Every word, defined.

This register maps 438 branded residences across 45 markets, and the 794 firms and individuals and 162 brands behind them. Every term it uses is below. Where the property trade has its own word for something, that word is given too — but the plain one leads, because the record is meant to be read.

When a field names no answer

Three words, and the difference between them is itself a finding. The first two are statements about this register and never about the project; the third is a statement about the project, and it needs a source behind it like any other.

Not recorded: This register holds no sourced value for that field, and nobody has examined the question. A price or an owner the developer has published perfectly openly still reads "Not recorded" here until someone has opened the page that states it. There is deliberately no second label meaning "withheld" — asserting that a developer hid something we merely failed to find is the one dishonesty this register cannot afford.
Not found: Pages were read and none named a party to this relation. The row says what was read. A claim about this register, never about the project.
None: An official source establishes that there is no such party. A recorded finding rather than a gap, and it needs a source and a note behind it.
Source unreachable: The pages that would answer this refused the request on the day they were tried. A finding about the sources rather than about the relation, and the row names the addresses and the date.

The residences

What is being sold, and under whose name.

Brand

The name licensed to this project and carried on the building. A brand is not a company: it holds no title, builds nothing and runs nothing.

Brand type

The business the brand comes from — hotel, fashion, design, automotive, restaurant, club, or a developer’s own name.

Hotel: The brand comes from hotel-keeping.
Lifestyle / Club: The brand comes from a members’ club, a wellness business or a lifestyle business rather than from hotel-keeping.
Restaurant-led: The brand comes from a restaurant or from a chef.
Fashion / Design: The brand comes from a fashion house, a design house or an interiors house.
Automotive: The brand comes from a maker of cars, yachts or aircraft.
Independent / Developer brand: The brand is the developer’s own, made for its buildings rather than carried across from another business.

What the brand does

Whether the residences are run under the brand, or the brand has licensed its name and nothing is run under it.

Residences run under the brand: A company runs the residences at this building under the brand.
Name licensed — nothing is run under it: The brand name is licensed to this project and nothing at the building is run under it. Stored, with a page behind it — never read off an absence.

In the trade: brand licence / management agreement.

Stage

Where construction stands: Operating, Under construction, Planned — or Mixed, where the buildings of one scheme stand at different points.

Operating: The residences are complete and handed over, or the property is open.
Under construction: Ground has been broken and the building is not yet complete.
Planned: Announced, with construction not yet started.
Mixed: A scheme whose buildings are at different stages. It says the buildings differ, never that the scheme is at some fourth point of its own.

Announced

When the project was first made public.

Sales opened

When its residences were first released for sale.

Construction started

When ground was broken on the site.

Handover projected

Every handover date the project has been given, oldest first.

Handover

When the residences were handed over to buyers.

Residences

How many separately titled homes this project sells, counting every kind it sells. Where it sells more than one kind, each is named and its own count given.

Stated in full: The figure is the figure — a price with both of its ends, or a count stated outright.
Or more: The figure is a floor. Prices start there, or the count is at least that many.
Or less: The figure is a ceiling, and the source publishes no floor below it.

In the trade: units.

Use restriction

A contractual limit on how the owner may use or rent out the residence, where an opened page states one. Not a lease and not a share — the owner holds title.

Residence types

The kinds of home offered — villas, condos, penthouses, lots — and how they break down. Not how many, and not what interest is sold. In the trade: unit mix.

What you buy

The interest a buyer takes: whole ownership, a share of one residence, or a right to use it.

Whole ownership: The buyer takes the whole home. A co-operative share that carries the whole home is this.
Fractional: The buyer takes a share of one residence, with the use of it for part of the year.
Right to use: The buyer takes a right to occupy for a term, and no interest in the property itself.

In the trade: tenure.

Price

The published asking range or entry price.

Currency

The currency a price was published in. No price is ever converted into another currency.

USD: The United States dollar.
MXN: The Mexican peso.
AED: The United Arab Emirates dirham.
GBP: The pound sterling.

Setting

Whether a hotel shares the site, the building is mixed-use, or it is residences only.

Hotel on site: A hotel stands on the same site, in a building or wing of its own.
Inside a mixed-use building: The residences occupy part of one building given over to more than one use — offices, a hotel, shops.
Residences only, no hotel: The residences are the whole property, with no hotel on the site.

In the trade: integration / co-located.

Master plan

The larger planned community, resort or named development this project sits inside. A standalone building sits in none.

Submarket

The named area within the market — a neighbourhood, resort strip or coastal stretch.

Market

The place this register compiles and publishes as one unit — a city, a coast or a resort corridor.

Region

A grouping of markets used by this register. Not an official boundary.

Country

The country a market sits in. Every region of this register belongs to exactly one.

Who is behind it

Each of these is a different relationship to the same building. One company can hold several of them — being the owner does not make it the developer, and holding the brand agreement does not make it the firm that runs the building day to day.

Kind of party

What the party is — a company, a practice, a person, a trust — never what it does on a project.

