About the advisor
An independent second opinion for anyone moving to Dubai or buying a home to let, built on what the Land Department registers rather than on what portals list.
What it does
Moving: three questions give you three areas, the real rent range for your size of home from new tenancy contracts of the last six months, the full cost of the first year, and the reasons against each area. Refine by school, transport and how long you will stay.
Investing: for your budget, the areas where registered prices and registered rents produce a yield, gross and net of realistic costs, with the twelve-month price move and a warning where off-plan supply is heavy.
Checking a listing: paste the text of an advert and we compare the asking price with contracts and sales registered in the same building, or the area when the building has none.
What the numbers are
Rents are new Ejari tenancy contracts (renewals excluded, single units only) registered with the Dubai Land Department, summarised as the lower quartile, the median and the upper quartile. Sale prices are registered transactions. Both are refreshed every night from the same database that runs the Ux Dubai Real Estate Index on this site. We do not use asking prices from portals to recommend anything.
Move-in costs use the standard Dubai charges: 5% agency fee plus VAT, 5% deposit (10% furnished), Ejari registration, the DEWA deposit, the 5% housing fee collected with utility bills, and a chiller estimate where the area usually bills it separately. Net yields assume one month empty a year, service charges of about 1% of the price, and 6.5% entry costs.
What is judgement
The reasons for and against each area, the school notes, the chiller notes and the rush-hour minutes are written by us from living here and asking around, not measured by a sensor. They are labelled as estimates, kept under review, and we would rather be corrected than be vague: tell us where we are wrong.
What we are not
Not a portal, not an agency, not licensed to broker anything, and not paid by anyone whose area we recommend. If you ask for an agent, we pass your details to one licensed agent, once, and only after you tick the box that says so.