Methodology

How the figures are made.

Every figure on Skyline Index is computed from registered records by the rules below. Where too few records stand behind a figure, the page shows “—” rather than a guess.

See the data sources

Registered sales

Sales are Dubai Land Department registrations of residential property. Mortgages and gifts are not sales and are left out.
A sale under AED 100,000, or under AED 100 per sq ft, is left out: DLD records the sale of a fractional share as a sale of the whole unit.
A sale is off-plan or ready as DLD’s registration type records it.
Sizes are the area DLD records, converted from square metres to square feet. A sale without a size is left out of prices per sq ft.
Homes are apartments, duplexes, penthouses, villas, townhouses and hotel apartments. Bedroom tables, trends and price spreads count homes only; an area’s sales totals and headline medians count every residential sale, plots and whole buildings included. One exception: where home sales are under 50% of a market’s sales in the 12 months, ready or off-plan (DLD registers some villas with their plot, as land), that market’s median price per sq ft counts homes only, and the page says so; its number of sales, their value and its median price still count every sale.
DLD records some villa sales, mostly in older villa communities, with the size of the plot rather than the villa, so a villa’s AED per sq ft there can be per sq ft of plot. No size threshold is applied to tell these sales apart.
A sale counts on the date DLD registered it.

Rents

Rents are new DLD rent contracts that started in the last 12 months. Renewals, and contracts that cover more than one unit with a single amount, are left out.
A renewal’s rent follows the earlier contract and the rent increase rules, so it says less about today’s market.
A rent is the median annual amount for a home type and number of bedrooms.
The area report adds the middle half of rents (25th to 75th percentile), rent per sq ft, each home type’s change on the 12 months before, a same-mix rent change for the area and for Dubai, and 24 months of rent per sq ft.

Medians and minimum counts

Prices and rents are medians: half the records are higher, half lower, so one unusual sale moves them little. With an even number of sales or contracts, a median is the lower of the two middle ones, not their average. Across a few thousand records or more, the database estimates the median to within a fraction of a percent, so it can fall between two registered values.
A median needs at least 5 sales or contracts behind it; with fewer, the page shows “—”, never zero. An asking-price gap compares only segments with at least 10 asks and 10 sales.
A price spread needs at least 10 sales.
A change in the number of sales is shown only when the 12 months before had at least 20 sales.

Periods and dates

Figures run to the newest registered sale in the data, the data date: no later sale or rent enters them, and each page names that date once.
“12 months” is the year to that date. Changes compare it with the 12 months before.
Trend charts show the last 36 complete calendar months, month by month. A month with fewer than 5 sales stays blank.
The area report’s history runs by calendar year from 2020.
The projects list ranks projects by their registered sales in the last 24 months.

Ready price change

The 1-year change compares the median ready price per sq ft of the last 12 months with the 12 months before; the 3-year change compares it with the 12 months that ended three years before the data date.
It is worked out home type by home type (class and bedrooms) and weighted by each type’s ready sales now, so a shift from studios to villas does not read as a rise in prices.
A home type counts only with at least 5 ready sales in both periods, and the change is shown only when those types hold at least 60% of the ready sales now. Dubai’s change, shown beside an area’s, is worked out the same way.
The area report adds the 5-year change, against the 12 months that ended five years before the data date. As long as that base falls in the 2020–21 low in Dubai prices, a 5-year change reads high partly because of where it starts.
The yearly growth rate (CAGR) is the steady rate a year that gives the same total change: (1 + change) to the power of 1 ÷ years, minus 1.

Where the change in sales came from

An area’s change in sales is split by DLD registration type, off-plan and ready: each market’s registered sales in the last 12 months against the 12 months before, with the change in percent only where the 12 months before had at least 20.
The 3 projects whose number of sales changed most, either way, are named with their two counts. A project counts by its DLD project number; a sale without one is left out. No price is given for them.
Dubai’s split, beside it, is worked out the same way.

Gross yield

Gross yield is the median yearly rent of new rent contracts divided by the median ready sale price, for the same home type and number of bedrooms, both over the last 12 months. It is before service charges, fees and empty months.
A yield is shown only where the home type has at least 10 ready sales and 5 new rent contracts. With a rent but fewer ready sales, the table says “rent only”: the price to divide by would rest on too few sales.
Where a page shows one yield, it is that of the home type with the most new rent contracts.

