Branded Residences and Ras Al Khaimah
A branded residence is a home built, sold and run under the name of a hotel or other brand, to that brand's standards. When it is run properly, the owner gets a building managed by a professional operator, with staff, services and maintenance that most private buildings do not have. In my view, that service is the part of the brand worth paying a premium for.
Waldorf Astoria Residences, Al Hamra. Developer's image: Al Hamra
I live in Al Hamra, and in the four years we have been in Ras Al Khaimah (RAK), branded homes have gone from a few hotel residences to a large part of what is being built. Global Branded Residences (GBR) now ranks RAK 10th and Al Marjan Island 11th among the world's cities for branded schemes. CBRE expects about 10,000 branded homes to be handed over in RAK by 2030, and almost none of them have been finished yet. That means anyone buying one here is buying before the service can be seen, so it helps to know what a well-run scheme looks like.
In brief
A branded residence is a home run by, or licensed from, a hotel or other brand. There are about 1,972 schemes worldwide, completed or planned (GBR, Q1 2026).
The best schemes give owners a service: a manager on site, concierge, security, housekeeping and someone who looks after the home while they are away.
I question how much a brand adds when it only lends its name and provides no service once the homes are handed over.
Service-led brands do not have to be hotels. I expect wellness brands, which run programmes and employ staff every day, to play a growing part.
Buyers pay more for branded homes: 44% more than for a comparable home on average worldwide, and 59% more in the Middle East and North Africa (GBR, 2020 to 2026).
Between 22% and 40% of RAK's new homes are due to carry a brand, so buyers will increasingly compare branded homes with each other.
What a branded residence is
The first branded residence opened in New York in 1927, at the Sherry-Netherland hotel (Knight Frank, 2022). Owners bought apartments in a hotel building and used the hotel's staff and services. For decades the model stayed small, and mostly attached to hotels such as Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons.
It has since grown into a global market. GBR counts 1,972 branded schemes completed or planned, in 104 countries, under 277 brands. Of those, 848 are finished and 1,124 are still to come, most within six years (GBR, The Brand Standard 2025 to 2026). Dubai is the largest market in the world, with 184 schemes, 68 of them finished.
Three ways a brand and a home come together
GBR sorts branded schemes into three types. In an integrated scheme, the hotel and the homes share one building and usually share facilities. In a co-located scheme, the hotel and the homes are separate buildings on the same site. In a standalone scheme, there is no hotel at all and the brand is applied to the homes only.
Across the world, co-located schemes are the most common. In the Middle East and North Africa, standalone schemes now lead, at 47% of all schemes. GBR reads this as a sign of a market where buyers no longer need a hotel next door to trust the brand.
How involved the brand actually is
The type of scheme shows where the hotel is in relation to the homes. It says nothing about how much the brand does in running them, which matters more to the people who will live there.
At one end, the brand runs the building. It employs the staff, trains them to its standards and is responsible for the service every day. At the other end, the brand lends its name and some design, and a local manager runs the building. You see this in phrases such as "interiors by", "inspired by" or "designed with". Both are sold as branded residences, but owners of the second kind get the brand's name and finishes without its staff or its service standards.
Hotel brands account for 76% of branded schemes worldwide, and other brands for 24% (GBR). The other brands are mainly design and fashion houses, followed by entertainment, food and drink, cars, golf and wellness. Some of these brands provide services to owners, while many license their name and design only.
What owners actually get
When the brand does run the building, the difference shows in daily life. Four Seasons describes the services in its residences in detail. They include a concierge seven days a week, door and valet staff, and daily housekeeping and maintenance of the common areas by an engineering team working to Four Seasons standards (Four Seasons Private Residences, Hospitality Net). Owners have an on-site Director of Residences, and the concierge can stock the fridge before they arrive and look after the home while they are away (Four Seasons).
For the owner, this means a named person is responsible for the building, repairs are carried out to the brand's standard, and the pool, gym and gardens are maintained by trained staff. Security is staffed around the clock, and the home is checked and prepared while the owner is away.
The services matter most to owners who do not live in the home all year. In RAK, about a quarter of branded buyers live outside the UAE (Property Finder, December 2025). For them, a branded residence removes most of the work of owning a home they only use for part of the year.
