Cash or mortgage
What does each return on your money?
A home priced at the typical price of recorded completed sales , let at the typical new-let rent on record , bought with cash or with a loan. Drag the loan, the rate and a price scenario; the return on the cash you actually put in is worked out again as you do.
Return on the cash put in, a year · 10-year hold · across price scenarios
Solid: cash. Outlined: mortgage. Bars clipped at −40% and +60%. Dashed line: the crossover.
Cash
+4.9%
AED 1.07M in on day one
Mortgage · 60% loan
+5.9%
AED 470.2K in on day one
The two paths return the same at -1.2% a year over 10 years (+0.0% over 5: the one-off fees weigh less on a longer hold). In this comparison, borrowing raises the yearly return on the cash put in when the home's yield after service charge (6.0%) plus the appreciation scenario exceeds the cost of the loan including its fees, and lowers it when it does not. The textbook version — yield plus appreciation against the 4.00% rate — is only roughly right: the one-off fees fall on a smaller stake over a short hold.
The mortgage path leaves AED 595,500 in your hands; the rates above say nothing about what that money earns. If it earned +0.0% a year, the whole sum would return +2.7% against +4.9% for cash — set that in the assumptions.
Assumptions4.00% · 25y term · 10y hold · price AED 1M · rent AED 72K · service AED 12.44K · exit 2%
Every cost left at zero here — vacancy, maintenance, letting fees, insurance, a rate reset after a fixed period, early-settlement charges — is a percentage of the home, not of the stake, so each one hurts the mortgage path more than the cash path once it is counted.
Ledger · what went in and what came out
| Cash | Mortgage | |
|---|---|---|
| Cash in on day oneprice less loan, plus every fee | AED 1,065,700 | AED 470,200 |
| Fees on day oneDLD transfer 4% (DLD) · agency 2% (agent) · trustee AED 4,200 typical (trustee office) · NOC AED 1,500 typical (developer); with a loan, registration 0.25% of the loan (DLD) · valuation AED 3,000 typical (bank) | AED 65,700 | AED 70,200 |
| Mortgage payments, year oneAED 23,740 interest, AED 14,264 repaid | — | AED 38,004 |
| Rent after costs, year oneafter empty weeks, maintenance, service charge and any insurance | AED 59,564 | AED 59,564 |
| Cash flow, year onerent after costs, less the mortgage payments | AED 59,564 | AED 21,560 |
| Net cash return on all-in cost, year onecash flow ÷ cash in; counts principal repaid as a cost — it comes back as equity at sale and is in the rate above | +5.6% | +4.6% |
| Sale after 10 yearsat +0.0% a year — your scenario | AED 1,000,000 | AED 1,000,000 |
| Agency on sale | AED 20,000 | AED 20,000 |
| Loan still owed | — | AED 428,156 |
| Equity out at sale | AED 980,000 | AED 551,844 |
| Total gain over 10 yearsequity out plus every year's cash flow, less cash in | AED 509,940 | AED 297,241 |
A scenario worked out from typical recorded prices and rents and the figures you set. Not a quote, an offer of credit, a valuation of any home, or advice; Keyva is not a bank, broker or adviser and is not affiliated with DLD, RERA or the Central Bank. As of 11 October 2026. Where the numbers come from · What a bank may lend you.
Dubai Land Department · recorded sales Sales on record with the Land Department · typical prices, not estimates. Half of the sales were above a typical price, half below. File dated 8 Oct 2026 · synced 8 Oct 2026.
Who borrows here
44 mortgages are registered for every 100 completed-property sales in Dubai
201,493 against 459,572 across the whole record, to 7 October 2026; over Oct 2025 – Sep 2026 the city ran higher, at 71 per 100. The figures for the chosen area below name both periods. This tells you something a price chart cannot: whether an area is bought by people borrowing to live somewhere, or by money that can leave as quickly as it arrived.
Jumeirah Village Circle
Over Oct 2025 – Sep 2026: 64 mortgages registered per 100 completed-property sales here (4,569 sales), 71 across Dubai. Whole record, to 7 October 2026: 44 here (32,346 sales), 44 across Dubai.
Amount recorded on mortgage entries against 1-bedroom homes here, Oct 2025 – Sep 2026: typical AED 783,209, half between AED 635,500 and AED 920,000 (1,595 entries). DLD does not say whether the amount is the loan or the value secured, the entries include remortgages and equity releases with no sale beside them, and a mortgage record carries no unit to match to a sale — so this is not a loan-to-value.
Why this only counts completed property
Off-plan buyers use developer payment plans, not bank mortgages — across the whole record, to 7 October 2026, 5% of home mortgage registrations are off-plan, while 57% of home sales are. Comparing all mortgages to all sales would mix two different markets. Both sides here are restricted to completed homes, which is the market a mortgage actually applies to.
Every area with at least 10 completed-property sales
Ratios above 100% are real, not errors: a remortgage or equity release registers as a mortgage with no sale beside it, so an area where owners borrow against homes they already hold can exceed the number of sales.
Show all 67 areas
Mortgage records carry no unit number, so this is a ratio of counts rather than a match of each loan to its property. It shows how much borrowing there is in an area, not the share of any one sale that was financed.
Dubai Land Department · recorded sales Sales on record with the Land Department · typical prices, not estimates. Half of the sales were above a typical price, half below. File dated 8 Oct 2026 · synced 8 Oct 2026.