Primary sources
- Dubai Land Department real-estate open data, distributed through Dubai Pulse / Data Dubai.
- Dataset IDs: projects 467654, buildings 459613, units 470193, transactions 470061, rent contracts 468586.
- Dated project or developer announcements for selected off-plan commercial details. Each populated field links to its recorded source where available.
- Archived DLD snapshots and identified public targets for developer completion comparisons. External developer profiles support brand cross-checking, not a universal quality score.
- OpenFreeMap, OpenStreetMap and Overture Maps support the off-plan location display. Price, rental-yield and housing-supply tools do not use a map.
Property prices: transaction medians, not valuations
Ready-home sales are separated into apartments and villas/townhouses, then into available bedroom groups. Each chart point is the median AED per sqft for the named month and the preceding two months. At least 20 records are required per published point.
The 12- and 24-month changes compare those rolling points; this is not a repeat-sales index. Changing transaction mix can move the median. The latest month may be incomplete, and adjacent points share transactions. A price gap from the median is not proof that a specific property is cheap or expensive.
Rental yields: separate sale and rent samples
Estimated gross yield = median annual new-lease rent per sqft ÷ median ready-home sale price per sqft × 100, for the same area, property type and bedroom group. At least 20 sales and 20 new leases are required. The two medians come from separate samples, not matched units.
Service charges, vacancy, management, maintenance, acquisition costs, financing and tax are not deducted from the area gross yield. Rental-yield sale medians use a 12-month window; the Home Price Radar's latest point uses a three-month window, so these price figures need not match.
Housing supply: registered plans and mapped stock
Existing stock combines mapped completed residential projects with eligible mature registered stock. Upcoming homes subtract matched ready units from registered project totals. Completion-year bars use gross project totals, so they do not necessarily reconcile to the stock-adjusted upcoming count. The pipeline-to-stock ratio is not annualised and is not a delivery forecast. Scheduled, undated and past-due records are distinct; plans can change.
The searchable registered-project table includes all projects matched by the existing area rules, not just the largest five. Completed, pipeline, undated and zero-home-count records remain distinguishable. Project totals can overlap between area profiles and are not a citywide inventory.
Supply is broader residential coverage and does not inherit the bedroom or property-type filters in the price and yield tools. A large pipeline alone does not establish oversupply or predict falling rents.
Area matching and uncertainty
We retain familiar market names and match underlying records using official area names, master projects and project-name rules. Supply data identifies specific matching versus broader official-area fallback. Sales and rent files have different fields and use separate market overrides, so the same displayed name does not guarantee identical geographical coverage.
Each area profile publishes its supply-matching rules. Nested markets may overlap and must not be summed into a Dubai total. Broad fallback coverage and unresolved project references remain visible. Removing a map does not remove classification uncertainty; questionable mappings need source-level review before any numerical correction.
Off-plan project coverage
The directory contains 503 project records and 480 sourced map locations. 432 have a dated starting-price reference, and 384 have payment-plan information. Teal pins retain the earlier audited locations. Amber pins are project-level locations reported by the linked Property Finder pages, including named multi-building developments; they are not independently surveyed plots. Generic area centroids, unresolved phase labels and shared coordinates are withheld. Projects without a usable project-level location remain listed without pins. Where no DLD identity has been independently linked, the project number and registered unit count remain explicitly unconfirmed.
Official developer sources and third-party Property Finder project pages are labelled separately, with field-specific dates for newly researched prices and payment plans. Primary-source terms are not silently overwritten by catalogue values. Conflicting source schedules are withheld pending clarification. Launch prices are approximate entry references, not available-unit quotations, and no missing price is estimated from a neighbouring development.
Source-check dates do not guarantee that terms remain available. This is not a complete list of Dubai projects or available units. Coordinate evidence does not certify ownership, a sales-office entrance or project boundaries. New additions exclude identified duplicates, renamed matches and repeated numbered phases; a marketed project is not necessarily a whole master development.
Developer Explorer and completion history
The Developer Explorer connects company references, Dubai catalogue projects and completion research through explicit developer-name aliases. We do not automatically combine parent companies, subsidiaries or master developers. Company incorporation, group origins and first-project launches are labelled as different milestones. An unknown date or empty history is a research gap, not a negative assessment.
We prefer the earliest accessible archived DLD target. When unavailable, an identified public target or the current DLD expected-completion record is used. Revised targets can understate the delay from an original launch promise. The comparison endpoint is the recorded DLD technical inspection reaching 100%, not necessarily buyer key handover.
Dates are normalised to half-years, so the displayed timing bands are approximate rather than measured day-level delays. The original 572 comparison records and calculation are preserved. Additional records require a reviewed DLD project number, FINISHED status and 100% completion. They are displayed separately without assigning a timing category: the registry completion-date field is not substituted for a technical-inspection date. A completed record can represent a building or a registered phase, not necessarily a whole master development.
