Dubai Hills Estate rent 2026: new leases down 19% since March, and renewals now cost more

Short answer: Dubai Hills Estate rent 2026 has split into two markets. New apartment leases fell 18.9 percent from March to August 2026, while renewals fell 7.0 percent. By August, comparable renewals cost 4.5 percent more than new leases, the first time that has happened in our record. The regional conflict that began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran on 28 February appears to have triggered the fall. A wave of new flats then kept it going.

Picture two flats on the same floor of the same Dubai Hills tower. Same layout, same view, same month. In one, the tenant renews at close to last year’s rent. In the other, a new tenant signs this summer and pays less than the neighbour. Both of them think they got a fair deal. Only one of them is reading the right market.

That is the Dubai Hills Estate rent market in 2026 in a single picture. For years, the renewing tenant paid less than the new one. In July and August 2026, on our like-for-like model, the renewing tenant paid more.

What you will get from this article

You will finish this page able to do seven things:

1. Know why rents turned: the conflict shock, then the wave of new flats.
2. Tell the two markets apart, and know which number applies to your contract.
3. Explain the gap through the RERA cap.
4. Weigh a small cut against a re-let, if you have a sitting tenant.
5. Price an empty flat to today, with signed rents by bedroom and the gap to asking rents.
6. Negotiate with evidence on rent, cheques and terms, and know when breaking a lease pays.
7. Plan for what comes next, with three paths and the first signal of each.

Unless we name another source, every Dubai Hills figure below is our own analysis of Ejari contracts published through DXB Interact. The Dubai Land Department (DLD) registers those contracts, but the calculations are ours. We cover apartments in Dubai Hills Estate only, and we show the method so you can check us.

Dubai Hills Estate rent 2026 at a glance

Twelve numbers that tell the story

What	Number	Source
New lease rents, March to August 2026	minus 18.9% (minus 14.9% on August 2025)	Our Ejari analysis, n 6,643, 25 projects
Renewal rents, March to August 2026	minus 7.0% (minus 2.8% on August 2025)	Our Ejari analysis, n 5,557, 17 projects
New leases and renewals together	minus 14.0% from March (minus 10.8% on the year)	Our Ejari analysis, n 12,200
Renewals vs new leases on similar flats, August 2026	4.5% more	Our Ejari model
New leases, February to March 2026	189 to 137	Ejari
New leases, June to August 2026	920 (534 a year earlier)	Ejari
Leases ended without renewal that saw a new lease within 90 days, January to May 2026 (a re-letting measure, not a vacancy rate)	34.8% (40.0% a year earlier)	Our Ejari unit histories
Asking rents above signed rents, like for like	about 12.5%	Property Finder vs Ejari
Listings as months of leasing volume at the June to August pace	about 7.7 months (estimate)	Property Finder vs Ejari
Units recently completed or at least 65% built, no lease record yet	3,515	DLD project register
Median signed rent, two bedrooms, June to August 2026	AED 130,000	Ejari, n 367

Exhibit 1 takeaway: the new lease index fell from 105.0 in March 2026 to 85.1 in August. Renewals only eased from 105.8 to 98.5. On similar flats, renewals went from about 10 percent cheaper than new leases in early 2026 to 4.5 percent dearer in August.

When the fall began

The turn has a date. New lease rents held flat through the winter, from December 2025 to March 2026. Then April arrived and the floor gave way, about a month after the conflict began. Both series start at 100 in March 2025.

Sale prices, by contrast, barely flinched. Our sales index sits 5.7 percent below its own March 2026 peak. You can read that story in Dubai Hills Estate property prices 2026.

Why Dubai Hills Estate rent turned in 2026: the war, then the supply

The war shock

On 28 February 2026, Israel and the US launched joint air strikes on Tehran, as Al Jazeera reported. Iran then struck Gulf states, including the UAE. On 16 March, a drone hit a fuel tank near Dubai International Airport, and flights were suspended for a time.

Renters appear to have reacted at once. Across Dubai, new rental contracts fell 34 percent from February to March 2026, to 12,800. That figure comes from DLD data reported by AGBI on 13 April 2026. In the same report, broker Betterhomes said rental enquiries fell about 40 percent against the weeks before the war.

Where the conflict stands now

The conflict has not ended. A ceasefire announced on 7 April held for three months. President Trump declared it over on 9 July, ABC News reported. Clashes resumed at the end of August. On 31 August, the UAE intercepted a drone from Iran, per Al Jazeera. As of 22 September, the conflict is still active, although Dubai’s airports are running normally, Gulf News reported. Any view on rents has to allow for that uncertainty.

What it did in Dubai Hills

Dubai Hills followed the same path. New apartment leases fell from 189 in February 2026 to 137 in March, a drop of 27.5 percent. In the same months of 2025, they barely moved, from 133 to 129. The timing, and the matching fall across Dubai, suggest the conflict was the initial shock. The data cannot prove cause on its own.

Prices moved a month later. The new lease index held at 105.0 in March, then fell 9.3 percent in April alone. A lease that starts in March is often agreed weeks earlier, so a short lag is what you would expect.

