How We Calculate Dubai Property Prices (DLD Data)

Last updated: 13 November 2026

In short: every price figure on our price pages, market reports, Hot Deals and listing comparisons comes from residential sales registered with the Dubai Land Department and published as open data. We use the median price per square foot of recorded sales, usually over the last 12 months, and we show how many sales each figure is based on and the period it covers. Rents and gross yields come from new leases registered through Ejari and sales of ready homes over the same 12 months (section 7). This page explains exactly how.

1. Where the data comes from

The source is the Dubai Land Department’s real estate transactions open data, published on data.dubai and used under the Dubai Open Data Licence.
We keep only registered sales of residential property (transaction group “Sales”, usage “Residential”). Mortgage registrations, gifts and other procedures are left out, so they do not distort prices.
Records with an area of 5 sq m or less, or a value of AED 10,000 or less, are removed as data-entry errors.
Rents come from the Dubai Land Department’s rent contracts open data (leases registered through Ejari), also published on data.dubai under the same licence. Section 7 explains which leases count.
The Land Department records sizes in square metres. We convert them at 1 sq m = 10.7639 sq ft.
Names. Area, project and building names follow the Land Department’s records, which can differ from the names used in the market. Each area page shows both: the market name, and the Land Department’s area name and, where it differs, its master project name (for example Dubai Islands, recorded as Palm Deira). Where the Land Department records part of a community under another area, the page says so and links to it.

2. How each figure is calculated

Median price per sq ft. We sort the recorded sales by price per sq ft and take the middle value. The median is not pulled up or down by a few unusual sales, unlike an average.
Period. Each page shows its “data to” date. Figures cover the 12 months before that date. A building page with fewer than 10 sales in 12 months uses 24 months instead.
Ready and off-plan. The Land Department marks each sale as an existing (ready) home or an off-plan sale. We show them separately where both exist, because off-plan and ready prices often differ.
Bedroom rows. A bedroom type is shown only with at least 3 sales (building pages) or 5 sales (area pages).
Which areas get a page. A new area gets a page once it has 100 or more recorded sales in 12 months. An area that already has a page keeps it while it has 50 or more. A property type (apartments, villas, plots) is shown in an area with 25 or more sales.
Change against the year before (like for like). We compare the same kind of home in both periods, so a change in what sold, such as a big new launch, does not look like a price move.
- Building pages: the same bedroom type and the same ready or off-plan status, this year against the year before, weighted by this year’s sales. Each group needs at least 3 sales on both sides and 8 in total. A change of more than 40% is not shown, because it usually reflects a change in what sold rather than a real price move.
- Area pages: the same building, bedroom type and ready or off-plan status, the 12 months to the “data to” date against the 12 months before, each group with at least 3 sales in each period, weighted by its sales in the last 12 months. An area’s change is shown when it rests on at least 50 matched sales in each period, no single building carries more than a third of the weight, the matched sales are at least 10% of that home type’s sales in the area, the change is within 30%, and its 95% range (worked out by re-sampling the buildings) is at most 15 points wide. Ready and off-plan changes are given separately where each passes the same checks. Homes launched in the last 12 months have no earlier price to compare with, so they are not part of this figure.
- The quarterly chart on area pages shows the median price per sq ft of what sold in each quarter. It moves with which buildings sold, so it is not a like-for-like trend.

3. Market reports

Quarterly reports count all registered residential sales in each quarter, with total value, the ready and off-plan share and median prices.
The newest quarter is marked preliminary: the Land Department keeps adding late registrations for some weeks, so its totals can still rise slightly.
A quarter that is still running is shown as “so far” with the number of days covered, never as a finished quarter.

4. Hot Deals and listing comparisons

For apartment listings we compare the asking price per sq ft with the median of recorded sales in the same community, matched by property type and, where there are at least 3 such sales, by bedrooms and ready or off-plan status.
A listing appears in Hot Deals when it is at least 5% below that median. Each card shows both figures and how many sales the median comes from.
On a listing page, the “How this price compares” box appears only when the comparison is based on at least 10 sales, is less than 120 days old and the listing price has not changed since.

5. How often we update

Area and building price pages, the like-for-like changes, rents and yields, and the market reports are rebuilt every month from the latest open data.
The Hot Deals benchmark is refreshed when the price data is refreshed. New listings are checked shortly after they go live.

6. What the figures are not

They are indicative statistics, not a valuation of any particular home. Condition, floor, view, layout and timing all affect the price of a specific property. For a valuation of your home, ask us for a free price estimate.
They are Throne Properties’ own analysis. They are not produced, checked or endorsed by the Dubai Land Department or the Government of Dubai.
The open data is published with a delay, so the most recent weeks may be incomplete.

