Who writes this
News & Insights is published by Peak Trust Research, the research desk of Peak Trust. Pieces carry the organisation's name, not a person's. Peak Trust advises developers and investors. Rankings and lists that name developers use registered public records only and make no judgement about quality. Nothing here is investment advice.
Sources
- Dubai Land Department (DLD): registered property transactions, including sales and mortgage registrations.
- DLD project register: off-plan projects, their registration dates, unit counts and scheduled completion dates.
- Ejari: registered tenancy contracts, the source of our rent figures.
- Central Bank of the UAE: the base rate.
- Government figures: DLD bulletins and other official releases. We do not use figures from brokerages or property-data companies. When we quote an official figure, we name the publisher in the text and list it under Sources at the end of the piece, with a link and a date.
Registered sales, not asking prices
A sale counts when it is registered with DLD. Asking prices on listing portals are not sales and do not appear in our figures. Registration can lag the deal by days or weeks, so the latest period can fill in after we publish; every piece states the last date its data covers (“Data to”).
What counts as residential
Our sales figures cover apartments and villas (including townhouses) sold as individual homes. Land plots, whole buildings and commercial property are excluded unless a piece says otherwise, as a piece on land deals does.
Median, not average
The median is the middle value when every sale is lined up from cheapest to dearest. A handful of very large villa sales can drag an average up; they barely move the median, so the median describes a typical home better. Prices per square foot are converted from DLD's price per square metre (1 square metre is 10.7639 square feet).
Off-plan and ready
A sale is off-plan when DLD registers it as a sale of a unit that is not yet complete, by its registration type. Every other residential sale is ready. The off-plan share is off-plan sales as a percentage of all residential sales in the period.
Year-on-year comparisons, and the 2026 records
Year-on-year (YoY) compares a period with the same period a year earlier: September 2026 with September 2025, Q3 with Q3.
From early 2026 the DLD records we hold arrive through a different feed from earlier years, so our 2026 counts and values are not comparable with 2025 and before. For market totals, and for any year-on-year change in the number or value of sales, we quote DLD's own published figure and say so. Medians, shares, unit mixes and rankings are comparable across years, and comparisons within 2026 from March onwards are fine.
Rents and yields
Rents are medians of registered annual tenancy contracts. For 2026 we publish median rents only, not contract counts or renewal shares, because the 2026 contract records do not support them. Gross rental yield is annual rent as a percentage of the purchase price. It is indicative. Where we show a net figure, the service-charge assumption is stated beside it.
Sample sizes
We only print a figure when enough registrations sit behind it:
- an area row needs at least 50 sales;
- a median needs at least 20 records;
- a project row needs at least 20 sales;
- a rent cell needs at least 20 contracts.
Weekly prices per square foot are a four-week rolling median, and are labelled that way. Where a sample size matters, the table shows it (n).
Developers, projects and handovers
Developers often register projects through separate companies; we report them under the brand buyers know. Completion dates are the dates scheduled in the DLD register, not forecasts: we write “scheduled”, never “will deliver”.
Dates and periods
All dates are Dubai time (UTC+4). Weeks run Monday to Sunday and are numbered as ISO weeks. Each piece shows when it was published, when it was last updated, and the last date its data covers.
Revisions and corrections
We never change a published number silently. If a figure is corrected, the piece carries a line saying “Revised {date}” and what changed, and its updated date moves. Late registrations do not trigger a revision on their own; the next issue picks them up. To report an error, contact us.