Fourteen Dubai areas: transactions in our DLD slice, median apartment price and gross rental yield. Every figure matches the area page — open it and check. Where yield cannot be proven, it reads n/a, not an estimate.
DLD data as of 13 September 2026. Every figure in the table is exactly what the corresponding area page prints. Open the link and compare: if the numbers disagree, the error is ours and it should be shown.
Dubai market write-ups usually open with "yields of 8–10%". The problem is that such a claim cannot be checked: no source, no observation window, no sample. Below are 14 areas and three figures for each, taken from the Dubai Land Department registry, with a direct link to the page where the same figure is recomputed whenever the data updates.
The table: 14 areas on DLD data
| Area | Transactions in DLD slice | Median price | Gross yield |
|---|---|---|---|
| International City | 1,558 | AED 420,000 | 8.8% |
| Dubai South | 15,367 | AED 730,000 | 8.2% |
| Motor City | 4,947 | AED 985,000 | 7.6% |
| Arjan | 5,110 | AED 834,988 | 7.2% |
| JVC | 16,335 | AED 940,000 | 6.9% |
| Business Bay | 11,090 | AED 1,500,000 | 6.0% |
| Dubai Hills | 3,468 | AED 1,812,500 | 5.8% |
| Dubai Silicon Oasis | 2,200 | AED 1,052,500 | 5.0% |
| Dubai Creek Harbour | 5,148 | AED 2,450,000 | 4.5% |
| Palm Jumeirah | 2,034 | AED 4,400,000 | 4.4% |
| Dubai Marina | 1,579 | AED 2,075,000 | n/a |
| Discovery Gardens | 1,030 | AED 750,000 | n/a |
| Dubai Sports City | 4,321 | AED 655,000 | n/a |
| Downtown Dubai | 5,063 | n/a | n/a |
What each column means
Transactions in DLD slice — the number of apartment transactions in our slice of the registry, across all bedroom segments. It is a slice, not the whole Dubai registry: the larger it is, the more stable the median and the less a single unusual deal moves the picture.
Median price — a median, not an average. Averages break on penthouses and floor-by-floor bulk purchases: one AED 40M lot lifts an "average area price" until it no longer describes a single real apartment. The median is taken over the segment matched to the rental side, so it cannot be read as "the median of every apartment in the area".
Gross yield — median annual rent divided by median price, within one and the same window. Annual rent over a monthly price produces a meaningless ratio, so numerator and denominator share a single window.
Why four areas read "n/a"
Dubai Marina, Discovery Gardens, Dubai Sports City and Downtown Dubai are active markets with plenty of transactions. "N/a" here does not mean "no market". It means we lack the rental half of the ratio with sufficient coverage: sales exist in the registry, comparable tenancy contracts for the same segment and window do not.
There are two ways out of that situation. The first is to substitute a market estimate, a citywide average or last year's figure — the table then looks complete. The second is to write "n/a". We write "n/a": a number that cannot be verified is worse than a missing one, because people buy property on it. For the same reason Downtown Dubai has no median either — the segment did not clear the observation threshold.
What these numbers do show
Price and gross yield move in opposite directions. International City (AED 420,000) returns 8.8%, Palm Jumeirah (AED 4,400,000) returns 4.4% — exactly half the yield at ten times the price. This is not a defect of prime areas but a different kind of demand: in the expensive segment buyers pay for the asset and its liquidity rather than for rental cash flow.
Transaction volume and prestige are unrelated. JVC (16,335) and Dubai South (15,367) lead the slice by transaction count, while Palm Jumeirah (2,034) and Dubai Marina (1,579) record an order of magnitude fewer. For an investor this is a question of exit speed: in a thin segment a sale takes longer, and the "paper" price there is less reliable.
The middle tier sits at 5.8–7.2%. Dubai Hills, Arjan, Motor City, JVC and Business Bay hold a range where the yield is backed by an actual rental side and the entry price does not require a prime-segment budget.
What these numbers do not say
Gross yield is not net. Service charges (markedly higher in prime waterfront towers than in the middle tier), void periods between tenants, agency fees and the 4% DLD transfer fee all come out of it. In Dubai the gap between gross and net typically eats a quarter to a third of the figure in the table, and it is not uniform across areas.
So the table above is not an answer to "where should I invest" — it is the entry point to a calculation. Your own inputs (entry price, rent, costs) go into the DLD-based ROI calculator; buying versus renting the same home is worked through in a separate scenario.
How to check us
- Open any row of the table — the figure on the area page is recomputed from the registry rather than stored in prose.
- The full list of areas with the same metrics is on the areas page, and the market summary is in analytics.
- How DLD data is structured, and why a "transaction price" is not an "asking price", is covered in how to read DLD data.
The limits of this snapshot
These figures are a snapshot as of 13 September 2026, over one observation window and over our slice of the registry rather than the entire Dubai market. A median hides the spread inside an area: within the same JVC, a studio and a three-bedroom live in different price worlds. The yield here is gross, and it is comparable across areas only as a gross figure.
The snapshot will be reissued: the journal section must be updated at least every 45 days, otherwise the freshness sentinel files a refresh task automatically. The date in the header is not decoration — it is the shelf life of these numbers.
