How to sell an unit in Dubai in Marquise Square Tower – analysis 2025

How to sell an unit in Marquise Square Tower – in this article we analyse real transaction data, prices, rental yields and liquidity for owners and investors.

For clarity, we may refer to the same unit as an apartment, a property, or a home depending on context.

How to sell a 1-bedroom apartment in Marquise Square Tower Dubai

How to sell a 1-bedroom apartment in Marquise Square Tower Dubai if you have been renting it short-term on Airbnb or similar platforms? The answer is not only about “what is my price today”, but also about how your income history, guest ratings and holiday home licence status translate into buyer profiles and negotiation power.

In Marquise Square Tower, our sample of 24 recent sales of 1-bedroom units in the last few years shows that end-users and investors are paying close attention to numbers. They benchmark asking prices against recent registered deals, compare potential yields with long-term rentals, and increasingly ask for proof that short-term operations are legal and sustainable.

This article explains, in a landlord-focused way, how to convert your daily-rental story into a premium sale in Marquise Square Tower, Business Bay: which price range is realistic, what kind of buyers will pay extra for a performing holiday home, and when income history or ratings do not add much value.

What you must know about the Dubai market before selling

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Before deciding how to sell a 1-bedroom apartment in Marquise Square Tower Dubai, it is important to frame your expectations within the actual numbers from the building and the broader Business Bay market.

In the analysed dataset for Marquise Square Tower, the median sale price for 1-bedroom apartments stands at about AED 1.61M over the full period, with a median price of around AED 1.65M in the last 12 months. Median achieved price per square foot is roughly AED 1,928 historically and about AED 1,962 over the last 12 months. This suggests a modest upward trend in achieved prices for completed 1-beds, but still well below current asking levels.

On the listing side, the sample of 10 active sale listings for 1-bedroom units in Marquise Square Tower shows a much higher median asking price of about AED 2.4M and a median size of roughly 1,048 sq ft, translating into an asking median of approximately AED 2,387 per sq ft. The gap between achieved and asking prices per square foot in our sample is around 22% according to the pre-computed overheat metric. This indicates an optimistic mood among sellers and agents, and a negotiation buffer that professional buyers are already factoring in.

For rentals, our sample of 5 active 1-bedroom leasing listings in the tower shows a median asking rent of around AED 120,000 per year and a median size of 883 sq ft, giving a median asking rent of about AED 145 per sq ft per year. Based on this and the observed sale prices, the estimated gross yield for a typical 1-bedroom in Marquise Square Tower is approximately 7.3%, with a price-to-rent ratio of about 13.7. This is the baseline income metric that long-term investors will use when they look at your short-term rental unit.

Liquidity is moderate: in our sample, about 10 sale transactions for 1-bedroom apartments took place in the last 12 months, which translates into roughly 0.8 deals per month for this unit type. With about 10 current sale listings in the dataset, the indicative months of inventory metric is just over 12 months. This means you are not trying to sell in an overheated, ultra-fast market; serious buyers exist, but they have options and data, and they take time to negotiate.

Deal history for the building: price and demand dynamics

The starting point for any seller is to understand what buyers have actually paid recently in the same tower. In Marquise Square Tower, our sample covers 24 sales of 1-bedroom apartments between early 2023 and late 2025. All transactions in this dataset are ready properties in Business Bay.

Key price levels from the analysed sales:

• Overall median sale price for 1-bed units: around AED 1,607,500.
• Median price in the last 12 months: around AED 1,645,000.
• Median price per sq ft (full period): about AED 1,928.
• Median price per sq ft in the last 12 months: about AED 1,962.

Looking at individual 2025 deals in the sample, 1-bedroom transactions ranged roughly between AED 1.35M and AED 2.15M, with sizes mostly in the low- to mid-800 sq ft range and some larger layouts above 1,000 sq ft. Price per sq ft has varied widely, from around AED 1,580 up to about AED 2,280 in the observed records, depending on size, layout and possibly floor/ view.

For an owner currently running short-term rentals, this range is your “floor-to-ceiling” for pricing, before adjusting for:

• Actual net yield your unit can demonstrate.
• Licensing status for holiday home use.
• Condition, furnishing quality and guest review history.
• Whether the buyer wants to continue short-term, switch to long-term, or occupy the unit.

Demand dynamics are steady rather than explosive. With about 10 sales for 1-bed units in the last 12 months in our sample, Marquise Square is attractive but not illiquid. Buyers have seen enough comparable transactions to resist unrealistic asking prices, especially when market-wide platforms show clear median benchmarks per square foot.