Why the fall kept going

Tenants came back, but the rents did not. Dubai’s population fell by about 61,000 in March. By the end of June, it had recovered to 4.74 million, above the level before the war. Those are official Dubai Population Now figures, reported by The National. In Dubai Hills, too, the tenants returned. From June to August 2026, the community recorded 920 new apartment leases, against 534 in the same months of 2025.

Exhibit 2 takeaway: new leases dropped from 189 in February to 137 in March 2026. From June to August they reached 920, against 534 a year earlier, and the brand-new towers took 418 of them.

Where the new leases went

Look at where they signed. The nine projects that first leased from 2025 onward took 418 of those 920 leases. The older buildings signed 502, almost the same as the 512 a year earlier. In other words, all the extra leasing came from brand-new flats competing for tenants.

The DLD project register tells the same story. Seven Dubai Hills projects with 2,295 units reached completion between January and July 2026, as our price analysis shows.

Holiday homes added to the pile. With tourism hit, some short-let owners moved their flats into annual leases. Across Dubai, rental listings in March were 23 percent higher than a year earlier. Tenant enquiries were 16 percent lower. That is Betterhomes data reported by The National. We found no official count of how many holiday homes switched.

So, on my reading, the conflict appears to have started the fall. After that, the wave of new flats kept it going, even once people came back.

Was Dubai Hills heading this way anyway?

It is a fair question, and nobody can answer it with certainty. There is no second Dubai Hills without a war to compare against. Still, the record gives four clues.

First, rents were still rising before the war. In January and February 2026, new lease rents stood 4.0 percent above the same months of 2025. There was no fall in the data before March.

Second, new supply had already started, and rents absorbed it. New towers signed 95 new leases in the last quarter of 2025. In the first quarter of 2026 they signed 154, up from 2 a year earlier. Yet rents held flat from December to March.

Third, growth had stalled, and more supply was on the way. The index stopped climbing after December. Before the war, ValuStrat already expected Dubai rents to cool in 2026 as new homes arrived. Then new-tower leasing rose to 214 in the second quarter and 314 from July to 26 August.

Fourth, population growth was already slowing. Dubai Hills sits inside the official community of Hadaeq Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid. Dubai Statistics Center estimates show that community added 8,036 residents in 2023, 7,235 in 2024 and 5,900 in 2025, reaching 27,971. Meanwhile, completed homes jumped from 308 units in 2024 to 1,711 in 2025, per the DLD register. In short, fewer new residents met more new flats, and that was before the war. The official boundary may not match the master plan exactly, so read these as a trend, not a headcount.

My reading

Without the conflict, Dubai Hills Estate rent was probably heading for flat or softer levels in 2026, not a 19 percent drop in five months. The shock seems to have turned a slowdown into a sharp fall, and the supply wave made it last. Treat that as a reading of the evidence, not a measured split.

Dubai Hills new lease vs renewal: two markets, one headline

What each contract type means

A new lease is a contract with a new tenant. A renewal, on the other hand, is the same tenant signing again for the same flat. The Ejari record flags each contract as new or renewed, so the two can be counted apart.

Most rent headlines mix them anyway. A blended figure shows how the whole stock of contracts moved. However, it does not show the price of a flat today. We saw the same trap in JVC, where one sales headline hid two markets.

Which series applies to you

• You are signing for a flat you do not live in yet. The new lease series applies.
• You or your tenant are renewing. The renewal series applies.
• You own an empty flat. The new lease series applies, because your next tenant shops in that market.

Exhibit 1 above shows both series, and the lower panel shows the flip.

The flip: renewals now cost more

Next we asked the obvious question. On the same flat, in the same building, in the same month, who actually pays less?

For years the answer never changed. In every month from January 2023, when our record starts, to March 2026, renewing tenants paid less. Through 2025, they paid 7 to 17 percent less than new tenants. In January to March 2026, they still paid about 10 to 12 percent less. Then the gap shut. By April to June, the two prices were roughly level. In July 2026, renewals cost 8.6 percent more than new leases. In August, they cost 4.5 percent more.

Think back to those two neighbours. On our like-for-like model, the one who stayed put now pays more than a comparable newcomer. That is an average across similar flats, not a verdict on every lease.

Dubai Hills rent index: how we built the figures

Raw averages mislead in a mixed market. One month may bring more studios, and the next more three-bedroom flats. The average then moves even when no rent changes. So we built our own quality-adjusted index instead. It is not the DLD’s official Smart Rental Index, which serves a different purpose.

The method in five steps

1. Source: we pulled 30,390 Dubai Hills Estate Ejari contracts from DXB Interact on 26 August 2026.
2. Filter: we kept apartments on 12-month contracts. We left out the separate 2 Park Lane and 5 Park Lane blocks.
3. Outliers: we dropped rents per square foot beyond 1.5 times the interquartile range, within each bedroom type and contract type.
4. Model: we regressed log rent per square foot on log size, with fixed effects for bedrooms, project and month. The window runs from January 2023 to August 2026.
5. Base: we set March 2025 to 100.

Then we tried to break our own result.

Check one: is it just the new towers?

