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Methodology
Every figure on this site is built from government registrations (transacted prices), not from portal asking prices. This page explains what the indicators in the insights, area pages and project pages measure, and where they fall short.
Updated: 2026-10-19
1. Data sources · 2. Measuring prices: medians and the mix-adjusted index · 3. Telling developer sales from resales · 3-1. Where the proxy is used · 4. Stress score (0–100) · 5. Market phases · 6. Distressed sales · 6-1. What is excluded · 7. Yields, off-plan premium and volumes · 8. Limits
1. Data sources
- Dubai sales: Dubai Land Department (DLD) open data; before 2026 via the CC BY 4.0 republication by Dubai Real Estate Data, from 2026 fetched from DLD daily.
- Dubai rents: Ejari (DLD tenancy registrations), contract by contract.
- Dubai supply: the DLD project registry (planned completion, construction progress, units).
- Abu Dhabi sales: transaction-level data from the Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre (ADREC) public dashboard, since 2019. It marks developer (primary) sales, resales (secondary) and court-mandated sales.
- Abu Dhabi rents: ADREC's published average rents (contract-level rents are not public).
- Macro: EIBOR, US rates and inflation, oil and the dollar (FRED, New York Fed, US Treasury and others).
- Residential (apartment and villa) sales only; land, whole buildings and commercial property are excluded. The analysis updates daily at 04:00 UTC. No individual transactions are published, only aggregates.
2. Measuring prices: medians and the mix-adjusted index
An area's median price per square metre moves with what sold. A month with many expensive launches lifts the median even if no existing home got dearer. Abu Dhabi's overall median was up 32% year on year in March 2026; comparing like with like, prices were up 11–14%.
Price changes therefore come from a mix-adjusted price index. Sales are grouped into comparable homes (same project, property type, bedroom count and sale type); the index removes each group's price level and keeps only the change from month to month. It does not move when a new project launches or the mix of sales shifts, only when the same kind of home trades at a different price.
The 3-month change compares the last three months with the three before; the year-on-year change compares them with the same three months a year earlier. Where fewer than half of an area's sales can enter the index, the median is used instead and labelled as such.
3. Telling developer sales from resales
Developer prices include payment plans and incentives. Around handover, such contracts can be registered in a batch, at a level unlike the resale market. Resale prices have to be read apart from them.
Abu Dhabi's registry marks developer sales and resales. Dubai's off-plan registrations do not: developer sales and investors' resales are mixed.
As a proxy we use whether the price is a multiple of AED 5,000. People agree on round prices such as AED 1,250,000; developer price lists multiply size by a rate and leave odd amounts.
| Segment | Share of prices that are a multiple of AED 5,000 |
|---|---|
| Abu Dhabi resales (secondary) | 67% |
| Abu Dhabi developer sales (primary) | 15% |
| Dubai ready | 75% |
| Dubai off-plan | 22% |
3-1. Where the proxy is used
- Project pages, "resale level (last 6 months)" and the resale line on the chart: round-priced sales only.
- Abu Dhabi project year-on-year changes: resales compared with resales (else developer sales with developer sales), round prices only; no figure when the developer-sale share differs a lot between the two periods (so handover does not read as a price move).
- Abu Dhabi price index: odd-priced resales, which may be developer contracts registered on handover, are left out; developer sales and resales are separate groups.
- Distress: whether a sale is below the market is judged only on sales that look like market resales (round-priced resales in Abu Dhabi, round-priced sales in Dubai).
- It is a proxy: some developer sales are round and some resales are not. It does not settle any single sale's type.
4. Stress score (0–100)
How much pressure an area's market is under, from 0 to 100. 50 is normal; higher means falling prices and forced sales are more likely. Each component is scaled to 0–1 and weighted; the weight of a component without data goes to the rest.
| Component | What it measures | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Price momentum | 3-month and year-on-year declines | 26% |
| Volume collapse | Sales year on year and against the past 12 months | 18% |
| Distress share | Share of the last three months' sales flagged as distressed | 14% |
| Off-plan dependency | Off-plan share of sales (reliance on speculative demand) | 12% |
| Supply pressure | Unfinished units as years of sales (Dubai only) | 8% |
| Rates and macro | EIBOR level and direction, US long rates, inflation, the dollar, oil | 8% |
| Mortgage stress | Mortgage share of sales (weighs more the tighter rates are) | 6% |
| Listing gap | Asking prices below transacted prices (no data yet; not used) | 8% |
- Areas with few sales in the last three months are pulled toward 50, since a handful of sales can swing the score (no adjustment at 150 sales).