Net yield

Net yield is the median yearly rent of new contracts, less the service charge, divided by the median ready sale price, for the same home type and number of bedrooms. The service charge is the area’s median rate per sq ft a year times the median size of that type’s ready sales.
The area’s rate is the median of its residential owners’ association budgets, each development counted once at the median of its own budgets. It takes the newest budget year with at least 10 developments, no older than the year before the data date; next year’s budgets count only once they cover at least 50% of the developments of the year before. When the middle half of the developments spans more than 2× (75th percentile over 25th), no rate is shown. It counts the budgets of the area’s buildings and communities and of its own master community; budgets for plots, shared areas, hotel rooms and hotel apartments, serviced or branded residences, and staff or driver rooms are left out.
Apartments and villas pay very different charges, so the rate describes one class: apartment buildings, or villa and townhouse communities, whichever holds at least 75% of the developments; the other class’s budgets are left out. Only home types of that class get a net yield from it: a flat is never charged a villa median, nor a villa a flat’s. Where neither class holds that share, the area shows the rate but no net yield. In a small area one development can still weigh on it.
Net yield is still before vacancy, maintenance, agency and DLD fees, and mortgage costs. An owners’ association budget is not any one owner’s bill: it is shared out by unit size and can change every year.
The area page shows the net yield of its most rented home type with a gross yield, when that type is of the class the area’s rate describes. The area report has every home type’s, and each project’s, with the project’s own budget where it publishes one.

Off-plan and ready prices

Off-plan and ready medians cover different stock: off-plan sales are mostly new projects sold before completion, ready sales mostly older buildings. A median of all sales moves when the mix moves, even if no home’s price changed.
So the pages compare like with like: the price change by home type and on ready sales only, the yield on the ready price, and the off-plan premium within one home type. A median of all sales is labelled as such where it appears.

Price spread

The area report’s price spread shows the 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th percentiles of price and of AED per sq ft, by home type, ready and off-plan, over the last 12 months.
An area page shows one middle half: the 25th to 75th percentile of AED per sq ft and of price of its most sold home type and market in the last 12 months, with at least 10 sales. It is the same row as in the area report’s spread.
The off-plan premium compares the off-plan median per sq ft with the ready median of the same home type. An area page names it for its busiest home type with at least 10 sales in each market; the area report has every type. The same home type is not the same building: off-plan stock is often newer.

Comparables and where a price sits

The area report’s comparables are registered sales of the last 6 months, grouped by project, home type and market. A group needs at least 5 sales; no single sale is listed.
A group’s middle half, and the area’s 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th percentiles per home type and market, need at least 10 sales.
“Where a price sits” places a price among those percentiles in the reader’s browser.
These are registered sales, not a valuation of any home.

Off-plan to ready, around completion

For each finished project in DLD’s project register completed from 2021, the median ready AED per sq ft of its home sales in the 12 months after its DLD completion date is set against the median off-plan AED per sq ft in the 12 months before.
A project counts only once the data covers the full 12 months after its completion date. DLD records a completion date, not the day keys were handed over, and the register keeps only its current date.
A project counts with at least 10 sales with a size on each side. An area’s figure is the median over its counted projects and needs at least 5 of them.
Dubai’s market move over the same two windows is read from the Dubai Statistics Center residential price index (flats, villas or the general index, by the project’s class), using only quarters complete by the data date. The area page shows its median beside the step as context; the area report also gives each project’s step and the median step with that move taken out.
It is history, not a forecast: where Dubai’s price index rose over the windows, part of the step is the market’s move, and the area page says so. Only projects with enough sales on both sides count.
DLD records do not separate a developer’s own sales from resales, and the two windows cover different homes and unit mixes. The area page shows the area’s median; each counted project’s step is in the area report.

Supply and pipeline pressure

Supply counts the apartments and villas of each project in DLD’s project register, in three groups: finished, under construction, and planned or on hold (not started, pending, frozen or conditionally activating).
The pipeline ratio is the homes under construction or planned for each finished home. An area’s label compares it with Dubai’s: low below 0.5× Dubai’s ratio, high above 1.5×, medium in between. Below 500 finished homes neither the ratio nor a label is shown: a few projects would swing it.
A record not finished more than 5 years after its DLD end date is treated as stale: the register never closed it, so it is left out of the groups, the ratio and the counts below.
Homes due in the next 24 months are those under construction or planned whose DLD end date falls within that time.
A project “past its DLD end date” is one the register does not list as finished although its end date has passed. DLD revises end dates as projects move on, so this is a neutral fact from the register, not a verdict on delivery.

Ready turnover

Turnover is the ready home sales of the last 12 months in an area’s finished DLD register projects, over those projects’ homes (apartments and villas). DLD data only: no portal listings.
Ready sales are DLD’s “existing” sales: resales and a developer’s own sales of finished homes alike. Homes in buildings older than the register, and their sales, are not counted.
DLD registers the sales of some villa projects as sales of land: the villa sold with its plot. A finished project with villas is left out, its homes and its sales alike, when it has at least 5 ready sales since 2021 and more than 50% of them were registered as land, since those sales cannot be told from sales of plots.
An area gets a figure with at least 500 finished homes and 5 counted sales, and only when the counted sales are at least 50% of its ready home sales, the land sales of the villa projects left out above among them.
The area report has each finished project with at least 50 homes and 5 ready sales, and each year since 2021 against the homes finished by its end; a year is left out when 10% or more of its ready sales were in projects the register lists as finished later.

