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How we compare

A number is only useful if it's compared to the right thing

Dubai property is full of true numbers arranged into misleading comparisons. A launch price beside a market average. A yield built from one building's rent and another's price. A “15% growth” that counts a different set of homes at each end.

Keyva is built on 1,372,864 Dubai Land Department sale records, dated 1993 to 9 October 2026, and 3,568,121 Ejari rent contracts , starting 2022 to 10 March 2028. The data matters less than the discipline applied to it: compare like with like, and say nothing when you can't.

What that means in practice

A developer's “from” price against an area's typical price

A starting price is the lowest-priced unit in a development. A typical price is the middle of what sold: half of the homes sold for more, half for less. Subtracting one from the other understates the real gap on a comparable home — so we show both figures and say they are not like-for-like, rather than showing a tidy premium percentage.

Both numbers, side by side, labelled by what they are

Rental yield from mismatched sources

Sale and rent records can name one place two ways: in the files we first loaded, Dubai Marina's sales and Marsa Dubai's rents arrived as two unrelated areas. Taken at face value in August 2026, that left 74 areas with sales and no rents, and most of the places people actually search with no yield at all.

The two are joined only where shared projects prove they describe the same place, and where one of the Land Department's areas spans several communities, the page says the rent side is broader

A year-on-year change from too few sales to carry it

Keyva holds 20 years of monthly price history, so the comparison is available almost everywhere — but availability is not the same as meaning. An area with nine sales this quarter against six a year ago can produce any percentage you like, and the arithmetic will not tell you it is noise.

The comparison is shown only where both ends have at least the minimum number of sales (set out below), and the number of sales is shown beside it

Rent trends from months we only partly captured

The Land Department's exports filter by registration date, so our first rent download captured old contracts only if they were registered late. Read in August 2026, it showed 717 rent contracts Dubai-wide in January 2025 climbing to 68,862 a year later: explosive growth that was really our own coverage arriving. The full archive since loaded does not have that bias, but the guard it taught remains: a month far thinner than its neighbours is dropped from trends as partial coverage.

Those months are dropped from trends entirely, because a lopsided set of records is not just a smaller one

Bulk leases counted as homes

One Ejari contract can cover forty units at a single price. Averaged in with individual rent contracts, that quietly drags every typical rent it touches. When we measured the full Ejari archive in September 2026, roughly one in five of its contracts was a bulk lease.

Excluded and counted, not divided and hoped over

A developer's average price read as a quality premium

A builder's raw price per square foot mixes two things: where they build, and what they build. Of the 362 developers we can compare in the sale figures built 13 Oct 2026, ATLANTIS THE PALM 2 DEVELOPMENT L.L.C has the highest headline price: AED 6,636 per square foot, its own typical monthly prices over the areas and months compared, Feb 2018 to Aug 2026. Measured against sales in the same areas, with the same completion status, in the months it sold in, its homes sell about 158% above the local market across 238 sales compared, the largest premium of the 362. Emaar Development P.J.S.C. sells about 18% above its local market across 50,591 sales compared. Binghatti Developers Fze and Azizi Developments L.L.C sit within 3% of their local markets, across 38,458 and 34,191 sales compared.

Every developer measured only against sales in the same area with the same off-plan or ready status, with the raw figure shown beside it

Off-plan and ready homes mixed into one typical price

These are two different markets. Across residential sales dated 13 Oct 2025 to 9 Oct 2026, off-plan traded about 26% above completed homes city-wide: a typical price of AED 1,793 per square foot on 114,869 off-plan sales, against AED 1,425 on 38,505 ready ones. Off-plan made up 75% of those city-wide sales, so a city typical price for both together leans toward the off-plan side while appearing to describe the whole market. By area the gap is nothing like uniform: across the 51 areas with at least 30 sales on each side over the same dates, the typical gap is 36%, and the range runs from 8% below ready to 234% above. At the top of that range, Al Safouh Second's 124 off-plan sales record a typical price of AED 3,323 per square foot against AED 996 on its 292 ready ones.

