Global Branded Residences Weekly, Week 44 2026: Dubai, Umm Al Quwain, Bali and Qatar

Accor adds 690 branded residences across two Dubai projects

Hospitality groups kept pushing branded living beyond the traditional luxury core this month. On 8 October 2026, Accor and UAE-based Cityview Developments confirmed two new branded residential developments in Dubai, together adding 690 branded residences to the partners' portfolio and building on the established Hyde Residences Dubai Hills.

The larger of the two, Movenpick Residences Dubai Motor City, will offer 408 residences with completion scheduled for 2028. The project makes two firsts: the world's first standalone Movenpick Residences and the first branded residences in the established Motor City community. The collection runs from studios to one- and two-bedroom homes, with amenities that include a fitness centre, padel court, multiple pools and a dedicated kids club.

The second project, Pullman Residences and Offices Dubai Meydan, was signed at the Future Hospitality Summit FHS World 2026 and is scheduled to open in 2029 with 282 Pullman-branded residences ranging from one to four bedrooms. It introduces Accor's first branded offices for sale anywhere in the world, extending the branded real estate model into the commercial segment. Homeowners in both developments join the Accor Owner Benefits Programme, including elevated status in the group's ALL loyalty programme.

The strategic signal matters more than the unit counts. Branded residences are evolving beyond the ultra-luxury segment into premium communities, a move Accor's regional leadership explicitly framed this week. For buyers, that means more supply at lower entry prices, and more reason to read the service contract carefully before assuming hotel-grade standards.

Anantara reaches Umm Al Quwain

Minor Hotels confirmed the Anantara Siniya Island Resort on 6 October 2026, the brand's first address in the emirate of Umm Al Quwain, with a groundbreaking ceremony held on 3 October. The resort is scheduled to open in 2030 with 125 keys, alongside 125 branded residences to be marketed as Anantara Residences Sobha Siniya Island. Residence layouts and prices have not been disclosed.

The project belongs to Sobha Al Siniya FZC, a joint venture between Sobha Realty and Umm Al Quwain Properties, with Minor Hotels operating the resort. Siniya Island sits about 50 minutes from Dubai, linked to the mainland by a 1.7-kilometre bridge, within a masterplan of roughly 23 million square feet in which more than 60 percent of the land is reserved for water, open space and greenery. The location is also about 10 minutes from Al Marjan Island, where Aman's Janu resort is rising, which keeps pulling the branded residence frontier north along the Gulf coast.

And Bali: Anantara's fifteen villas

In Southeast Asia, Anantara Residences Ubud Bali launched for sale in mid-October 2026: fifteen pool villas in Payangan, in Bali's Gianyar Regency, with prices starting at US$700,000. Thailand-listed Minor International is developing the project with Indonesian state-owned developer PT Wijaya Karya Realty. One-bedroom villas measure about 1,160 square feet and two-bedroom villas about 1,765 square feet, raised on stilts above a river valley with views toward Mount Agung.

The villas sit beside the Anantara Ubud Bali Resort, which opened in 2024, and owners will access the resort's spa, fitness centre, kids clubs and around-the-clock butler service. The regional pricing context is favourable: branded residences in the region command a premium of roughly 29 percent over comparable unbranded projects, according to a major international advisory firm, a gap that has actually widened over the past year.

Trump-branded villas go on sale in Qatar

Dar Global, the London-listed developer, opened sales of the villas at Trump International Golf Club Simaisma in Qatar on 1 October, with prices starting at 5 million Qatari riyals, about US$1.37 million. Construction is planned to begin in early 2027, with completion expected by the end of 2030. The development occupies 790,000 square metres within the wider 8-million-square-metre Simaisma coastal master plan, launched in April 2025.

Dar Global reports strong investor interest since the launch; that claim comes from the developer, and verified sales figures have not been published, so treat it as a sales message rather than a market fact. What is verifiable is the pattern: Gulf golf-led master plans are attaching branded residential components earlier and earlier in their lifecycles.

Four Seasons keeps residences threaded through its pipeline

Four Seasons detailed its current openings and upcoming pipeline this week, and almost every serious project in the list carries a residential component. New openings include Four Seasons Hotel and Residences Cartagena, set in restored landmark buildings, plus Four Seasons Resort and Residences Red Sea at Shura Island and the AMAALA resort on Saudi Arabia's north-west coast. Looking ahead, announced projects pair hotels with private residences in the Dominican Republic at Tropicalia on Samana Bay, on Belize's Caye Chapel, in the redeveloped Jacksonville shipyards, at Cairo's Madinaty, and in Okinawa.

For buyers tracking brand availability, the practical consequence is wider geographic choice before the end of the decade, from the Caribbean to Japan, with designs led by names such as Brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld at Tropicalia and Kengo Kuma in Okinawa.

The week in one line

The defining trend of late 2026 is branded living detaching from the five-star hotel core: premium-segment residences in established family communities, branded offices for sale, villas around golf estates, and longevity concepts attached to clinics. The Gulf supply engine is still running: Abu Dhabi's largest developer reported a 25 percent jump in third-quarter net profit this week amid a run of new project launches, and said it intends to hold prices despite regional uncertainty, according to reporting in The National. For buyers, the diligence question is no longer whether a brand will attach its name, but who will actually run the residence services after handover, and for how many years.