Dubai Property Investment Advisor
The headline price is the smallest question. What determines whether an investment works is how much capital sits behind it after the purchase is done.
I have seen an investor commit more than a million dirhams to this market without knowing what he owned or how he would get out of it. When the market turned, the asset was not the problem. The absence of anything behind it was. That experience shapes how I size every purchase now.
On a cash purchase, budget 6 to 8 per cent above the price to complete: the 4 per cent Dubai Land Department transfer fee, registration and trustee fees, and roughly 2 per cent agency commission plus VAT. With a mortgage, add arrangement and valuation costs of about another 1 per cent, and expect a deposit of around 20 to 25 per cent for a non resident buyer, subject to the bank.
A unit does not earn anything until it is lettable. Furnishing, snagging fixes, utility deposits and Ejari registration all come before the first cheque. In the mid market this is a modest number. In prime waterfront, furnishing to the standard the tenant expects is a serious line item and is easy to underestimate by half.
This is the layer people skip, and it is the one that decides outcomes. You need enough liquidity to carry the asset through a bad stretch: annual service charges, one or two months of vacancy between tenants, management fees, unplanned maintenance, and mortgage payments continuing while rent does not. My working rule is twelve months of all carrying costs held in cash, separate from the purchase capital.
If the purchase consumes everything you have, you have not bought an investment. You have bought an obligation with an asset attached, and the first soft year will force your hand.
| Purchase price | 100% |
| Transaction costs to title deed | plus 6 to 8% |
| Furnishing and set up | plus 2 to 6% |
| 12 month holding buffer | Held in cash, ring fenced |
A staged payment plan lowers the amount you need on day one, which is genuinely useful. It does not lower the total, and it introduces a second obligation: you must keep meeting milestones during a period when the asset produces no income at all. Underwrite off plan against your income, not against your optimism about resale before handover.
There is no single figure, and any advisor quoting one without asking about your income and horizon is guessing. What I will say is this: the right question is not what is the cheapest way into Dubai property, but what is the largest position I can hold comfortably for five years, downturn included. Answer that honestly and the asset choice becomes straightforward.
Send me your available capital and your holding period. I will come back with a realistic all in figure and what it buys, or tell you to wait.
The full step by step guide.
Why the buffer exists.