Emirates Hills: 632 villas, plots sold by the foot, and a market of eleven sales in six months

Emirates Hills is a gated Emaar community within Emirates Living, next to The Meadows, The Springs and The Lakes. It is built on a different principle from everything else the developer does, and that principle explains both the prices and the way its statistics behave.

Land, not houses

Emirates Hills is the only Emaar project where land was sold to buyers by the square foot, to build on themselves. The developer laid out the infrastructure and the plan; each owner designed and built their own house within the community's rules. Freehold ownership for foreigners in Dubai effectively began with this project.

Hence the defining feature: there are 632 villas and every one of them is different. No standard layouts, no two identical elevations, no meaningful average price per foot. Plots run from 12 000 to 58 000 square feet — nearly five to one on land alone.

The golf course as the organising axis

Most houses are arranged around the 18-hole Montgomerie championship course, created by Desmond Muirhead with Colin Montgomerie. A fairway view is a pricing characteristic in its own right: two adjacent plots of identical size can differ by an order of magnitude depending on what the living room looks at.

The price range

Listings in the community run from roughly AED 6m — typically plots or houses for demolition and full rebuild — up to AED 190m for finished mansions. A thirtyfold spread inside one address is not a market anomaly; it is the direct consequence of every house being a one-off product.

Eleven transactions in a half

In the first half of 2026 Emirates Hills registered eleven sales, down 35% year on year. Median deal value was AED 60m, up 2%. Median price per square foot fell 8%.

With a sample that size, any percentage is arithmetic rather than market signal. Eleven sales over six months is fewer than two a month; the sale of one large estate on a big plot moves the median further than any change in demand. "Emirates Hills fell 8%" does not follow from this data — and neither does the opposite.

So how is a house here valued

The only method that works is hand-picked comparables matching on several parameters at once: plot size, built area, year of construction and year of last renovation, outlook (course, lake, neighbouring house), quality of finish. Then registered sales of similar houses over the last twelve to eighteen months — not asking prices. In a thin market the gap between asking and achieved runs to tens of percent, and listings are no guide.

What else a buyer should know

• Building and rebuilding are regulated. The community sets requirements on height, footprint and appearance. A rebuild scheme is approved, and not every proposal passes.
• A house over fifteen years old is a capital project. A significant part of the stock needs full replacement of services and finishes; that budget is comparable to a small apartment elsewhere in the city.
• Timelines are long in both directions. A thin market means a buyer waits months for the right house and a seller waits months for the right buyer.
• There is no off-plan. The community is fully built out; new construction as a category does not exist here.