RAK already has schemes built this way. The Ritz-Carlton Residences in Al Wadi Desert are 35 villas with private pools inside a 1,235-acre protected reserve, and owners can use the resort's seven restaurants and bars (Marjan). Closer to home for me, the Waldorf Astoria Residences in Al Hamra are 38 homes within the Waldorf Astoria resort (Al Hamra). In both, the hotel is already open, so a buyer can stay there, see the service and judge it before buying.
A villa at the Ritz-Carlton Residences, Al Wadi Desert. Developer's image: Al Hamra
Why I question brands that provide no service
If the service is what owners value, a brand that provides none has much less to offer them once the homes are handed over. Buyers say as much themselves. In Knight Frank's survey of wealthy buyers, 63% named service and physical amenities as the main reason to buy a branded residence. Building maintenance and management, and yield and investment potential, came joint second at 59% (Knight Frank, January 2026). A brand that licenses its name and some finishes provides neither service nor management.
The research houses have started to say the same. GBR reports that the share of schemes from non-hotel brands has levelled off at about 24%, and its head of brands and operators expects the challenge to be finding brands with enough "authenticity, customer loyalty and relevance" to create value for owners over the long term (GBR, 2026). Savills said in 2018 that in saturated markets a brand alone would no longer command a premium, and noted that some branded schemes in New York were trading at a discount to unbranded ones (Savills, 2018).
I don't think a design or fashion name is worthless. It can raise the standard of the finish and help a scheme sell quickly. But after handover the owner lives with the service, and a name with no service behind it gives the next buyer little reason to pay more.
Service brands do not have to be hotels
The test I apply to any brand is whether it runs a service in the building every day. Hotels have done this for a century, and I expect wellness brands to do it too.
Before property, I co-founded the global fitness brand 1Rebel. What brought members back was the coaching, the programme and the people running each club every day, and a wellness brand in a residential building would depend on the same things.
Several wellness brands have already moved into homes. GBR records SHA Wellness, the Spanish clinic known for longevity medicine, taking its method into residential schemes, and Lefay, the Italian spa resort brand, partnering with Marriott on branded residences. Clinique La Prairie, the Swiss longevity clinic founded in 1931, now offers homes whose owners can use its clinical programmes (GBR, The Brand Standard 2025 to 2026). At Amaala in Saudi Arabia, its resort has 74 rooms and 13 branded residences, the first Clinique La Prairie homes offered for ownership, with residents given access to its medical, prevention and nutrition services (Arab News).
GBR's view is that for a growing group of buyers the wellness programme is the main reason to buy, and the home is how they get it. The wider market supports that. The Global Wellness Institute puts the wellness real estate market at USD 876 billion in 2025, up from USD 151 billion in 2017, and expects it to reach USD 1.8 trillion by 2030. It grew 23% from 2024 to 2025, while global construction grew 3% (Global Wellness Institute, May 2026).
In the UAE, Arada has launched Inaura, which it describes as a fitness-led hospitality and residences concept, with 114 branded residences at Inaura Downtown in Dubai (Arada, January 2026). Arada has also registered an Inaura Beach Residences scheme on Al Marjan Island, which has not yet been launched (RERA-RAK project list, October 2026).
The same test applies here as everywhere else. Wellness needs trained people, a programme that owners keep using, and a service charge that pays for both. A gym and a spa with a wellness name on them would be a name without a service. The wellness brands that succeed in residential property will be the ones that run their programme in the building every day. It is also early: I found no resale prices yet for wellness-branded homes anywhere, so this is my expectation rather than a proven record.
Why buyers pay more, and how much
The service, and the confidence a known brand gives a buyer, are why branded homes sell for more than comparable homes nearby. The measured gap varies by region, by setting and by the method used.
GBR puts the average premium at 44% worldwide, from 106 schemes sold between 2020 and 2026. It is highest in the Middle East and North Africa and in Latin America and the Caribbean, at 59% each, and lowest in North America, at 29%. Resort schemes command more than city schemes: 57% against 34%. In Middle East and North African resorts the premium is 73% (GBR, The Brand Standard 2025 to 2026).
Other research houses measure it differently and find lower figures. Savills puts the global average at 33%, with resorts highest at 39% (Savills, Branded Residences 2025 to 2026). Morgan's International Realty put Dubai's premium at 56% in the first half of 2026: an average of AED 3,662 per sq ft for branded homes against AED 2,354 for comparable homes without a brand (Morgan's International Realty, via Khaleej Times, September 2026).
