Dubai flat rents: new contracts and renewals are different comparison groups

The finding

For 2026-08-28 to 2026-09-24 inclusive, eligible Ejari Flat contracts classified New have a median annual rent of AED 69,806, compared with AED 60,000 for Renew. The samples contain 20,271 and 16,763 distinct contracts respectively. These are different groups observed in the same period, not successive rents for matched homes.

The median area is 802 sqft for New and 924 sqft for Renew. Median annual rent per sqft is AED 90.72 and AED 68.69 respectively. The size difference is a warning that the groups are not directly interchangeable. Dividing rent by area does not control for location, building quality, bedroom count, furnishing or contract terms. Nor does the ratio of median rent to median area equal the median of individual rent-per-area ratios.

What to compare

For a prospective new lease, start with recent New contracts for similar flats in the same building or project. For renewal context, examine Renew records separately and check the specific contract and applicable official guidance. This study does not determine any permitted rent adjustment. A citywide median cannot establish what a particular tenant should pay.

The observed gap may reflect location and property mix, tenancy histories, concessions and registration timing. This analysis does not isolate their effects or show that renewal status causes a lower rent. It makes no price forecast, investment recommendation, yield ranking or supply conclusion.

Evidence, definitions and limits

Evidence date: 2026-09-24. The 28-day window is based on contract start date, not the date the record was entered. Source load: 2026-09-26 02:42:43 UTC. New and Renew are the source labels; Flat is the property classification. There is no prior-period comparison.

Each contract ID is grouped before filtering. Keep only IDs appearing in exactly one database row within the window, with numberofproperties exactly one, annualamount above AED 5,000, actualarea above 10 sqm and annual rent per sqft between AED 5 and AED 1,000 inclusive. Missing property counts are excluded. Then retain Flat records. Both groups have row counts equal to distinct contract counts; repeated or multi-property contracts are excluded rather than treating a repeated total as separate rents.

Annual rent per sqft equals annualamount divided by the product of actualarea and 10.76391041671 sqft per sqm. Medians use PostgreSQL percentile_cont. Annual rents and areas are rounded to whole units; rent per sqft is rounded to two decimal places. The stored snapshot retains unrounded values and SQL.

These filters do not guarantee complete market coverage or error-free records. Later revisions, timing and unobserved property differences can change the result. Source: Dubai Land Department Ejari data via Dubai Open Data, interpreted using Home Pulse methodology. Home Pulse is independent of DLD and Data Dubai. This is market context, not a valuation or legal determination.