Both typical prices shown separately on every area, with the gap between them stated

“Data to” a date read as “everything up to” that date

The Land Department's export carries the date a sale happened, not the date it was registered with them. A sale agreed in the last few weeks may not be in the file yet, so the newest month is always partial and always grows with the next download. We have no registration date at all, so we cannot tell you how partial — only that the most recent month is the least complete one on every page.

Dates are labelled as the date of the sale, the newest month is treated as incomplete, and the year so far is never compared with a full year

Records that are not prices, counted as prices

The register records paperwork, not just prices: partial payments, transfers between related parties and token amounts sit in the same column as real sales. An 807 sqft apartment logged at AED 26,130 is the shape of it. Every sale figure on this site counts only sales between AED 200 and AED 20,000 per square foot, with a total price of at least AED 100,000. Of the 1,059,812 residential sales we hold, dated to 9 Oct 2026, 4,102, or 0.4%, fall outside that range and are set aside: few enough that a typical price barely notices them, and enough to decide any minimum.

One shared range, applied everywhere, so the same sale is never counted on one page and left out on the next

A service charge quoted as this year's bill

Owners' association budgets are recorded FOR a year, in advance, and the newest year among the residential budgets we hold is 2026. Each budget is linked to its project through the Land Department's own project number, not by matching names. So the figure answers what a building budgeted for that year, and the year is shown beside it; it is not the invoice an owner receives.

Labelled with the year it was recorded for, and never shown as a current charge

Land mixed into home prices

A plot of raw land and a two-bedroom apartment are both Land Department sale records. Counted together, as our first area pages did in August 2026, they produced area typical prices as low as AED 5 per square foot, which is not the price of anything a person can live in.

Homes only, on both the sale and rent sides

Names in Arabic and English

You can search this site in either script. Type مرسى دبي or “Dubai Marina” and you reach the same page.

That works because the Land Department publishes most names twice, once in each script, on the same row of its own files — the Arabic name of an area beside the English one, and the same for projects, towers and developers. We lift those pairs straight out of the register, so the Arabic name on a page is the name the Land Department recorded, not a translation we produced. Of the 3,056 projects we hold under the Land Department's own project number, 2,956 have an English and Arabic name pair taken from its files; the pairs were last built on 13 Oct 2026.

A search also forgives the ways Arabic is spelled differently without changing the word: the hamza forms, the two endings that sound alike, short vowels, and the definite article. It never transliterates. Typing Latin letters will not match an Arabic name by sounding it out — the two scripts meet only through a pair the Land Department actually published, because guessing one would put a name on a page that no register contains.

What the buildings register's size column measures

DLD's dictionary does not define actual_area in the buildings register. It defines the same column name in the land register, as "Area Size - by Dubai Municipality". On 100,024 plots that appear once in the land register and carry one building record, the two columns are the same number (within 1%) on 87,090 of them (87.1%) — on villa records 84,738 of 93,134, and on tower records 2,320 of 6,692. That is a selected set — plots that appear once and carry one record — not the whole file.

Villa records

91.0%

84,738 of 93,134 plots agree

Read as the plot's size

Tower records

34.7%

2,320 of 6,692 plots agree

No size printed, ever

Keyva therefore reads the buildings register's actual_area on a villa record as the plot's Municipality-measured size, and says nothing about it on a tower record. It is not built-up area: on the same villas the two columns differ (middle half 0.82–1.38 of each other, over 88,637 villas carrying both), and the register files both.

Measured on the Land Department's buildings file dated 5 Oct 2026 and its land register file dated 10 Oct 2026.

Dubai Land Department · building register The Land Department's building register. File dated 5 Oct 2026 · synced 5 Oct 2026.

Dubai Land Department · land register The Land Department's land register · plots counted as recorded, no owner. File dated 10 Oct 2026 · synced 11 Oct 2026.

