Know your return
before you commit.

"The standard Dubai ROI calculation divides annual rent by the purchase price. The real cost base is 6.5% higher."

DLD transfer fee (4%) + agent commission (2%) + title deed + trustee fees = AED 95,500 on a AED 1.5M purchase. Dividing by the wrong denominator inflates every yield figure by 0.3–0.5 percentage points before you've even started.

"No Dubai property is rented 365 days a year. Advertised yields assume it is."

Re-letting voids, annual maintenance, and tenant-to-tenant gaps typically produce 85–92% effective occupancy. At 90% occupancy, a AED 90,000/year rental property earns AED 81,000. That single adjustment removes 0.5–0.8% from the headline yield figure.

"Service charges are mandatory, annual, and building-specific. Most advertised yields don't include them."

AED 8–35/sqft per year depending on the building. A 1,200 sqft JVC apartment: AED 9,600–16,800/year. A 1,200 sqft Downtown apartment: AED 21,600–36,000/year. On a AED 2M Downtown property, service charges alone erase 1.0–1.8% of gross yield — every single year.

"Brochures quote gross yield. Investors need net yield. The gap is 1.5–3 percentage points."

Gross yield = rent ÷ price. Net yield (Altamimi ROI Model) = (income − all costs) ÷ true cost base. On a typical AED 1.5M Dubai apartment, the difference between the two numbers is AED 22,000–45,000 per year in misrepresented income. That is not rounding error.