Bought for $137m, Sold for $197m, Nothing Built: What Changed at Emaar Square 3

What one Dubai office deal tells us about where real estate profits really come from.

First, some background

Downtown Dubai is the city’s best-known business district, home to the Burj Khalifa and Dubai Mall. Emaar Square is a cluster of six office buildings there, developed by Emaar and completed in July 2007. Building 3 is an eight-storey office block of roughly 379,000 sq ft.

In office markets, “Grade A” means the best buildings in the …