In RAK, Property Finder put the median branded price at AED 3,092 per sq ft in December 2025, against AED 1,525 for homes without a brand (Property Finder, via Khaleej Times, December 2025). Knight Frank puts the premium on Al Marjan Island at 35% to 50% (Knight Frank, January 2026).
Part of that gap comes from location and age. Branded schemes in RAK are new, mostly on the beach and mostly on Al Marjan Island, while the homes without a brand include older apartments inland. Some of the gap is likely to close at handover, when a new home starts to be compared with ready homes nearby. I set out how that works in another article: Supply and Demand →
As I see it, a brand adds value in four ways. The services described above cost money to provide and save the owner time and work. The brand sets design and build standards and checks them, which helps most when a buyer cannot inspect the developer's past work. Buyers from abroad know the brand from staying in its hotels, so they are more willing to buy from a distance; GBR makes this point about resort buyers in particular. And when the owner comes to sell, the next buyer already understands what the building offers.
GBR also finds that the premium is highest where branded homes are a big step up from what else is on offer. In newer markets, a brand can bring a standard of design, service and confidence that local homes do not have, so the gap is wider than in London, Miami or New York (GBR). RAK's branded schemes currently fit this description, because few homes of a similar standard have been completed there.
What it means for developers
The premium is also why developers sign brands. For a developer, a brand can raise the sale price and the speed of sales, in return for fees and obligations to the brand.
The main cost is a licence fee to the brand. Hospitality consultants put it at typically 3% to 6% of the sale price of each home (CoStar), and lawyers advising on these deals give a range of 2% to 6% (Mondaq). The brand also reviews the design, and usually charges for its technical services and marketing. Once the building is finished, the owners pay the brand, through the service charge, to run it.
In 2025 Mondrian Beach Residences in RAK sold AED 704 million of homes in two hours, and Jacob & Co Residences sold AED 300 million within 12 hours (CBRE, RAK Real Estate Market Review, FY 2025). Fast sales help a developer because, in the UAE, buyers' payments go into an escrow account and are released as construction progresses, so early sales help fund the build.
Brands earn licence and management fees from the homes. GBR reports that developers now build 73 branded homes for every 100 hotel rooms in hotel-linked schemes, up from about 60 in recent years, and reads this as the homes becoming a larger part of the business case for hotel groups.
The licence also sets terms that owners live with long after the developer has sold the last home. A typical licence lets the brand end the arrangement if a set number of homes are not sold within a set time, and requires homes to be sold at their full market value (Conventus Law). The licence to sell under the brand usually lasts three to five years. The licence that lets the owners keep using the name usually runs for as long as the hotel management agreement does (Conventus Law), so if the hotel management agreement ends, the owners can lose the right to use the brand's name.
What makes a scheme work
Taking the owner's side and the developer's side together, I think a scheme holds its value when the brand does real work in running it and the owners can afford to keep paying for that work. These eight points apply to a buyer choosing a scheme and to a developer designing one.
The brand runs a service in the building, and a named operator with a track record delivers it. Ask who will employ the staff on the day you move in.
The brand suits the place and the buyer. A resort brand fits a resort location, a city brand fits a city building, and a wellness brand fits buyers who will use its programme.
The services are written down. A list of what the service charge pays for, and what costs extra, should be in the sale documents.
The service charge is realistic. A budget set low to help sales usually rises after handover. A budget set high to pay for facilities owners don't use causes resentment, and in time owners may vote to cut it.
Owners have their own space. Separate entrances, lobbies and facilities from hotel guests keep a home private. GBR names privacy as one of the main reasons buyers choose schemes without a hotel.
The licence is long and tied to the operation. Owners should know how long the brand stays, and what happens if the hotel or operator changes.
The developer has finished homes before. The brand licenses its name but plays no part in building the homes, so the developer's record of finishing projects still matters.
Letting is clear. If owners can join a rental programme, the split of income and costs should be set out, with no promised returns.
What goes wrong
Branded schemes that lose their value usually do so because the brand was used to sell the homes and nobody planned how its standards would be paid for and kept up over the following decades.