Price bands and sales of AED 2M or more

The share of sales of AED 2M or more counts the home sales of the last 12 months at that price or above, against all of them, beside Dubai’s share worked out the same way. It needs at least 5 home sales, making at least 50% of all the area’s sales in the 12 months: where DLD registers most sales as plots or whole buildings (some villas are sold with their plot, as land), home sales alone do not describe the area.
AED 2M is the minimum total property value for the UAE’s 10-year Golden Residence (golden visa) for real-estate investors, according to ICP and GDRFA Dubai (rules checked on 5 November 2026). A registered price is all the data shows: the authorities decide each application on their own conditions.
The area report’s price bands are under AED 1M, AED 1M to AED 2M, AED 2M to AED 3M, and AED 3M or more, for the area, each home type and Dubai; a band with fewer than 5 sales is not shown. The area’s shares by band follow the same rule as the share of AED 2M or more: where home sales are under 50% of all the area’s sales in the 12 months, only their counts are shown; each home type’s own bands still are.

Projects and service charges

Project status, progress, planned dates and unit counts come from DLD’s project register.
For a project under construction, the project page gives two neutral numbers: DLD’s progress as the register reads on the day it was exported or synced, and the share of the time between its DLD start and end dates that has passed at the data date. Past the end date that share is over 100%. Neither is a verdict on delivery.
Where the DLD register counts more buildings than have a page here, the project page gives both counts.
A project’s launch price is the median AED per sq ft of its off-plan home sales in the first 90 days after the first of them was registered, set beside the median of its home sales in the last 12 months, ready and off-plan, leaving out any from those days, so a project launched within the year is set against its later sales only; plots and whole buildings count on neither side. It is not shown for a project first sold before 1 March 2020, which may have launched before the data starts.
Service charges are owners’ association budgets for residential units, in AED per sq ft a year, without parking, meter, storage, income and adjustment lines. The area report shows the area median for up to 6 budget years and each project’s own newest budget.

The low AED/sq ft marker

In the latest sales lists, a sale is marked when its AED per sq ft is under 50% of the 12-month median of the same home type, bedrooms and market in its project.
When the project has fewer than 5 such sales, its median for the home type and market is used, then the same home type, bedrooms and market in its DLD area. A sale without a project is compared within its building.
The marker only says the price per sq ft is far from similar sales; the sale stays in every figure as DLD registered it.

Asking prices

Asking prices on a property portal (listings seen in the last 30 days) are compared with registered sales of the last 12 months in the same market, home type and bedrooms, only where both sides have at least 10.
Before the comparison, earlier registered prices are brought to today’s level with the Dubai Statistics Center price index.
A page shows the median gap across those groups, only where they hold at least 50% of the place’s registered sales. No listing, asking price or contact is ever shown on its own.
The area report sets a property portal’s median ask against the median registered sale per segment (market, home type and bedrooms) with at least 10 of each, beside the registered middle half.

Places

Areas are Dubai communities matched to DLD’s areas and master communities. An area has its own page once it has at least 20 registered sales since 2020.
An area’s figures cover the DLD areas and master communities matched to it, which its page lists under “In DLD records” where they differ from the area’s own name: a sale or rent counts when DLD records it under one of those names. A community that DLD files under a neighbouring area’s name counts there.
Projects are DLD-registered projects; their buildings are the ones DLD names within them.

Why our figures differ from other sources

We count residential sales: apartments, villas, townhouses, hotel apartments, residential plots and whole residential buildings. Headline “Dubai sales” figures in the press and on dashboards such as DXBinteract count every property type, commercial units and land included, so our totals run about a tenth below them.
DLD’s “transactions” totals also count mortgages and gifts. Our sales do not.
When we checked January 2025 to October 2026, the DLD open data we use was within 2.6% of DXBinteract’s sales counts in every month, and of DLD’s own published totals.
Property portals show asking prices: what sellers hope to get, before any negotiation. Our prices are what DLD registered as paid. Where a page sets the two side by side, it says how far apart they are.
Our figures run to one data date, the newest registered sale, and a sale counts on the day DLD registered it. Reports for a calendar month or quarter, or published before a month’s last registrations, cover other days.
We give medians of at least 5 records. Averages, which some reports use, are pulled up by a few very large sales.

What the figures are not

The figures describe the market. They are not investment advice and not a valuation of any property.
No page shows a person, a contact, a party to a sale or a single listing.
To report an error in a figure, write to us from the contact page. The figures follow Dubai Land Department’s records as published: an error in a DLD register stays until DLD corrects it.