Girl Math, Meet Dubai Real Estate: One of You Needs a Calculator.

Developers keep calling it “luxury.” But stand on the pavement and look up — it’s just another tower full of 400-square-foot studios, dressed in new glass. Binghatti Skyrise is the latest example: more than a thousand studios dropping into Business Bay at roughly AED 3,000 per sq ft. On paper, it sounds like momentum. In reality, it’s a wave.

That many identical units, all handed over together, can’t help but strain the rental market. When landlords outnumber tenants, yields flatten. Even developers admit most investors will be lucky to clear five percent.

You can already see the ripple effect. Two years ago, a one-bedroom in Creek Harbour might have cost 80k AED a year. Now, for 65k, you can live along Sheikh Zayed Road, close enough to see Blue Waters. The commute’s shorter, the apartment’s bigger, and the view’s better.

Meanwhile, salaries haven’t budged. Marketing managers, designers, even engineers — wages are where they were five or six years ago, sometimes less, squeezed by a flood of cheaper regional talent. When pay stays flat and rents keep rising, something eventually gives.

That’s why the smart investors are steering clear of studios and one-beds. Binghatti’s own numbers show fewer than fifty two- and three-bedroom units in a sea of three thousand. It’s a building designed for transactions, not communities. And the market’s starting to see through it.

Dubai still shines, but the gloss doesn’t hide the math. If developers keep building for yesterday’s salaries, they’ll find tomorrow’s tenants can’t afford the keys.