A name without a service
The most common problem is a brand that licenses its name and some design but runs nothing. The owner pays the premium and gets a well-finished building that is managed like any other. After handover it offers owners little that the unbranded building next door does not, so resale buyers have less reason to pay the premium.
Running costs owners won't pay
A branded service costs money every year. In Dubai, the Armani Residences in Burj Khalifa charge AED 78.63 per sq ft a year, of which AED 29 is an Armani hospitality fee (as reported by Realty Hunting, September 2026). In RAK, The Residences at Sheraton Al Marjan Island quote AED 30 per sq ft a year (ATARA). Owners pay charges like these for as long as the brand runs the building. Hospitality lawyers say the most common reason a brand is removed is that the owners or the developer fail to fund the management and upkeep the brand requires (Scott Antel, ISHC). Owners can also vote to manage the building themselves for less, which leaves the owner who paid for the brand without it.
The brand leaves
In Dubai, the Viceroy Palm Jumeirah hotel and residences opened on 31 March 2017. Less than three months later, on 19 June 2017, the owner ended its management agreement with Viceroy and renamed the hotel and its residences FIVE Palm Jumeirah Dubai, overnight (Gulf Business; Arabian Business). That agreement had been signed in 2013 and was meant to run for 30 years. In Bangkok, owners at The Sukhothai Residences lost access to amenities and discounts when the building was renamed (Thailand-Property). Buyers usually sign a statement accepting that the brand is not the developer and can leave, so they rarely have a claim when it does (ISHC).
Promised returns
Some schemes are sold with a promised rental return. The return is paid by the developer or the operator, so it depends on that company's finances, and its cost is often included in the sale price. When a scheme relies on a promised return to sell, buyers should compare its price with ready homes nearby.
The brand standing in for the developer
At Dean Property we keep a Register of every RAK off-plan scheme, with whether its developer has finished a project before. In November 2026, 31 schemes on our Register carried a brand. Five came from developers that have finished homes in RAK: RAK Properties and Al Hamra. Fifteen came from developers that have finished projects elsewhere, mostly in Dubai. Seven came from developers we could not find a finished project for anywhere, and four we could not check.
Buyers can still choose a scheme from a first-time developer. They should check the escrow account, construction progress and the developer's finances more closely, because the brand does not build the homes. Every scheme on our Register shows whether its developer has finished a project →
Branded residences in RAK
Many of RAK's branded homes are being built alongside new hotels. The emirate has more than 9,000 hotel rooms, and more than 9,500 more are due between 2026 and 2030, 92% of them five-star (Khaleej Times, January 2026). Several of those hotels come with homes attached, and that gives RAK more schemes of the kind where the brand runs a service on site.
Hotel brands with homes planned or selling in RAK include Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton, Waldorf Astoria, Anantara, Janu (from Aman Group), JW Marriott, Fairmont, Sheraton, W, Taj, Nobu, Address, Mondrian, Radisson Blu and Wyndham. Other brands include Armani, Tonino Lamborghini, Karl Lagerfeld, Elie Saab, Gianfranco Ferré, Jacob & Co, Aston Martin, FashionTV and Nikki Beach (Dean Property Register, November 2026).
Janu Residences, on Al Marjan Island next to Wynn, has 73 apartments, one penthouse and five Marina Villas, all furnished by Aman Interiors (Janu, November 2026). Anantara Residences, by RAK Properties on Hayat Island in Mina Al Arab, has 103 homes, due in the second quarter of 2028 (RAK Properties, April 2026). These two, and the Ritz-Carlton and Waldorf Astoria schemes above, follow the model with the longest record: a brand that runs a hotel next door, on a plot that cannot be repeated.
Janu Residences, in detail → · Anantara Residences, in detail → · Waldorf Astoria Residences, in detail →
A duplex living room at Janu Residences, Al Marjan Island. Developer's image: Wynn, Marjan and Janu
The risk: when new supply carries a brand
The number of branded homes in RAK is about to rise sharply. CBRE expects about 10,000 to be handed over between 2026 and 2030, 22% of all new homes (CBRE, H1 2026); its previous review put the share at 33% (CBRE, FY 2025). Stirling Hospitality Advisors expects 5,604 of the 14,148 homes due between 2026 and 2029, or 40%, to be branded. Colliers puts the share of homes launched since 2022 at about 30% (Colliers, 2025). On any of these estimates, many of the new homes a buyer on Al Marjan Island can choose from in 2030 will carry a brand, so buyers there will mostly be comparing branded homes with each other.