7. Rents and yields

The rents and gross yields on our area and building price pages and on Dubai rental yields by area come from two Dubai Land Department open datasets on data.dubai: rent contracts registered through Ejari, and residential sales. Rents and prices always cover the same 12 months.

Which leases count

New leases only. Renewals are left out: a yield should show what a home lets for today, and a buyer who lets a home signs a new lease.
Standard 12-month contracts for one unit. Contracts of 358 to 373 days, about 91% of new single-unit residential leases. Shorter contracts (often furnished or short stays) and contracts longer than about 12 months (over 373 days) are left out rather than converted to a yearly figure, so like is compared with like.
Home type and bedrooms. Flats and studios count as apartments; villas and complex villas as villas and townhouses. Rooms, labour and staff accommodation, hotel apartments and whole buildings are left out. Bedrooms come from the Ejari property sub-type: studio, 1, 2, 3, and 4 or more.
Errors removed. Yearly rents under AED 10,000 or over AED 3,000,000, and apartments let for under AED 15 or over AED 500 per sq ft a year (the size or the rent is wrong). Contracts covering more than one unit are left out. Identical leases (same place, size, dates, rent and type) count once, so one bulk letting cannot move a median.

Which sales count

Recorded sales of ready homes (registered as existing properties) of the same home type and number of bedrooms, in the same area or building and the same 12 months as the leases. Off-plan sales are left out because those homes cannot be let yet.
Sales in a building handed over in the last four months that has no lease yet are left out too: its homes could not have been let in the period.
The same error filters as our price pages: at least 150 sq ft, AED 150 to 30,000 per sq ft, and at least AED 100,000.

How each figure is worked out

Period. The 12 months up to the earlier of the sales data date and the rent data date. Leases count by start date, sales by sale date.
Median rent. The middle yearly rent of the new leases for each bedroom type, shown with the middle half of rents (25th to 75th percentile) and the number of leases.
Gross yield. Median yearly rent divided by the median price of the matching ready homes, shown with the number of leases and sales behind it. It is a gross figure: service charges, maintenance, agency and management fees and empty months are not deducted. Our rental yield calculator works out the net figure for a particular home.
Areas. The same grouping as our area price pages: the Land Department master community, or the area where there is none.
Buildings. Rent records carry a project name, not a building name. A lease counts for a building page only when its project name points to that page and to no other building page in the same community, and that building holds at least 90% of the project’s recorded sales. Leases in sister towers of the same project, which hold the rest (under 10%) of its sales, can therefore be counted for the main building.
Rankings. Our ranking of Dubai areas compares one home type at a time (1-bedroom apartments first, then studios, 2 and 3-bedroom apartments, and 3 and 4-or-more-bedroom villas and townhouses), so every area is compared on the same kind of home. Area pages also give one summary figure for apartments (or villas): the average of the bedroom-type yields that pass the checks below, weighted by the number of new leases. It depends on each area’s mix of homes, so we do not rank areas by it.

When a figure is shown

Rents: at least 20 new leases in an area or 10 in a building, and the 95% interval of the median rent within 15% either side of the median.
Yields: also at least 20 sales of ready homes in an area or 10 in a building, and these checks: the let and the sold homes have a similar median size (within 15%); the yield worked out per sq ft agrees within 1 percentage point; the 95% range of the yield is no wider than 2 percentage points; and the yield is between 2% and 15%.
Same kind of building (areas): the homes sold must not be in very different buildings from the homes let. Where at least 40% of the leases and of the sales carry a project name, we work the median price out again with each sale weighted to the mix of projects that were let, and show the yield only if the two versions agree within 1 percentage point.
Building yields rest on fewer sales than area figures, so each is shown with its likely range (the 95% range). Yields of different buildings less than about 1 point apart are within that margin.
Rounding: rents to the nearest AED 500, prices to the nearest AED 1,000, yields to one decimal place. Yields are calculated from the unrounded medians.

What these figures are not

Each yield is the ratio of two medians: the rent and the price come from different homes of the same type, so it describes the area or building, not a particular home.
The open rent data has no unit numbers and does not say whether a home was let furnished. A particular home can let for more or less with its size, view, floor, condition and furnishing.
They are Throne Properties’ own analysis, not produced, checked or endorsed by the Dubai Land Department or the Government of Dubai, and they are not a valuation or financial advice.

8. Corrections

If you think a figure is wrong, or a building is listed under the wrong name, tell us on WhatsApp at +971 58 253 1511 or through our contact page. We check every report and correct the page when we find an error.