Developer-direct searches from the US are up two and a half times. Buyers are going round brokers.

In a year when almost every line on the chart went down, one went up. Searches from the United States for Dubai developers, off-plan projects and payment plans ran at 146 per cent of their winter level between June and August. Within that, "property developers dubai" and its variants went from 115 searches a month to 417, searches for Damac rose from 985 to 1,733, and "dubai real estate market" more than doubled.

The same buyers searched Emaar first for "dubai property investment": the developer ranks above every broker and every portal for that phrase in both the United States and Britain. Developers have learned to rank on investor language, and American buyers have learned to go to them directly. The Land Department data shows what that produces: off-plan registrations fell 23 per cent since the winter against 29 per cent for ready homes, and off-plan is now 74 per cent of the market.

What a buyer should know before going direct

A developer's sales team sells that developer's launches. It cannot tell you that a comparable project two communities away registered at AED 300 less per square foot last month, or that a community's resale market has thinned to the point where the exit is harder than the entry. Those are the two things the Land Department data answers and the index now tracks. Going direct is sensible for access to a launch; it is not a substitute for an independent comparison across developers, which is the part of the job a broker is actually for.

The American buyer who arrives having compared developers online is a better-informed buyer than the one who arrived a year ago. The conversation to have with them is the one they cannot have with the developer: which of the launches they have shortlisted is priced against what sold, and which is priced against what the brochure says.