is the point. A building with covered parking, a lift, a pool and a gym is not competing with Business Bay towers. It competes with 20-year-old walk-ups a few streets away, and it should let at a clear premium to them. The high yields International City is known for are not a quirk of the market either. They follow from capital values being the lowest in freehold Dubai while rents track a working population that has to live somewhere.

A small developer and a back-loaded schedule

VHS Developments is a recent name with a short public record, and that, rather than the location, is the substantive risk in this purchase. Two structural factors work against it. Off-plan payments in Dubai are held in a project escrow account supervised by the regulator and released against verified construction progress, so buyer money does not sit in general company funds. And the payment structure leaves a large share of the price falling at handover and after it, which limits how much capital is exposed while the building is still going up. Handover is set for Q1 2028, a short programme by Dubai standards, and the developer publishes several schedules rather than one, including options weighted further towards completion.

The practical checks are worth doing properly: which escrow account the project runs on, how far construction has actually reached, and whether the specific unit and its plan are registered with the land department. Gorilla Real Estate can pull that documentation and confirm the current schedule before a deposit is placed.