Rent or buy in Dubai?
How long before buying wins.
The short answer
Buying wins once the years you stay outweigh the one-off cost of getting in and out, the transfer fee, the commission and the eventual exit. For most Dubai purchases that crossover sits a few years out, sooner where rent is high relative to price and later where it is not. Set your own rent, price and holding costs and the tool shows you the year the lines cross.
Ask Noor to explain this simplyWhat it would cost you to rent the property you are considering buying.
Paid by the owner, not the tenant, which is part of why buying costs more than the mortgage.
An assumption you are making, not a forecast anyone can give you.
Stay longer than 1 year and buying costs less overall. Shorter than that and the upfront fees have not been earned back.
Upfront cost of buying
Transfer fee, commission and the rest, paid before you own anything.
Rent paid over 10 years
Net cost of owning over 10 years
Costs paid, less the equity you would have gained.
Difference after 10 years
In favour of buying.
- Upfront costs
- From the buying cost schedule · DLD and market convention
- Selling costs
- 2% of the sale price
- Not modelled
- Mortgage interest, or what a renter might earn by investing the difference
A cash comparison. It leaves out mortgage interest and any return a renter might make on the money not spent on fees, both depend on assumptions nobody can stand behind, and including them would make this look more authoritative without making it more true.
Put a real property behind it.
A calculator works with the numbers you give it. We work with the building, the seller and the service charge schedule, which is where the answer usually changes.
Questions
Asked and answered
What makes buying win?
Time, mostly. Buying carries a large cost at the front: the transfer fee and commission are several per cent before you own anything, so a short stay almost always favours renting. The calculator finds the year those upfront costs are outweighed.
Does this account for price growth?
Yes, as an assumption you set. It is an assumption, not a forecast, nobody knows what prices will do, and a calculator that pretends otherwise is selling something.