5-Bedroom Apartment Sold For Record-Breaking $55 Million In This Country

Sales of those properties are booming in Dubai, which has become the world capital of so-called branded residences as foreign buyers continue to purchase ultra-luxury homes.

For the world's rich looking for places to stash their wealth, one segment of Dubai's real estate market is increasingly the destination of choice: apartments and townhouses with a brand name, like Four Seasons, Bulgari and Cavalli.

Sales of those properties are booming in Dubai, which has become the world capital of so-called branded residences as foreign buyers continue to purchase ultra-luxury homes. This week, a buyer agreed to pay 203.1 million dirhams ($55.3 million) for a five-bedroom, Baccarat-branded apartment in a project that hasn't even broken ground yet. At 14,000 dirhams per square foot, it's the highest price per square foot paid for a pre-construction apartment, according to Luxhabitat Sotheby's International Realty, the broker on the property.

It breaks a record set in just February, when a five-bedroom apartment sold for 160.3 million dirhams, or 13,751 dirhams per square foot, in the Bulgari Lighthouse, according to Dubai land records. The tower will be built on a seahorse-shaped, manmade island near the jewelry brand's hotel and resort.

Luxury real estate boomed in Dubai as the rich got richer during the COVID-19 pandemic and as Russians looked for safe havens for money after their country's invasion of Ukraine. Prime real estate soared 89% in October from the previous year-a swift recovery from a slump that lasted from 2014 to 2020. The market turned higher so quickly it caught many off guard. Villas in a Four Seasons Residences project in Dubai that sold for about 40 million dirhams in 2021, pre-construction or "off plan," are now worth about 100 million.