The minimum behind each figure, and where it applies

Below these counts a figure is held back rather than shown. They are read from the code that applies them, so this table cannot drift from what the site actually does. They are grouped by what they cover: open the group for the figure you came from.

On an area, project or building page a figure under its minimum is not held back: it is shown with a red (i) that says how many records it rests on, and a single record is called a single record, never a typical one. A rent by bedroom is shown this way from three contracts: a rent that rests on one or two contracts is not shown, because a typical rent worked out from two contracts is just those two. A change over time, a percentage between two prices, a comparison between two figures and a list ranked by price still wait for the minimum, and so do the sentences written for search engines and assistants.

On /what-can-i-afford, where the sales of one home size in an area come from buildings whose typical sizes are more than 2 times apart, the area is shown building by building instead of as one typical figure: each building with at least the minimum below gets its own sales, typical size and typical price, and the sales in buildings under it are counted, not priced.

Pages, lists and search8

An area gets a page in searchArea pages and the sitemap10recorded residential sales, all years
An area in the area pickers, among an area's areas at a similar price, or in the statistics page's table of the busiest areasArea pages, /compare, /dubai/projects and the statistics page10recorded residential sales, all years
A project gets a page in searchProject pages and the sitemap5recorded sales, all years
A developer with one project gets a page in searchDeveloper pages and the sitemap5recorded sales, all years
A brokerage office gets a page in search/dubai/brokerages3brokers the Land Department's brokers export lists under that office number, in the export the page dates
A building gets a page, or a place in any list or search of buildingsBuilding, area and project pages, the home page, /search and Ask Keyva20recorded home sales, all years
A rental district gets a pageArea pages and the sitemap200rent contracts, last 12 months
An area with fewer than 50 recorded home sales is listed as a rental district, on its rent contracts, and left out of the count of areas with home salesArea pages, the home page, /dubai, /about and Ask Keyva200rent contracts, last 12 months

Prices13

An area's photo tile on the home page and the typical price shown on it, or an area's place in the market snapshot on /dubai (its own typical price is on the month row below)The home page and /dubai100recorded home sales in the area, ready and off-plan, in the 24 months to the newest registered home sale
A project listed under a property type in the project search/dubai/projects5recorded sales of that type in the project, all years
A price for the size you enter, and the bedroom counts offered for itProject pages8sales in the project within 10%, 20% or 35% of that size (of the bedroom count chosen, then of any), else of every size of that count, else of every home in the project; over the 12 months to the project's newest sale, else all years. A bedroom count is offered, with its typical size, on that many sales of it, all years
What buyers paid off-plan in a project not yet finished, by bedroom countProject pages8off-plan sales of that bedroom count and home type (apartments apart from villas and townhouses) in the project, over the 12 months to the project's newest off-plan sale, else all years
An area's typical price now, from its sales up to the newest recorded home saleArea pages, the home page, /dubai and Ask Keyva5recorded home sales in the 30 days to the newest recorded home sale, ready and off-plan together. With fewer, the area's newest month with that many sales is used (the row below)
A month's typical price, read as the current priceArea, project and developer pages, /dubai/projects, /compare, /nearby, /simulator, the home page, /dubai and Ask Keyva; signed in, /portfolio and /recommendations5sales in that month
A price change, twelve months apart where the months allowArea pages, the home page and /dubai5ready-home sales in each of the two months compared
A project's yearly resale growthProject pages5resales of homes in each of the two months compared, which are 3 or more years apart
A nearby area's typical price for completed homes/nearby5resales of completed homes in the 24 months to the newest registered home sale
…and its typical rent/nearby5registered new lets of homes starting in the 24 months to the day of the lookup
A bedroom rowArea pages and Ask Keyva15sales of that bedroom count, all years
A bedroom rowProject pages5sales of that bedroom count, all years
A bedroom row's recent priceArea and project pages, and Ask Keyva10sales, last 12 months

