How the data is sourced, calculated, and interpreted. Last updated: March 17, 2026.
All rental and sales transaction data is sourced from ReidIN, a licensed DLD (Dubai Land Department) data portal. ReidIN provides access to the full official DLD register of rental contracts and property sales transactions.
| Data type | Source | Coverage |
|---|---|---|
| Rental contracts | ReidIN — DLD rental register | Jan 1 – Mar 14, 2026 (~146,000 rows) |
| Ready sales | ReidIN — DLD sales register | Jan 1 – Mar 15, 2026 (~12,000 rows) |
Only residential property transactions are included. Off-plan sales are excluded from conflict-period analysis (see Section 5).
The pre-conflict baseline is January 6 – February 27, 2026 (53 days).
The first week of January is anomalously low due to the New Year holiday lag. Including this period would artificially depress the pre-conflict average and overstate the conflict impact.
January 6 was selected as the first full trading week. The baseline ends February 27 (the day before the conflict started on February 28).
Rental contract volumes are expressed as daily averages within each window:
Using daily averages (rather than raw totals) is essential because the baseline period (53 days) and the growing post-conflict window have different lengths.
DLD registers ready sales in weekday batches. Weekend days show near-zero volumes, weekdays spike.
| Day of week | Typical volume |
|---|---|
| Saturday / Sunday | 1–22 transactions |
| Monday–Friday | 83–183 transactions |
The correct approach is weekly averages on complete weeks only:
Off-plan transactions are excluded from all conflict-period analysis on this dashboard.
Off-plan transactions have a DLD registration lag of 30–90 days from the point of agreement. Any off-plan data visible in the conflict window was agreed weeks or months before the conflict started.
Both rental prices and sales prices per sqft show stable or slightly rising medians in the post-conflict period. This is counterintuitive given the volume collapse. The explanation is the selection effect.
When demand contracts, the first movers to pause are marginal, budget-sensitive participants. The transactions that continue to complete are from more committed, above-market participants.
When the bottom of the distribution drops out, the median rises mechanically — not because prices went up, but because the cheapest transactions stopped happening.
The lag between a volume shock and a price correction is typically 3–6 months in the Dubai rental market and 4–8 weeks for seller repricing in the sales market.
The DLD register reflects completed registrations, not agreements. A buyer who decides to purchase today will not appear in the DLD data for several weeks:
| Transaction type | Typical DLD registration lag | First post-conflict decisions visible |
|---|---|---|
| Cash sale | ~30–45 days | Late March 2026 |
| Single-side mortgage | ~45–60 days | Mid-April 2026 |
| Double-side mortgage | ~60–75 days | Late April 2026 |
| Off-plan developer registration | 30–90 days (batch) | Excluded from analysis |
The April dataset will provide the first clean read of genuinely post-conflict buyer decisions.
The community tracker uses daily averages per community, not raw totals.
| Segment | Communities |
|---|---|
| Prime Apartments | Downtown Dubai, Dubai Marina, Palm Jumeirah, Business Bay, Dubai Creek Harbour, JBR |
| Mid-Tier Apartments | JVC, JVT, Al Furjan, Dubai Sports City, Dubai Silicon Oasis, Arjan |
| Value | International City, Discovery Gardens, Town Square, Damac Hills 2, Dubai South, Liwan |
| Villas | Arabian Ranches, Jumeirah Golf Estates, Tilal Al Ghaf, Damac Hills, The Springs, Dubai Hills Estate |
Majan is excluded from the community tracker — a known anomalous bulk registration event.
Ramadan 2026 began February 18 — ten days before the conflict started on February 28. The post-conflict period and Ramadan overlap almost entirely.
The observed volume decline is likely a combination of conflict-driven caution and Ramadan seasonality. It is not possible to cleanly separate the two with this dataset.
If volumes do not rebound by mid-April, the conflict effect is clearly dominant.