Run your own numbers
before we ever speak.
Four working tools I use with clients daily. Indicative figures — the precise analysis happens inside a mandate.
Appreciation is the assumption that drives everything. The three scenarios opposite stress-test your figure at minus three points and plus three points — because no forecast should be presented as a single number.
Estimator, not a lender quotation. LTV options above are the UAE Central Bank caps, not bank preferences — 60% is the ceiling on any investment or second property regardless of price, and 50% on off-plan. The top bands apply only to a first home under AED 5M, and split by nationality — 75% for expatriate residents, 80% for UAE nationals; above AED 5M it is 65% and 70%. Non-residents sit at 50% off-plan and up to 65% ready, with most banks pricing 50–60%. Rate ranges here are indicative, not quotations: around 3.75% is a headline for salary-transfer residents, while investors and non-residents have priced roughly 4.49% to 6.2%. Banks reprice against the UAE Central Bank base rate and against your own profile, so a real offer may sit outside this range in either direction. Only a lender can quote you. Early settlement is capped by regulation at 1% of outstanding balance or AED 10,000, whichever is lower. Verified 5 August 2026.
Excludes purchase costs (≈6–8%) and assumes stable occupancy. A mandate analysis models both precisely.
The 10-year UAE Golden Visa requires property value of AED 2,000,000 or above. Eligibility rules evolve — I confirm the current position for every client before purchase.
Rates verified 4 August 2026. AED/USD is the fixed UAE Central Bank peg. EUR and GBP are derived from European Central Bank reference rates, published once per working day. On large transfers an FX specialist typically saves AED 30,000–80,000 against a retail bank — I introduce clients to ours.
The spread between gross
and net is the entire decision.
Licensed holiday-home operation raises gross revenue materially above a twelve-month tenancy. It also introduces roughly eight lines of cost that an annual lease does not carry. Underwritten properly, the arbitrage is real in specific micro-locations and negative in others. Verified against DET fee schedules and published operator benchmarks, August 2026.
Yield arbitrage & dynamic pricing
A twelve-month tenancy fixes your rate for a year. Holiday-home operation reprices nightly against demand — peak season October to April, event-driven spikes, and a summer trough where rates fall 30–45%.
The arbitrage is RevPAR, not headline nightly rate. A high ADR at 55% occupancy underperforms a moderate ADR at 80%. Underwrite the product, never the peak-season screenshot.
Cost friction & operator selection
Operator management runs 15–20% of booking revenue, plus 5% VAT on that fee. Add Tourism Dirham at AED 10–20 per night, 7% municipality fee, utilities and connectivity, consumables, and furnishing capex amortised across three to five years.
Service charges of AED 10–30 per sqft for apartments, higher in branded towers, apply identically under both models — but they consume a far larger share of a thin net. In a high-charge Downtown tower, net can sit 2–3 points below gross.
Dual-exit flexibility
A holiday-home unit is never locked. It can revert to twelve-month tenancy at the end of any booking, absorb personal occupancy in a chosen window, or be sold furnished to a buyer who wants the operating income intact.
That optionality carries measurable value in a market where HOA bylaws in many buildings prohibit short-let entirely. Confirm the building permits it before you place capital, not after.
Summer trough is modelled automatically: five months at 62% of peak ADR, consistent with published Dubai seasonality of 30–45% off-peak discounting.
Fee inputs from DET schedules: AED 1,520 one-time registration, AED 370–1,270 annual unit permit by bedroom count, Tourism Dirham AED 10–20 per occupied night, 7% municipality fee, 5% VAT on operator services. Occupancy, ADR and furnishing capex are your inputs, not my claims — the model computes on what you enter. The 7% municipality fee is guest-borne under standard operator structures and is excluded here — confirm the treatment in your operator agreement, as it moves net by roughly 70bps. Operating without a permit carries fines from AED 5,000, escalating to AED 100,000 with delisting.