As a seller, using these achieved-mediana as your reference is far more credible in negotiations than simply copying the highest live asking prices online. If you want to push above the historical median, you need to justify the premium with clear income evidence and risk reduction for the buyer.

Official data sources and live market tools

For readers who want to explore the raw data behind this analysis, here are the key open sources:

• 
  Dubai Land Department open data (historical transactions)
  
• 
  Property Finder – live listings and asking prices
  
• 
  Bayut – live listings and asking prices
  

Recent sales in this building

Transaction Date	Price	Property Size	Price Psf	Status
2025-09-29	1615000	834	1937	Ready
2025-08-01	2050000	1048	1956	Ready
2025-07-21	1900000	834	2279	Ready
2025-07-01	1500000	834	1800	Ready
2025-06-30	1350000	854	1581	Ready
2025-05-06	1640000	834	1967	Ready
2025-04-08	1700000	835	2036	Ready
2025-01-14	2150000	1019	2111	Ready
2025-01-13	1600000	834	1919	Ready
2024-10-10	1650000	834	1979	Ready

Current listings and liquidity: what apartments are really asking now

To see where your own asking price fits, we look at the active listings in Marquise Square Tower for 1-bedroom units. Our sample includes 10 sale listings, all completed apartments. The median asking price is approximately AED 2.4M, with asking prices ranging in this dataset from about AED 2.1M up to AED 2.6M. Median size is around 1,048 sq ft, and the median asking price per sq ft is roughly AED 2,387.

In simple terms, sellers today are asking about 45–50% more than the historical median transaction price for 1-beds in the same building, and roughly 20–25% more per sq ft than the median achieved in the last 12 months. This is a classic “ambitious listing” pattern that often ends in price reductions before a serious buyer commits.

From a liquidity standpoint, with about 10 active listings and around 0.8 recorded sales per month for this unit type in our dataset, the months of inventory indicator is a little over 12 months. That means:

• You should not expect every realistically priced listing to sell within a few weeks.
• Overpriced holiday-home units will likely sit on the market, even if they show good daily rates, because buyers see cheaper alternatives in the same tower.
• Well-presented units with data-backed pricing and transparent rental history can stand out and sell faster than the statistical average.

When you position a short-term rental unit for sale, you effectively choose your buyer segment:

• If you target yield-focused investors, you can price slightly above long-term investment comparables if your net income is visibly stronger and the licence is in place.
• If you target end-users, your Airbnb history has limited monetary value; they will care more about layout, view, noise level and community than about past guests’ reviews.

The “ask vs sold” overheat ratio of roughly 1.22 in our sample means that buyers generally expect a negotiation space. If you start your asking price in line with this ratio without genuine added value, you will most likely converge back toward the AED 1.6–1.8M range during negotiations. If your unit is exceptional, you need solid documentation to support any price above that band.

Current sale listings in this building

Listed Date	Price Value	Size Sqft	Price Psf	Status
2025-12-13	2500000	1048	2385	completed
2025-11-28	2500000	1048	2385	completed
2025-11-24	2300000	1182	1946	completed
2025-11-17	2500000	1047	2388	completed
2025-11-05	2100000	853	2462	completed
2025-11-03	2100000	854	2459	completed
2025-10-31	2600000	1048	2481	completed
2025-10-31	2600000	1048	2481	completed
2025-10-29	2295000	1110	2068	completed
2025-10-28	2190000	1182	1853	completed

Rent and yields: how ROI is calculated and what local numbers show

Most investor-buyers in Business Bay benchmark any short-term rental proposal against a simple long-term rental case. For a 1-bedroom apartment in Marquise Square Tower, our sample of active rental listings and the pre-computed stats give the following baseline:

• Median asking year-long rent: about AED 120,000 per year.
• Median size: roughly 883 sq ft.
• Median rent per sq ft: about AED 145 per year.
• Estimated gross yield based on a typical sale at AED 1.645M and rent at AED 120,000: around 7.3%.
• Price-to-rent ratio: about 13.7 years.

This is effectively the “no-effort, long-term tenant” scenario from the buyer’s perspective. When you are currently running the unit as a holiday home, you are implicitly promising that your daily rates and occupancy, net of higher costs, can outperform this 7.3% benchmark without adding risk the buyer cannot control.

How professional buyers will evaluate your short-term performance:

• They will ask for 12–24 months of detailed income statements, not just gross revenue screenshots.
• They will calculate net operating income after cleaning, utilities, platform commissions, management fees and repairs.
• They will discount exceptional months (Expo, New Year, special events) and look for an average sustainable net yield.
• They will compare that net yield to the 7–8% they can get from long-lets in the same tower with much lower operational effort.