Growth, pace and the shortlist5

A month counted in an area's growth range/simulator5completed-home sales of that type in that month, all years
…and the growth range itself/simulator12year-on-year comparisons between two such months, all years
An area's observed price paceArea pages5months with a typical ready-home price, and months between the first and the last
…and the sales behind itArea pages60ready-home sales across those months, all years
A shortlisted area without the warning about too few sales/recommendations (signed in)8ready-home sales of that type in the area over the last 12 months, for an area whose monthly prices cover at least a year

Ready and off-plan typical prices11

A ready or off-plan typical priceArea pages20sales on that side, all years
A ready or off-plan typical priceThe statistics page's area table30sales on that side, in the twelve months the page names
The off-plan against ready gap, city-wide and in each area countedThis page30sales on each side, between the dates the sentence names
…and the spread of that gap across areasThis page3areas meeting the minimum above on both sides
A ready or off-plan typical price/compare and Ask Keyva60sales on that side in three complete months
A ready or off-plan typical priceThe market report60sales on that side in three complete months
The three-year change in ready homes' typical price/compare, /rent-vs-buy, /cash-vs-mortgage, /roi-calculator and Ask Keyva60ready sales in each period compared: three complete months, and the same months three years earlier
A project's resale or off-plan typical price/compare20sales on that side in twelve complete months
A quarter's ready or off-plan typical priceArea pages, /compare, the price history page and Ask Keyva60sales on that side in that calendar quarter
A city-wide typical price for one year or one month, ready and off-plan apartThe price history page and the statistics page30sales on that side in that year (from 2007, by home type) or that month (from 2011)
A price-band shareThe statistics page100sales on each side, in the twelve months the page names

Yield before costs7

A yield before costs for one areaArea pages, /compare and Ask Keyva10ready sales, last 12 months (on /compare, the twelve complete months it names)
…and its rent sideArea pages, /compare and Ask Keyva20recorded new lets, the same 12 months
A yield before costs for one area and home type, on each area of a shortlist scored for you/simulator, and /recommendations (signed in)500ready sales of that home type, in the twelve months the page names
…and its rent side, for that home type/simulator, and /recommendations (signed in)1,000recorded new lets of that home type, the same twelve months
A yield before costs for one bedroom count, on its price sideArea and project pages, and Ask Keyva10ready sales of that bedroom count, last 12 months
A yield before costs in a ranking of areas by yieldThe statistics page, the home page and the investor pages500ready sales, in the twelve months the page names
…and its rent sideThe statistics page, the home page and the investor pages1,000recorded new lets, the same twelve months

Rents in an area, project or building5

An area's typical rentArea pages and Ask Keyva20recorded rent contracts, last 12 months, or in that month for a point on the trend
The rent across a project's communityProject pages30recorded rent contracts in the community that started in the last 12 months
A bedroom row's rent, which is also the rent side of its yield before costsArea, project and building pages, and Ask Keyva10recorded new lets of that bedroom count in the area, or in the project on project and building pages, the last twelve complete months
…or, where that has too few contracts, the rent of homes about that sizeArea and project pages, and Ask Keyva20recorded new lets of about that size, last 12 months
A bedroom row's rent under the bedroom rent minimum above, shown with a red (i) giving the number of contracts, and the yield built on it with a red (i) giving the sales and the contractsArea pages3recorded new lets of that bedroom count in the area, the last twelve complete months, where there are fewer than 10