Dubai shows how the premium behaves when branded homes are plentiful. In its villa communities, where good homes without a brand are easy to find, the branded premium was below 10% (Morgan's International Realty, 2024). In September 2026 the founder of Morgan's said that the size of Dubai's premium should not automatically be read as market strength, and that the next phase will be "a test of execution" (Khaleej Times, September 2026).
A second risk applies to RAK in particular. In December 2025 Property Finder said none of RAK's branded projects had been completed (Khaleej Times, December 2025). Every RAK branded price so far is a launch price, set before anyone has lived in the building or sold a home in it. The first handovers, from 2027, will give the first resale prices.
Dubai also shows that numbers alone do not remove the premium. It has 183 branded developments and more than 64,000 branded homes, and its premium is still 56% (Morgan's International Realty, H1 2026). My reading is that in Dubai the premium has held where the brand runs a real service in a location that cannot be repeated, and has narrowed elsewhere. I expect RAK to follow the same pattern.
What to ask
For buyers: who will run the building on the day you move in; what the service charge pays for, and what it will be after handover; how long the brand licence lasts and what ends it; whether the developer has finished homes before; and how the price compares with ready homes nearby, as well as with other launches.
For developers: whether the brand will run a service in the building or only lend its name; whether it fits the place and the buyer; whether the service charge budget is honest; how owners' space is kept separate from hotel guests; and what will still set the scheme apart in 2030, when most of its competitors carry a brand too.
My view
This section is my opinion, not a forecast.
A branded residence that is run properly is, in my view, a better way to own a home, particularly one the owner does not live in all year, because a professional operator runs the building to a known standard. In RAK, the schemes most likely to keep their premium are the ones where the brand runs a real service on site, the plot cannot be repeated, the developer has delivered before, and the running costs are set honestly. That service can come from a hotel or, increasingly, from a wellness brand. As more branded homes are handed over in RAK from 2027, I expect buyers to compare branded schemes with each other on these four points.
Thinking of buying here? Start here: Buying off-plan →
About the author
Giles Dean lives in Al Hamra, Ras Al Khaimah. Karolina and Giles Dean founded Dean Property in 2026. Before that, Giles lived in over 10 countries, spent nine years as a corporate lawyer in London and across Central and Eastern Europe, and co-founded the fitness brand 1Rebel, opening its clubs in London, Melbourne and Dubai.
This article is published for information only and is not legal or investment advice.
Sources
Global Branded Residences, The Brand Standard: Annual Branded Residences Report 2025 to 2026 (data to Q1 2026)
CBRE, RAK Real Estate Market Review, FY 2025 and H1 2026
Colliers, RAK Real Estate Transformation, 2025
Savills, Branded Residences 2025 to 2026; Savills, The future of branded residences, September 2018
Knight Frank, Branded residences in Ras Al Khaimah: what's driving demand?, January 2026
Knight Frank, Branded Residential Overview Dubai, 2022
Global Wellness Institute, wellness real estate market data, May 2026
Arab News, Clinique La Prairie Amaala; Arada, Inaura launch release, January 2026
Khaleej Times, RAK branded units by 2030 (Property Finder data), December 2025
Khaleej Times, Dubai's branded residences market cools on volume (Morgan's International Realty, H1 2026), September 2026
Khaleej Times, Morgan's International Realty study, August 2024
Arabian Business, Stirling Hospitality Advisors RAK Investment Pulse
Khaleej Times, RAK hotel pipeline, January 2026
Four Seasons Private Residences (Hospitality Net; Four Seasons)
CoStar, branded residential licence fees; Mondaq, brand selection; Conventus Law, branded residence legal structures
Scott Antel, ISHC, Loss of brand risk in branded residence projects
Gulf Business and Arabian Business, Viceroy Palm Jumeirah, 2017; Thailand-Property, The Sukhothai Residences
Realty Hunting, Branded residences in Dubai, September 2026; ATARA, The Residences at Sheraton Al Marjan Island brochure
Marjan, The Ritz-Carlton Residences Al Wadi Desert; Al Hamra, Waldorf Astoria Residences; Janu; RAK Properties
Dean Property Register, November 2026
Comments