Official Sources on Branded Residences: The 2026 Data and Research Guide

Branded residences generates more quoted statistics than any comparable niche of real estate, and most of them cannot be traced back to a primary source. This is a working directory of where credible data actually comes from, what each source measures, how often it is refreshed, and where its limits sit. Use it to check any figure before it goes into an appraisal, a brand-selection memo or a marketing deck.

Global research house reports

Savills publishes an annual Branded Residences report, now in its fifth-plus edition, giving a global scheme count, regional pipeline breakdown and indicative premium ranges; its 2025/2026 edition put the global stock at roughly 910 schemes by end-2025, up from 764 at December 2024, with over 220 further projects in the pipeline. It is refreshed once a year, typically in the second half. Knight Frank runs two relevant products: The Wealth Report, an annual survey of prime markets and high-net-worth demand now in its 20th edition, and the standalone Global Branded Residence Survey, published separately, which in 2025 reviewed the portfolios of close to 80 brands and more than 1,000 live and pipeline schemes across 83 countries. JLL publishes periodic insight pieces rather than a fixed annual report, including region-specific work on Asia Pacific and the GCC; these are useful for qualitative trend reads on brand entrants and buyer motivation but do not carry a consistent published dataset. All three define "branded" differently, so scheme counts should never be compared across publishers without checking each report's methodology note.

Regional and specialist research houses

C9 Hotelworks, a Phuket-based hospitality consultancy, publishes the most granular regional dataset available: its Asia Branded Residences Market Review is issued roughly twice a year and covers 14 Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean markets with unit counts, project counts and supply value in US dollars, split between released-for-sale and future pipeline. Its 2025 edition put Asia's active pipeline at USD 30.7 billion across 38,893 units in 178 projects, with Thailand, the Philippines and South Korea the leading markets by share. This is the closest the sector has to an audited regional supply count, though it is a paid-access report for full detail and free summaries only show headline figures. For the GCC, master developers and Knight Frank/JLL regional desks are the main published sources; there is no equivalent standalone GCC report with C9's cadence.

Operator and brand disclosures

Listed hospitality groups — Marriott International, Hilton, Accor, Hyatt, IHG — report branded residential unit counts and, in some cases, fee income in annual reports (10-K filings for US-listed groups) and quarterly earnings calls. These are the most reliable public figures for how many schemes a given brand has actually signed, because they are subject to audit and securities disclosure obligations, unlike a press release. Privately held maisons — Aman, Baccarat's owner, Bentley, automotive and fashion entrants — disclose far less, so their pipeline has to be reconstructed project by project from signed announcements and, where available, licensing partner statements.

Land registries and transaction records

This is the only tier that gives transacted, rather than asking, prices. The Dubai Land Department publishes open transaction, project and unit-level datasets through the Dubai Pulse open-data portal, updated on a rolling basis (several files refresh weekly to monthly), covering sales, mortgages and registered projects; it does not tag records as "branded" but the developer and project name allow that filter to be built manually. In the United States, county recorder and assessor records provide transacted prices, and in New York specifically the Attorney General's Real Estate Finance Bureau maintains a public Offering Plan Database, searchable by sponsor, property name or file number, which discloses unit counts, sponsor identity and plan amendments for every condominium offering — including every branded scheme sold as new development in the state. The UK Land Registry publishes monthly price-paid data covering all registered transactions, and Singapore's Urban Redevelopment Authority publishes private residential transaction data quarterly. Cross-referencing these registries against a scheme's brand affiliation is the only rigorous way to measure a transacted premium rather than an advertised one.

Regulators and development authorities

In Saudi Arabia, the Real Estate General Authority (REGA) and its Sakani platform, together with giga-project sponsors such as NEOM, Roshn and Diriyah Company, are the primary record of licensed brand partnerships and delivery timetables for the Kingdom's pipeline; PIF-backed vehicles publish scheme announcements directly rather than through an aggregated national dataset. In Dubai, the Real Estate Regulatory Agency (RERA) under DLD maintains the register of approved projects and escrow accounts for off-plan sales, which developers must comply with before marketing a branded scheme. In New York, beyond the Offering Plan Database, the Attorney General's Real Estate Finance Bureau publishes policy memoranda governing what an offering plan must disclose, including hotel-condominium hybrid structures — essential reading before relying on a New York branded scheme's marketing material. None of these bodies publish a market-wide branded residences count; they are transactional and compliance registers, not research products, but they are the hardest evidence available on what has actually been approved, escrowed and sold.

Trade and industry press

Publications such as Hotel Investment Today, Mansion Global, Bloomberg's property desk, and hospitality trade titles are the fastest route to new brand entries, licence signings and partnership announcements. They are not audited and frequently repeat a developer's own figures without independent verification. Their value is timeliness — a new brand-developer signing is usually reported within days — not accuracy of scale. Any pipeline or premium figure sourced from trade press should be traced back to the original press release or filing before use.

Proprietary transaction datasets

Advisers active in transactions on both the brand and developer side maintain their own scheme-level records covering licence terms, fee structures, achieved (not asking) pricing and absorption rates — data that no public source captures because licence and management agreements are private contracts. Icon Partners maintains a dataset covering more than ninety transacted schemes across fifteen countries, which underpins our premium benchmarking and brand-selection advisory work. These datasets are not published, but they are the only source that captures the contract economics that determine whether a branded scheme actually creates value for its developer and its buyers.

How to use this directory

Match the question to the source rather than the source to the headline. Use Savills or Knight Frank for a global or regional direction of travel. Use C9 Hotelworks for Asia-Pacific supply detail. Use listed operators' filings to verify a specific brand's signed pipeline. Use DLD, county registries, the URA or the NY AG's database to check a transacted price or a sponsor's disclosure obligations. Use REGA, RERA or a giga-project sponsor's own announcements for Gulf pipeline status, remembering that announcement, signature and delivery are three different states. Treat trade press as a lead to verify, not a citation. And where a claim cannot be traced to any of the above, treat it as marketing rather than data.

The source directory

How to read the numbers without being misled

Scheme counts differ between publishers because the definitions differ. Some counts include any scheme announced; others only those with a signed operator agreement; others only completed buildings. A pipeline number is not a delivery number, and roughly a fifth of announced schemes in most markets never complete in the announced form. When a figure matters commercially, go to the operator's own disclosure or the land registry rather than a secondary summary, and state the as-at date alongside the number.

• Distinguish live schemes from pipeline schemes in every citation.
• Treat premium figures as market-level averages, never as a valuation of a specific unit.
• Prefer registry-recorded transaction prices to asking prices when testing a premium claim.
• Check whether resort and urban product are aggregated; they behave very differently.