Company: A trading company of any incorporation.
Practice: A firm of architects, designers or engineers practising under its own name.
Individual: A named person, recorded in their own name rather than through a company.
REIT: A real-estate investment trust, holding property for investors under a regime written for that purpose.
Trust: A trust holding property for beneficiaries, and not itself a trading company.
Joint venture: A vehicle two or more firms hold together for one venture.
Family: A family holding property in the family name — an office or a group, rather than one named person.
Public body: Any arm of the state holding property in its own name — a ministry, an authority, a municipality, a sovereign fund.

Formerly known as

A name this company traded under before it renamed itself, and the date it stopped.

Holds title to

A party that still holds title to a named part of this scheme — a retained podium, a co-located hotel. Most branded residences have none: the homes belong to the people who bought them.

Title held as

The kind of interest a title holder holds — outright, on a lease, as a condominium unit, or through a trustee. Recorded only where a source states it.

Freehold: Title held outright and for no fixed term.
Leasehold: Title held for a term of years under a lease granted by someone else, who keeps the freehold.
Condominium title: Title to a unit within a condominium regime, held together with a share of the common parts.
Held in trust: Title held by a trustee for the buyer’s benefit — the Mexican fideicomiso and the Florida land trust are both this.

Developer

The party that promotes the project and carries it through to delivery. May also hold title to part of it — being one does not make it the other.

Behind the brand

The company that runs properties under this project’s brand and sets the standards carried under it. It need not own the name — who owns it is the brand licensor.

Building manager

The firm that runs the building day to day — staffing, maintenance, residents’ services.

Architect

The practice or individual who designed the building.

Interior design

The practice or individual who designed the interiors.

Main contractor

The firm engaged under a building contract to construct the project. It builds to the developer’s order and takes no interest in the finished building.

Brand licensor

The company that owns the brand name and licenses it out. A licence, not an operation.

Brand licensee

The party the brand name was licensed to for this project. A contract for a name — it carries no title and no duty to run the property.

How firm the record is

Every fact here comes from a page someone opened, and every pin from a feature someone found on a map. These say which, and how far each can be trusted.

Best source

The strongest kind of source behind this record: Direct sources — the brand’s or developer’s own page; Reported — press and trackers. It is a floor and not a ceiling, so a record with direct sources may still hold fields that rest on less — each carries its own Confidence.

Direct sources: At least one page behind this record was published by a party to the project.
Reported: Every page behind this record is a third party writing about the project.

Confidence

The same question asked of one field rather than of the whole record: Stated by a party, Trade press, or Inferred. This is where a record’s Best source stops being a summary: the two can differ on one record, and it is this one that binds on the value beside it.

Stated by a party: The value is stated on a page published by a party to the project — the developer, the brand owner, or a public body.
Trade press: The value is stated by a news or trade publication writing about the project, not by anyone party to it.
Inferred: No opened page states the value outright. It was read off what those pages do state, and the note beside it says how.

In the trade: provenance.

Sources

The pages this record is drawn from.

Map position

How this project’s pin was placed: on its own mapped site, or on a nearby feature standing in for it.

Its own mapped site: The coordinate resolves to the project’s own mapped feature — its plot, its building, its named site.
A stand-in position: The coordinate stands in for a nearby feature rather than the project’s own site. The map draws such a pin with a dashed halo.

How this project is structured

What the sources say about the arrangement behind the project, where no structured field can hold it.

Grouping

How records that belong together are gathered — the buildings of one scheme, and the brands tied to one another.

Buildings

The distinct buildings or phases one scheme is made of, each holding the facts that differ between them.

Residential: A building of the scheme given over to homes.
Serviced: A building of serviced apartments — let with hotel services rather than sold as homes. A false friend for "serviced residences", which are sold.
Hotel: A building of the scheme run as a hotel.
Club: A building holding a members’ club, a spa or a beach club rather than accommodation.
: A building of the scheme that none of the words above fits. It renders as no word at all rather than as "Other", which would read as a category this register keeps.

Related brand

Another brand tied to this one by its name or by the family behind it — not by a shared owner, which is recorded on the companies instead.

The name this brand extends: One brand's name is built on another's, and the two are separate records. Written on the extension, so it runs one way only — and never inferred from the spelling.
Same family, separate business: Two brands of one house, run as separate businesses, neither built on the other’s name. The tie runs both ways and is written once.

Words for the companies themselves

Every firm and individual this register names has its own record. These describe what kind of party it is, and how it stands to other companies.

Corporate structure

How one company stands to another. Each edge is published on both records, so it reads one way on the company that declares it and the other way on the company it names.

Part of / Parent of: A controlling corporate parent, which is less than owning the company outright.
Minority stake held by / Holds a minority stake in: A stake short of control, held by one company in another.
Affiliated with / Affiliated with: A link between two companies is recorded and its nature is not established. No control is implied in either direction.
Joint venture with / Joint venture with: Two firms are in one venture together. The tie runs both ways and neither end is above the other.
Site-holding entity of / Holds the site through: A company incorporated to hold one site or one scheme, and nothing else, on behalf of the firm behind it.

This register records corporate structure for the companies that operate brands. It does not record what stands above an owner or a developer: that research has not been done, so the absence of a parent there means nothing either way. Every relation it does record names the page it was read from, on both companies' records.