Dubai Investment: twenty years by your side in Dubai

Twenty years on the same market means five very different phases, years of euphoria as well as corrections. Each one has shaped the way we put a file together today.

2006–2008: a market that opens up, then turns

Foreign ownership in freehold areas has been allowed since 2002, and the land register was put in place in the mid-2000s. At that point, much of the market was not buying homes: it was buying reservations, resold before the second instalment was even due. When the market turned in 2008, the resale market disappeared first, then building sites stopped. Buyers who had paid a large share of the price found themselves with a payment plan still running on a foundation slab.

Law No. 8 of 2007, which requires developers to deposit buyers’ funds in a dedicated escrow account, had been passed just before. It largely explains why some projects resumed and others never did. Since then, we do not look at an off-plan project without first looking at its escrow account and the name on the permit.

2009–2014: rebuilding, and the rules change

The regulator cancelled projects that would never be completed, developers consolidated, and the authorities tackled quick resales. In 2013, the Dubai Land Department transfer fee rose from 2% to 4% of the value retained, and bank lending to non-residents was capped. Both measures targeted buyers who were selling within six months. Above all, they confirmed a simple rule: in Dubai, entry costs are recovered over time, not from the next buyer.

A second correction began in 2014. It was slower and less dramatic than the 2008 one, and so less talked about — and it is precisely the one that cost most to investors who came in at the top of the cycle with a three-year horizon.

2015–2020: six years of drift, and charges that eat into the yield

Prices fell slowly while new supply kept coming onto the market. Over this period, the most common mistake in the files that reached us was not choosing the wrong area: it was a gross yield, calculated on rent and price alone, without the service charges. These are billed per square foot, vary widely from one tower to another depending on the amenities, and cannot be negotiated once the deed is signed. Between the advertised gross and the net you actually receive, the gap is measured in percentage points, not decimals.

2021–2025: a cycle driven by rising prices and Dubai’s appeal

The market rebounded strongly from 2020, off-plan sales returned, and the Golden Visa through property investment — from AED 2,000,000 of value retained by the Dubai Land Department — brought in buyers whose main goal was residency, not yield. Then Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022 introduced corporate tax at 9% above AED 375,000 of taxable profit, for financial years starting on or after 1 June 2023.

That last point changed our work more than any price movement. A structure set up in 2019 to hold two apartments can no longer be reasoned about in the same way. And the question that follows — tax residence, which is not declared but proven, with a home country that has its say — remains the one we see handled worst elsewhere.

2026: a market chosen on its fundamentals

The regional geopolitical context has cooled the euphoria of previous years. The market is now read on its fundamentals — the quality of the developer, genuine rental demand, service charges, holding period — and on a long-term view rather than on the next resale. For an investor, it is a more demanding market, and an easier one to read.

To mark this transition, Dubai Investment has completely redesigned its website and its communication tools. At the same time, through HBS GROUP, we have structured our operations in Dubai by strengthening our teams across our main desks: property, structuring, financing, administration, property management and compliance.

As we reach our twentieth year, our role is to offer investors, business owners and expatriates a platform they can trust, with tools that give them useful information, and to keep supporting them in the United Arab Emirates, and in Dubai in particular. We approach this new phase with confidence: when euphoria gives way to professionalism, it is the rigour of a file that makes the difference.

Six commitments that describe the way we work. They are written down so that you can hold us to them.

• This site does not publish listings. The projects we follow are on our projects page, and current availability is sent on request. Here, you will find the guides that help you choose before you start filtering.
• Every figure carries its date and its source. A visa threshold, a Dubai Land Department fee schedule or a service-charge index can all be revised. When a value cannot be dated, we publish the mechanism and give you the up-to-date figure when you need it — at the meeting, not six months earlier on a web page.
• A yield is stated with its calculation method. Actual service charges for the tower concerned, vacancy, management fees, entry costs. Rent is established from real tenancy contracts; it is not guaranteed, and no one can guarantee it.
• Written tax advice requires us to have seen your starting position. An investor’s taxation depends first on their country of residence. Until we have that part of the file, we write “to be confirmed for your situation”, and we mean it.
• The reviews we publish come from our public Google profile. Reproduced without editing, with the platform’s rating and review count. You can read all of them on our Google profile, negative reviews included.
• Our brokerage licence is displayed. The property activity presented on this site is carried out by HBS Real Estate, an agency licensed by RERA under the authority of the Dubai Land Department. The registration number appears in the legal notice, together with the exact scope of our responsibility.