The Gulf Branded Residences Index 2026.

Each market is tested against five published signals: completed branded stock, future branded pipeline, branded transaction activity, a branded-versus-non-branded price premium, and buyer-demand evidence. One point is awarded for each signal supported by a current market-level source. Named project launches can establish that a category exists, but they do not substitute for a market total.

• Established. Completed stock, pipeline, transaction and premium evidence are all publicly reported.
• Scaling. The pipeline and market activity are measurable, but at least one core stock or demand series is missing.
• Emerging. Published stock or pipeline evidence exists, while transaction and premium evidence remains incomplete.
• Nascent or operator-led. Demand or named schemes are verified, but no comparable market-wide stock series is published.

The evidence score answers one question only: how much of this market can be compared from public sources? A lower score can describe a young market, a private market or simply a reporting gap. It does not describe weaker assets.

The global category is still led by hotel operators, but its geography is changing. Knight Frank’s Global Branded Residence Survey 2025 counted 611 live schemes and forecast 1,019 by 2030, across nearly 80 brands and 83 countries. The Middle East held 15.9% of live schemes but 26.7% of the pipeline. That difference is the clearest single measure of the Gulf’s direction of travel.

The operating model is also becoming less uniform. Hotel brands represented 83% of live schemes and around four in five future schemes. Yet hotel co-location is falling: 82% of live hotel-branded schemes sit alongside a hotel, against 70% of the pipeline. In the Middle East, 43% of pipeline hotel-branded schemes are standalone. Buyers are increasingly underwriting the residence, service contract and brand licence as a distinct product rather than as an extension of a hotel stay.

Dubai is the Gulf’s only established branded-residence market on the index. CBRE’s UAE Branded Residences Report 2025 recorded 18,500 completed branded units and more than 31,300 units across 110 projects scheduled from 2025 to 2030. Branded homes represented about 8% of the city’s total new residential pipeline to 2030. Apartments accounted for 95% of future branded inventory, and more than 80% of transaction value and volume in the first nine months of 2025 was off-plan.

The pricing signal is material but needs careful reading. CBRE calculated an average branded premium of 64% in Dubai and 87% in Abu Dhabi. Those city figures compare branded schemes with non-branded peers inside CBRE’s UAE method. They should not be laid directly over the roughly 33% global average in the separate Omnia analysis of branded-residence premiums, which draws on Savills and uses different market groupings. Method, location, age, view and specification all change the result.

Abu Dhabi is scaling quickly. Branded transaction volume rose 126% year on year in the first nine months of 2025 and value rose 24%, while more than three quarters of activity was off-plan. Ras Al Khaimah is earlier and more concentrated: CBRE tracked nearly 9,000 future units across Al Marjan Island, Al Hamra, Mina Al Arab and the Beach District. Branded residences are forecast to represent 54% of all new supply in 2030, making brand concentration itself part of the underwriting question.

Knight Frank’s Destination Saudi 2026 counted 1,685 existing branded homes and a further 1,900 planned or under construction. Riyadh carried roughly 792 pipeline units to 2028 and Jeddah around 582 to 2030. The published stock remains small beside Dubai, but it is large enough to measure and sits inside a much broader market-opening story.

Demand is the strongest part of the Saudi evidence set. Knight Frank found 77% of surveyed high-net-worth respondents interested in a branded home in the Kingdom, while 3.4 billion US dollars of global private capital expressed interest in the sector. The survey covered 1,550 people across six origin markets, including 752 expatriates living in Saudi Arabia or the UAE. Those figures show intent, not completed transactions, so the index keeps Saudi Arabia at emerging rather than treating stated demand as realised depth.

The investable question is increasingly address-specific. Riyadh and Jeddah are urban markets with different absorption and operating patterns, while Red Sea resort projects rely on destination delivery and hospitality demand. The national pipeline is a useful top line. It is not a substitute for checking the operator agreement, service-charge structure, handover risk and permitted ownership at the individual scheme.

Qatar has demand evidence but no current public branded-stock series. Knight Frank’s Destination Qatar research found branded residences joint most popular among the real-estate asset classes considered by surveyed Gulf buyers, while describing the category as nascent. The wider residential market remained liquid in the first quarter of 2026, when 1,582 residential deals worth QAR 6.2 billion were recorded. That city-wide activity does not reveal branded performance, so the index records buyer demand but leaves stock, pipeline, premium and category transactions unscored.

Oman presents the reverse pattern: named projects can be verified, but the public record does not aggregate them. Mandarin Oriental Residences, Muscat, The St. Regis Al Mouj Muscat, Marriott Residences at AIDA and Trump Residences Oman establish a credible operator-led cluster across Muscat and its coastal tourism zones. They do not establish a market total. Oman therefore records 0 / 5 for comparable market-level data while remaining a verified branded-residence location.

Use the index to decide what level of diligence the market evidence can support. In Dubai, a buyer can test a scheme against a large completed set, current sales and a measured premium. In Saudi Arabia, the market total and buyer interest are visible but resale depth is not. In Qatar and Oman, scheme-level evidence must do more of the work because a public market benchmark is missing.

The commercial routes remain separate. To examine current stock, go to branded residences for sale. To test whether service, scarcity and brand justify the entry price, read Are branded residences worth the premium? The index will be refreshed when a material market-wide dataset changes, not every time a single project launches.

Snapshot date: 27 July 2026. The index uses the latest comparable public category data identified by the Omnia Desk. UAE figures are from CBRE’s 2025 market review; global context is from Knight Frank’s 2025 global survey; Saudi figures are from Knight Frank Destination Saudi 2026; Qatar demand is from Destination Qatar research; and Oman project evidence comes from the official operator pages linked above. Every figure keeps its original reporting period.

Evidence coverage awards one point for each current market-level series available: completed stock, pipeline, branded transactions, branded premium and buyer demand. Project announcements do not earn a market-level point. Approximate values retain their qualifier. Different geographies and reporting periods are not blended into one return forecast.

The index is research, not an appraisal or investment recommendation. Published premiums are market averages, not expected returns. Buyers should verify the specific title, permitted ownership, operator agreement, fees, delivery status and resale evidence for each residence before acting.