5. Market phases
Each area is put in one of six phases from the stress score and price and volume moves. Once in a phase, slightly looser thresholds keep it there, so areas do not flip week to week.
| Phase | Main conditions |
|---|---|
| Overheated | Prices up more than 15% year on year, volumes rising, low stress |
| Stable | None of the others |
| Cooling | Stress 42 or more, or a 3-month fall over 1% with year-on-year growth under 5% |
| Correction | 3-month fall over 3% with stress 55+, over 5% with stress 45+, or year on year −3% or worse and still falling |
| Capitulation | Stress 70+, distress share 10%+ with a 3-month fall over 3% and stress 50+, or year on year −8% or worse with volumes −35% or worse and no rebound (the last two need 30+ sales in three months) |
| Recovery | A 3-month rise over 1% after correction or capitulation |
- Capitulation marks a candidate bottom zone, not a guaranteed bottom. On Dubai's past registrations it fired at the 2011 and 2020 troughs, but in long slides it can appear one to two years early.
- The thresholds were calibrated on Abu Dhabi 2020–2026 and Dubai 2008–2019.
6. Distressed sales
A residential sale in the last three months is counted as distressed if any of these apply.
- Well below the market: 15% or more below the median price per m² of the same project (else area), property type and bedrooms over the past six months, and outside the normal spread; the market's own trend is adjusted for.
- Off-plan resale below launch: an off-plan unit resold 10% or more below the project's launch price for the same bedroom type; after the 4% registration fee and agency fees the first buyer has lost money.
- Resale below the developer price (Abu Dhabi): 20% or more below the project's recent developer price (10% if also below the market).
- Court-mandated sale (Abu Dhabi): registered as ordered by a court.
- Quick flip at a loss: a flagged sale where a unit in the same building with the same layout and size sold for more within 12 months (a note only, since unit numbers are not published).
6-1. What is excluded
- Sales more than 60% below comparables: partial-share transfers, related-party deals and the like, not market prices.
- Bulk deals: 3 or more units of one project registered on the same day at the same rate per m² across two or more unit sizes (a block sale to a fund or reseller).
- Developer repricing: in Dubai, when most of a month's sales of a project and layout are 10% or more under the launch price, the developer is taken to have cut its price and the below-launch rule is paused for that project.
- Cheap projects: a sale in line with its own project's price level is not counted, even if the project is cheap for the area.
7. Yields, off-plan premium and volumes
- Gross yield: annual rent per m² over sale price per m² in the same area (the rankings' yields by size compare the same size band); before service charges, vacancy and costs. Abu Dhabi uses ADREC's published average rents and prices.
- Off-plan premium: how much more off-plan sells for per m² than completed homes in the same area and bedroom type (last 12 months). It includes newer buildings and payment-plan terms, so it is not the same flat before and after completion.
- Volumes: registered sales. Registrations arrive late in the month, so before the 25th the previous month is treated as the latest.
8. Limits
- Registered prices are transacted prices, not asking prices; in popular buildings asking prices are often higher.
- Unit numbers are not published, so a resale of the same unit cannot be followed for certain.
- Floor, view and finish are not in the data and remain as price differences within a project and layout.
- Area and project names are unified with a mapping table, which can miss variants.
- Information only, not investment advice.
Related: Insights · Open data (CSV) · Buying guide · 20-year history
Sources: Dubai Land Department (DLD Open Data; Dubai sales before 2026 via the CC BY 4.0 republication by Dubai Real Estate Data, dubairealestatedata.com), Ejari rent contracts, Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre (ADREC), FRED, New York Fed, US Treasury. Residential (apartment and villa) sales only; cells with fewer than 5 sales are hidden. Information only, not investment advice. Methodology