Sellable area is the number the developer uses to calculate your bill. It is almost never the area you can actually use.
Sellable area is the total area developers can legally sell, inclusive of the unit’s internal space plus its pro-rata share of certain common elements — sometimes including the balcony, sometimes including a share of circulation, sometimes more. It’s different from built-up area (which is specifically the unit’s own external-wall-inclusive footprint) and from net area (pure usable interior).
Developers in Dubai aren’t always transparent about what’s included in the sellable number. One developer might include balcony at 100% of sqft; another might include it at 50%; a third might exclude it entirely from the sellable figure. Same “1,100 sqft sellable” unit across three developers can have materially different useable interiors.
When comparing two units priced per-sqft of sellable area, always ask for the balcony treatment and the common-area loading assumption. If the developer can’t or won’t clarify, scale the floor plan independently.
A client last year compared two “1,050 sqft” units in similar towers. One included a 140 sqft balcony at full weighting. The other excluded the balcony entirely. Real interior comparison favoured the “smaller” unit by 90 sqft.
Sellable is a bill. Net is a home.
Related: Net Area, GFA, Price per sqft, Floor Plan.
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