If your licensed holiday home is delivering, for example, 10–11% net yield on a realistic basis, you can justify a higher sale price by “selling the income”. If you can only demonstrate a 7–8% net yield with material volatility and personal involvement, the buyer may prefer to pay closer to the AED 1.6–1.8M range and run a standard long-term tenancy.

In the current dataset, there are no registered rent transactions for the parent community recorded in the provided sample, so the reference point is mainly active listings and the computed ROI metrics. That makes your own evidence more important: daily rates, average occupancy, seasonality patterns, cancellation ratios and review history will all be scrutinised.

How to package your short-term rental story for investors:

• Prepare a clear 12-month P&L summarising gross booking value, fees, operating costs and net income.
• Show occupancy and average daily rate by month, ideally exported from the platform.
• List your major capital expenditures (furniture, refurbishments) and explain whether they are one-off or recurring.
• Have copies of your Dubai holiday home licence and any DTCM approvals available to share.

When presented this way, an investor can quickly compare the “short-term yield scenario” with the long-term baseline of roughly 7.3% gross in Marquise Square Tower. That comparison drives their willingness to pay above or below the building’s recent sale medians.

Seller strategy: how to prepare and sell this type of apartment in Dubai

For a landlord asking how to sell a 1-bedroom apartment in Marquise Square Tower Dubai that has been operated as a holiday home, the strategy should integrate three storylines: legal compliance, financial performance and property presentation.

1. Clarify your licensing and compliance position

Dubai has become stricter about short-term rentals. Many serious buyers, especially institutional or portfolio investors, will only consider units with a clean regulatory profile. To strengthen your position:

• Ensure your holiday home licence is valid and correctly linked to the unit.
• Have copies of the licence, DTCM registration and, if applicable, management agreements ready.
• Clarify whether the buyer can easily transfer or renew the licence under their own name or chosen operator.
• If you operated without a licence in the past, avoid centring your valuation on that period’s income; focus on the most recent compliant year.

A fully licensed operation reassures risk-averse investors and supports a premium over similar non-licensed or informally rented units.

2. Translate your rating and booking history into value

High ratings on Airbnb or Booking.com are useful, but only if you convert them into tangible benefits for the buyer:

• Present a concise summary: number of stays per year, average rating, percentage of 5-star reviews.
• Highlight repeat guests and corporate bookings, which suggest more stable demand.
• Show how your rating supports higher average daily rates compared with lower-rated competitors in Business Bay.

However, be realistic: many buyers will see ratings as partly “personal” to you as the current host. If your personality or specific hosting style is key to those ratings, they may discount some of that value. To keep the premium defensible, show that your performance relies on location, fit-out, professional photography and standardised processes more than on you personally.

3. Set a pricing corridor anchored in real data

Using our sample data, you can frame a rational pricing corridor:

• Conservative reference: around AED 1.60–1.65M (recent medians for 1-beds in the tower).
• Upper reference: around AED 1.9–2.1M for larger or better-positioned units that match the highest recent deals per sq ft.
• Ambitious market-facing ask: the current median listings cluster around AED 2.4M, with some units asking AED 2.6M.

If your unit has strong, documented short-term performance and a valid licence, you may decide to list slightly above the top of the recent achieved band, but below the most aggressive current asks to attract serious investor interest. For example, targeting a range that is 10–20% above the recent median but below inflated live listings is often more productive than simply matching the highest advertised price.

4. Decide whether to sell “as operating business” or as empty unit

You effectively have two products:

• An operating holiday home with furniture, online listings, licences and management processes.
• A vacant or notice-served apartment that a buyer can use or rent long-term.

For the first option, prepare a full “investment pack” including P&L, licence, management contracts and an inventory of furniture and equipment. For the second option, focus on condition, snagging, potential for refurbishment, and the speed at which the buyer can re-let long-term at the building’s typical AED 120,000 annual rent level.

5. Manage timelines and exit plan

Because the months of inventory indicator is around 12 months in our sample, you should:

• Plan for a realistic marketing period rather than a rushed sale.
• Avoid accepting bookings too far into the future if you intend to sell the unit as vacant.
• If you want to sell with an operating calendar, structure your contracts so that future bookings can be legally transferred to the new owner or managed by a third party.

A well-prepared, data-driven marketing campaign can shorten the effective sale time compared with the statistical average, especially for income-producing assets in a recognisable building like Marquise Square Tower.