The rent tools, and rents across areas14

A project in the list of where a budget rents/rent and /what-can-i-afford10recorded new lets of that bedroom count and home type in the project, the last twelve complete months
…and the middle half of its rents/rent, /what-can-i-afford and Ask Keyva20the same new lets, the last twelve complete months
Where a rent sits among recorded rent contracts of its size/rent20new lets or renewals of that size in the area, over the shortest of the last 3, 6 or 12 complete months that has enough, or in that month for a point on the chart
…and the chart of its months/rent3months with enough contracts, of the last twelve complete
New lets against renewals, and the areas a rent budget reaches/rent20recorded contracts of each kind, the last twelve complete months
An area's typical new-let rent, and its typical renewal rent beside it/rent20recorded new lets, or renewals, of the homes shown in the area, last 12 months
A year-on-year change in an area's new-let rent/rent and the statistics page20recorded new lets in each of the two months compared: the area's newest complete month with enough, and the same month a year earlier
…and the months behind it/rent and the statistics page13months holding that many new lets, every month held but the one still being recorded
Dubai's typical rent by month, new lets and renewals shown apart/rent3months of each held for the city, all but the newest and any still being recorded
The market rent for a home like yours, in the rent-increase check/rent-increase4recorded new lets of that home type and about that size in the area, with start dates from 1 January 2025 to today; set in the site's settings, where the code's own minimum is 8
The market rent for a home like yours, asked of Ask KeyvaAsk Keyva8the same new lets, with start dates from 1 January 2025 to today
An area in the rent-increase check's list of areas/rent-increase50recorded rent contracts in the area, of every kind, all years
What a sitting tenant pays against a newcomer, area by area/cost-of-moving and Ask Keyva50new lets and renewals of homes, counted apart, started in the trailing twelve months (from 1 January 2025 where the rent figures are not built); set in the site's settings, where the code's own minimum is 200
The rent range a renter's budget reaches/recommendations (signed in)20recorded new lets of that bedroom count in the area, the last twelve complete months

Calculators and budgets7

A home size a rent budget reaches, and its typical rent/what-can-i-afford, /simulator and Ask Keyva20recorded new lets of that size in the area, the last twelve complete months
A home's recorded rent in the calculators/rent-vs-buy, /cash-vs-mortgage, /roi-calculator, /hotel-vs-renting and /simulator20recorded new lets of that bedroom count in the area, the last twelve complete months
A home size the calculators offer, and its typical price where they show one/rent-vs-buy, /cash-vs-mortgage, /roi-calculator, /hotel-vs-renting and /simulator10completed-home sales of that size in the area, the last twelve complete months
…and its floor area, where none sold in those months, from its new lets/rent-vs-buy, /cash-vs-mortgage, /roi-calculator and /simulator20recorded new lets of that bedroom count in the area, the last twelve complete months
A home size a budget reaches, and its typical price/what-can-i-afford, /simulator, the investor pages and Ask Keyva10completed-home sales of that size in the area, the last twelve complete months
…and each building's own line, where the area's buildings differ in typical size by more than the ratio stated above/what-can-i-afford10completed-home sales of that size in the building, the last twelve complete months
The worst three years on record for ready homes' price, and each year's change/rent-vs-buy, /cash-vs-mortgage and /roi-calculator100ready-home sales in the area in each calendar year compared, all years from 2011

Listings and asking prices5

The recorded rent beside an agency's advertised rentProject and building pages10recorded new lets of that bedroom count in the project, the last twelve complete months
What homes of a listing's size sold for, in the listing check/check and Ask Keyva8completed-home sales within 25% of that size in the project, else the area, in the 24 months to the newest registered home sale
The recorded sales beside an agency's advertised priceProject and building pages8sales of that size and bedroom count in the project or building, in the 24 months to the newest registered home sale
What homes sold for, beside a developer's asking price, from the project's own salesProject pages and /asking-vs-actual5sales of the advertised home in the project, else, where its area has too few as well, of every home in it; off-plan only until the project completes, in the 24 months to the newest registered home sale
…or its area's, where the project has too fewProject pages and /asking-vs-actual8the same sales in the project's area, tried after the project's at each step, in the 24 months to the newest registered home sale

