Ohana Development

The business model: borrow a brand instead of building one

Rather than spending years building recognition for its own name, the company chose a different route — partnering with already-established brands from entirely different industries: a jewellery house and a football club. That is a fast way to gain instant international recognition for a project, bypassing the decades of history that usually sit behind a major developer's name.

The flip side of that model is that a partner brand's recognition does not guarantee the developer's own experience delivering large projects. The company is comparatively young in the market, and it should be judged not by the Jacob & Co or Manchester City name on the banner, but by how it handles construction, schedule and buyer communication itself.

Al Jurf and the jewellery brand

The first project sits in the Al Jurf coastal zone, right on the border between Dubai and Abu Dhabi — a location that belongs fully to neither market and runs on its own logic drawn from proximity to both metropolitan areas at once. The jewellery-house partnership shows up in interior design themes and in branded amenities — a beach club and a lounge under the same name — rather than in the buildings' architecture itself.

The housing mix is broad, from sea-view apartments to standalone beachfront mansions, meaning the project targets several buyer segments at once rather than one niche. That reduces the risk of the whole project depending on demand from one narrow group — but it also requires the developer to manage sales across different price brackets simultaneously.

Yas Island and the football club

The second project is the world's first residential complex branded by a football club, and that draws a fundamentally different audience from the jewellery partnership: fans and families for whom sports infrastructure inside the complex is not decoration but a deliberately chosen way of life. A football academy, rooftop pitches, youth programmes — none of that is a standard residential amenity set, it is a direct consequence of this specific partnership.

Yas Island is already an established Abu Dhabi destination, with a theme park, a Formula 1 circuit and a marine-life theme park nearby — infrastructure that exists independently of the new residential project and does not depend on how it develops. That lowers the infrastructure risk compared with a project on an empty plot where the entire surroundings still need to be built.

Abu Dhabi, not Dubai — a different market logic

Both projects sit in Abu Dhabi or on its border, not in Dubai itself, and that is worth keeping in mind: the emirate's property market runs on a more conservative logic, with less off-plan flipping and a longer deal cycle. An investor used to Dubai's pace needs to recalibrate expectations for a different market rather than carry Dubai patterns over directly.

For a buyer already familiar with Dubai, both projects can be a way to diversify geographically within a familiar UAE jurisdiction, but with the understanding that price growth and exit speed here are typically slower than in Dubai's fastest-growing districts.

What to check before buying branded housing

First, what exactly transfers from the brand to a specific lot: design elements, access to a club lounge, participation in themed programmes — and which of that is written into the contract rather than existing only in marketing material. Second, the standard developer check regardless of the partner's name: the escrow account, project registration, actual site progress against the published schedule.

Third, the durability of the licensing agreement itself: a brand's partnership with a developer is usually limited by term and contract conditions, and it is worth understanding what happens to the complex's service and reputation if the agreement is not renewed after handover.

How I work with this developer

For a client drawn to a specific brand — the jewellery house or the football club — I always check the motivation: if it is an emotional attachment to the brand, it is worth understanding that what is being bought is property, not fan-club membership, and the asset should be judged by the standard criteria of location, construction pace and developer reputation. Second, I walk the client through the real context of the Abu Dhabi market, which differs noticeably from the familiar Dubai one, before discussing a specific lot.

Third, for both projects, since they are under construction, I track actual site progress and escrow status separately from the marketing material, which for branded projects tends to be more polished and persuasive than the market average.