How an investor sees this apartment: risks, scenarios and horizons

Investors looking at a 1-bedroom apartment in Marquise Square Tower will usually model three scenarios: long-term rent, short-term rent with self-management, and short-term rent via a professional operator. They will then compare those to the price you are asking.

Based on the figures in our dataset, their baseline long-term scenario uses approximately:

• Purchase price: around AED 1.6–1.8M for a standard 1-bed, unless your unit clearly justifies more.
• Annual rent: around AED 120,000.
• Gross yield: roughly 7–8% depending on actual purchase price.

Short-term scenarios, in their mind, must beat this baseline on a risk-adjusted basis. The main factors they will assess are:

• Regulatory risk: Is the licence solid? Are there any building-level restrictions on holiday homes now or upcoming?
• Operational risk: Is the income dependent on you personally, or on a third-party management company that can continue after the sale?
• Market risk: How sensitive are your daily rates to new supply, global travel trends and competition from nearby towers?
• Exit liquidity: If they buy your short-term operation at a premium, can they later resell to a broader market of long-term investors or end-users without losing that premium?

Holding period matters as well. A 3–5 year investor may favour stable long-term rent at 7–8% over a potentially higher but more volatile short-term yield. A yield-hunting investor with strong operational capabilities may be comfortable paying above the building’s median price if your numbers show a clear pathway to double-digit net returns.

Your negotiation strength depends on aligning your story with the right segment:

• For conservative investors, emphasise that even if they switch to long-term rent tomorrow, the yields in Marquise Square Tower remain competitive for Dubai (around 7.3% gross in our sample).
• For more aggressive investors, present a credible, documented case for higher net yields via short-term operations, with clear risk mitigations.
• For lifestyle buyers, shift the discussion away from yield to features, views, Business Bay location and the option value of occasionally renting short-term for extra income.

If you misalign your pricing with the investor’s risk/return expectations, they will simply walk to another listing in the same building that matches the historical price pattern. If you match their required yield on paper and reduce perceived risks (licence, transparency, continuity of operations), you increase the chance of achieving a premium above the baseline medians observed in our dataset.

Summary and answers to common questions

To sum up, selling a 1-bedroom apartment in Marquise Square Tower that has been run as a holiday home is less about “Airbnb glamour” and more about hard numbers and clean compliance. Our sample data for the building shows:

• Recent median sale prices for 1-beds around AED 1.6–1.65M, with some higher outliers depending on size and specification.
• Active sale listings asking around AED 2.4M on median, implying a significant expectation gap between sellers and historical achieved levels.
• Indicative long-term rental yields around 7.3% based on AED 120,000 annual rent and a AED 1.645M reference price.
• Moderate liquidity with about 10 sales for 1-beds over the last 12 months, and roughly 12 months of inventory at current listing volumes.

If you want to use your short-term rental history to achieve a better exit price, focus on:

• Showing a compliant licence and clean operational history.
• Presenting at least 12 months of proper financials, not just screenshots.
• Positioning your asking price within a realistic corridor anchored in the building’s actual transactions, not only current listings.
• Choosing whether you are marketing an operating investment or a vacant apartment and aligning the story accordingly.

Below are brief answers to questions many landlords in your position ask.

Does my Airbnb rating really affect the sale price?

Indirectly. High ratings can help justify stronger occupancy and higher daily rates, which support a better yield and therefore potentially a higher sale price. But ratings alone, without verifiable income figures and a valid licence, rarely convince serious investors to pay a large premium over the building’s transaction medians.

Can I price my holiday home purely based on current listings?

Not safely. Our sample shows active listings in Marquise Square Tower pricing roughly 20–25% above recent achieved prices per sq ft. Many of these listings may still be unsold or face future price reductions. Using recent actual deals as your main anchor, then adjusting for your unit’s specific strengths, is a more defensible strategy.

Is it better to sell with guests and bookings in place, or vacant?

For yield-focused investors, an operating, licensed holiday home with bookings can be attractive, especially if you provide a seamless handover of management. For end-users and conservative investors, vacant or easily vacated units are often more appealing. The right choice depends on which buyer segment you aim to attract and how strong your documented income is.

What is a realistic time frame to sell?

Given an indicative 12 months of inventory for 1-beds in our dataset, you should plan for several months of active marketing, even with a competitive price and strong documentation. Well-priced, well-presented investment units can sell faster than the average, but expecting an immediate exit at a top-end price is not consistent with the observed liquidity metrics.

If you align your expectations with these numbers and present your short-term rental story in a professional, transparent way, you significantly increase your chances of achieving a solid, data-backed sale outcome in Marquise Square Tower, Business Bay.