Future-dated catalogue projects are grouped using their recorded expectedDate against the profile review date, not the visitor's clock. Older or undated targets remain accessible separately; neither group confirms live availability. All sourced comparison records are retained. Coverage is incomplete, not a developer's total inventory. No developer quality ranking is calculated.
Deal Analyzer: editable cash-only scenarios
Net operating income = annual rent × occupied fraction × (1 − management rate) − service charges − other recurring costs. Net rental yield on total cost divides this income by the purchase price plus one-off purchase costs. The target-yield price ceiling is net operating income ÷ target yield − the entered one-off costs.
All inputs are assumptions. One-off costs are held fixed when calculating the price ceiling; update them if a lower or higher price changes a percentage-based fee. The downside scenario reduces rent by 10% and adds one month of vacancy, capped at 12. Mortgages, appreciation, sale proceeds, taxes and construction-period cash flows are excluded. Negative operating income is possible.
Rent vs Buy: equal capital and equal monthly budgets
The Rent vs Buy Calculator models a home to live in, not a rental investment. The renter invests the buyer's initial down payment and one-off costs. Each month, the cheaper housing option invests its monthly saving. Both portfolios use the same entered alternative return, compounded monthly before new contributions.
The mortgage is a fixed-rate, fully amortising monthly loan. Principal repayment builds equity; interest does not. Rent and recurring costs change annually. Buyer wealth is the hypothetical sale price less entered selling costs and remaining debt, plus invested savings. Renter wealth is the investment portfolio. The annual crossover is the first sampled year-end buying leads and stays ahead through the selected horizon, not a universal break-even date. All returns, rates and costs are editable assumptions, not live offers or predictions. There is no lending-eligibility check.
Off-Plan Payment Planner: funding by month
The Off-Plan Payment Planner requires milestones totalling 100% of the purchase price. Booking fees are additional, in month 0. The model combines payments in the same month, adds saving before each later month's payment, then subtracts cumulative payments from initial cash plus cumulative savings.
The largest cumulative deficit is the extra starting cash required at the entered saving rate. Alternatively, after covering any immediate booking deficit, the minimum constant monthly saving is the largest remaining cumulative funding requirement divided by its month number. Negative balances are funding gaps, not loans. Handover classifies payments but does not shift dates automatically. Illustrative schedules do not establish contractual terms, escrow validity, delivery dates, financing or rental income.
Property Budget Finder
The Budget Finder keeps two kinds of evidence separate: sufficiently sampled ready-home area medians multiplied by an entered size, and dated off-plan project starting-price references. An entered one-off cost allowance is included in budget matching. These are research shortlists, not available listings, valuations or lending decisions.
Find Your Dubai Neighbourhood
The 15-question neighbourhood quiz compares 13 researched lifestyle profiles. Tags are editorial interpretations of official tourism, community, transport and education references, reviewed on 8 September 2026. Preferences and chosen priorities contribute weighted scores; sufficiently sampled budget evidence can adjust the first result. The other results explore lifestyle fit and a different broad location. All visitors receive three distinct suggestions; budget mismatches and missing estimates remain explicit.
School matching considers selected age bands and the visitor's school area; it does not establish admissions, walking distance or actual journey times. Only reviewed neighbourhood destinations receive a location score. Sources for each result appear in its area-source section. Shared cards and links exclude budgets, child ages and daily destinations.
Schools and KHDA inspection ratings
School names, curricula, year groups and overall inspection ratings come from the KHDA school directory, checked on 11 Sept 2026. This is a dated reference, not a live admissions feed. The snapshot contains 229 retrievable school records, not a claim to cover every Dubai school or nursery. Missing year groups are not estimated.
Each rating carries its actual inspection period. A 2026 directory check does not turn a 2023–2024 inspection into a 2026 rating. KHDA announced a pause in general inspections for 2025–2026, with exceptions for schools in their third year of operation. Newer ratings are retained where published; schools without an inspection are labelled “Not inspected yet”, not rated as poor. BSO, wellbeing and inclusion assessments are not substituted for the overall KHDA rating.
Area pages use editorial school shortlists. “In the area” uses KHDA locality information or a cited campus/community source; “Nearby” means a surrounding-community option to investigate, not a calculated radius, catchment, walkable route or guaranteed short drive. Broad or outdated KHDA location labels are refined only with a linked school or community source. Mainland schools are distinguished from island communities. Listings are not a quality ranking and may overlap between areas.
School website links come from KHDA or the cited school source. Directions open a school-name search in Google Maps; we do not reuse unverified map coordinates or estimate journey times. Confirm the correct campus, current year groups, fees, admissions and bus routes directly. School data is refreshed separately from DLD market data; a newly downloaded directory must be reviewed before publication.
Corrections
Email hello@dubairealestate.app with the page URL, the field you believe is wrong and supporting evidence. Changes should be traceable to sources, not made merely to improve a displayed result.