Nobody publishes a Dubai price index written for buyers. So here is one.

One search phrase grew faster than any other this year, in three countries at once. "Dubai real estate index" went from about 8 searches a month in Britain to 197, from 10 to 347 in the United States, and from 50 to 730 among residents of the UAE. People wanted a number they could trust, and when they searched for it they found valuers' reports written for other valuers, or nothing.

The raw material is public. The Dubai Land Department publishes every registered sale on its open data pages: the date, the area, the project, the size, the price. What is missing is someone turning it into the thing a buyer actually wants to know, which is what sold in the community they are considering, at what price per square foot, and whether that is moving. That is the Dubai Property Index, and this is its first edition.

What it shows this month

Across all residential sales, the median price per square foot was AED 1,772 in January and February and AED 1,689 from July to September, a fall of 4.7 per cent. Sales volume fell 25 per cent over the same period, from 14,281 a month to 10,733. Off-plan registrations held up better than resales and now make up 74 per cent of the market. Villas repriced more than flats: a 13 per cent fall in the villa median against 3 per cent for flats.

Community by community the picture is uneven, which is the point of publishing it this way. Dubai Marina's median slipped 4 per cent as its volume fell a quarter. Business Bay's fell 20 per cent as its volume halved. Palm Jumeirah's fell 16 per cent. Jumeirah Village Circle and International City barely moved. Dubai South's volume nearly doubled on new launches, which is a reminder that off-plan registrations arrive in waves and a single month in a single community can mislead.

How it is built, and what it is not

The index uses residential sales only, with mortgages, gifts and duplicate registrations removed, and reports the median registered price over the registered area, so it is a measure of what was paid rather than what was asked. It is not adjusted for the mix of what sold: a community with a large launch in a given month will show a higher median for that reason alone, and the method note on the index page says so. Beside the Land Department figures sits the buyer search demand from the UK, the US, Czechia and the UAE, because searches move months before registrations do and the turn will show there first.

It is rebuilt every week from the Land Department's data, with no hand in between. The next edition adds rents and gross yields from the Land Department's rent contracts. If there is a community or a question you want added, tell me and it will be in the next one.