Building pages5

A listed unit's like-for-like sales. With fewer, the page still shows it, with a red (i) that gives the countBuilding pages5sales in that building with the same bedroom count and a size within 10%, last 24 months
A building's typical price over the last year, and its percentage against its area's typical ready price. With fewer, a building page shows each price with a red (i) that gives the count, and no percentage; Ask Keyva and the one-sentence summary leave the price outBuilding pages and Ask Keyva8sales in the building, or ready sales in its area, last 12 months
A bedroom row on a building page. With fewer, the row is still shown, with a red (i) that gives the countBuilding pages8recorded home sales of that bedroom count in the building, all years
A year on a building's price trend. With fewer, the year is still shown, with a red (i) that gives the countBuilding pages5recorded home sales in the building in that calendar year, all years
…and the trend itself, which is not shown with fewer years than this, whatever each year's countBuilding pages3calendar years with at least one sale, all years; a year with fewer than five sales is marked with a red (i)

Mortgages and valuations7

Mortgages registered per 100 completed-home sales across DubaiThe home page1,000completed-home sales in the city, in each of its two periods: the 12 months to the newest completed-home sale or mortgage registration, and all years
Mortgages registered per 100 completed-home sales in one areaArea pages100completed-home sales in the area, all years
An area in the table of mortgages per 100 sales, area by area, and the chosen area's whole-record figure/cash-vs-mortgage10completed-home sales in the area, all years; set in the site's settings, where the code's own minimum is 100
…and the chosen area's figure over the last twelve months/cash-vs-mortgage10completed-home sales in the area, the last twelve complete months; set in the site's settings, where the code's own minimum is 100
The amount recorded on mortgages of a home's size/cash-vs-mortgage20mortgage registrations on completed homes of that size in the area, the last twelve complete months
An area's mortgage registrations by typeArea pages20mortgage registrations in the area, last 12 months
A count of valuations recordedArea pages20valuations of one property sub-type in the Land Department's valuations file, its last 12 months

Service charges2

An area's middle service chargeArea and project pages, /rent-vs-buy, /cash-vs-mortgage, /roi-calculator, /simulator and Ask Keyva3residential service-charge budgets recorded for the area's projects, every budget year held
…and the reserve fund counted together beside itArea and project pages and Ask Keyva3those budgets with a reserve-fund line, every budget year held

Villas and plots3

A typical villa priceThe statistics page50villa and townhouse sales on that side, in the twelve months the page names
A villa's plot size read from the buildings registerArea, project and building pages, and this page1,000villa records matched one-to-one to a land register plot, measured nightly
A villa plot band, beside its built-up band, per bedroom countArea and project pages30villas standing alone on their plot with both sizes recorded, in that area, community or project and bedroom count

Developers and agents5

An agent's response rateAgent pages5introductions sent to that agent through this site that were answered or whose 24 hours ran out, all dates
A developer's premium/dubai/developers and this page30sales in one area with one completion status, across the months compared
…against the same area, in each month compared/dubai/developers and this page15the area's sales that month, the developer's own taken out
…and a developer total of/dubai/developers and this page150matched sales, across the months compared
The developer figuresThis page3developers meeting the minimums above

Ajman's published totals2

An average of Ajman's sale transactions: the total divided by the count, labelled as that/ajman5sale transactions of one unit type and one rooms count, over the latest 4 quarters in the file
A count and a total in a row of a table; fewer is shown as one sale, at its price, with no average/ajman2sale transactions in that row: one quarter or one year of the whole file, or, over the latest 4 quarters in the file, one unit type and rooms count, one sector or one district

Two rules sit behind the whole table. A typical price is not an index: it is the middle of what sold that month, and it moves when the mix of what sold moves. And ready and off-plan homes are never counted together in one figure — they are two markets, and across residential sales dated 13 Oct 2025 to 9 Oct 2026, off-plan traded about 26% above completed homes city-wide.

Why we would rather show nothing

A blank where a number should be looks like a worse product. It is a better one. Every figure Keyva declines to show is a figure a competitor is prepared to guess at, and a buyer is entitled to assume both were measured the same way. When something here is missing, the page says why — and usually says what would have to be true for it to appear.