Nine projects first appear in the lease record from 2025 onward. New buildings often lease cheaply to fill fast, so we removed all nine and ran the index again. The 16 older projects alone show new leases down 18.9 percent from March. They are also down 14.7 percent on the year (n 5,887). In other words, new supply does not explain the fall on its own.

Check two: is it just the summer?

Dubai rents do soften in summer, so we checked the same months in earlier years. The March to August move was 0.0 percent in 2025. In 2024, it was plus 2.9 percent. Seasonal swings therefore stay within 3 points. They cannot explain a fall of almost 19 percent.

A note on sample size

August 2026 rests on 323 new leases and 79 renewals. Monthly renewal counts are small, so read any single month with care.

This section will be updated when the next quarterly pull is published.

The drop is broad, not one tower

A fall this size could come from one building dumping stock on the market. So we tested it.

We compared new leases in June to August 2026 with the same months of 2025, project by project, adjusted for size and bedrooms.

What the project check shows

• All 16 older projects are down.
• Median fall: 11.0 percent.
• Smallest fall: 4.4 percent, at Sway Residences.
• Largest fall: 17.2 percent, at Collective 2.0.

Exhibit 3 takeaway: all 16 older projects let new leases for less in June to August 2026 than a year earlier. The falls ran from 4.4 to 17.2 percent, with a median of 11.0 percent.

How to read it

Sixteen out of sixteen is not one landlord. It is the market.

Two cautions. Golf Suites has the smallest sample, with 7 new leases in the 2026 window. Treat that row as a pointer rather than proof. Also, the project figures use a three-month window, while the headline index uses single months. The two therefore do not add up to the same number.

Dubai Hills vacancy: how fast flats find a new tenant

When rents fall, every owner asks how long a flat will sit empty. So we measured it from the same Ejari record.

How we measured it

We followed each apartment through its lease history. Then we picked out every lease that ended without the tenant renewing. For each one, we checked whether a new tenant signed for that same unit, and how many days later.

We only counted leases that ended by 28 May 2026. That way, every flat had a full 90 days to find a tenant before our data cut-off. We also removed 220 exact duplicate contracts first.

What the record shows

This is a re-letting measure, not a vacancy rate. A flat without a new lease within 90 days may have been sold, used by its owner or let outside Ejari. With that in mind, compare the same months, one year apart:

• January to May 2025: 40.0 percent of these flats had a new lease within 90 days (n 713).
• January to May 2026: 34.8 percent had a new lease within 90 days (n 641).

So re-letting got harder, by about 5 points. However, it did not collapse. For context, the autumn letting season is stronger every year. Leases ending from July to December 2025 saw 50.8 percent re-let within 90 days (n 1,083).

Exhibit 4 takeaway: comparing leases that ended in January to May, quick re-lets within 14 days rose from 17.7 to 19.2 percent in 2026. Re-lets taking 15 to 90 days fell from 22.3 to 15.6 percent.

The fast end held, the middle thinned

Here is the part that matters for pricing. Flats that let within 14 days actually rose, from 17.7 percent to 19.2 percent. Meanwhile, flats that took 15 to 90 days fell from 22.3 percent to 15.6 percent. As a result, the median wait for flats that did re-let dropped from 20 days to 11.

In plain terms, the market split again. Some flats still let in about a week and a half. The rest now wait longer, or drop out of the rental record for a while.

What the numbers cannot see

So treat these shares as a lower bound on how many flats re-let. A flat with no new lease is not proof of a long void.

Dubai Hills rental listings: what is on the market and how fast it lets

Next, how many flats are waiting for a tenant right now? We compared rental listings with the flats that exist and the leases being signed.

How much is listed

On 26 August 2026, Property Finder carried 3,530 apartment rental listings in Dubai Hills Estate. Many flats appear more than once, because several agents list the same unit. We removed repeats with the same project, size, bedrooms and price, which leaves 2,563 unique listings. Of those, 2,486 sit in the 25 projects that already have lease records. The other 77 are in newly finished or unspecified buildings, such as Elvira, Gardenia Residence and 399 Hills Park. We keep them out of the stock comparison.

Those 25 projects hold about 8,633 finished apartments, by our count from the unit register and the DLD project register. That means roughly 29 percent of the finished stock had a rental listing, an estimate. Some of those flats are still tenanted and listed ahead of the move-out date. So treat this as a signal of choice, not as a vacancy rate.

How fast it lets: the turnaround

From 1 June to 26 August 2026, these projects signed 920 new leases in Ejari, about 322 a month. At that pace, and if neither listings nor leasing changed, today’s listings would equal roughly 7.7 months of leasing volume, an estimate. In the new towers, the figure is about 7.0 months. In the older buildings, it is about 8.3 months.

That does not mean every flat waits eight months. As the vacancy section shows, flats that do re-let usually go within about 11 days. The rest wait much longer. In other words, price decides which queue you join.

Asking rents versus signed rents

Asking rents run ahead of signed rents. We compared the 26 August listings with new 12-month leases signed from 1 June to 26 August 2026 in the same 25 projects. We did not match unit by unit. Instead, after removing repeat listings and outliers, a regression put both on the same footing for project, bedroom count and size. It cannot separate furnished from unfurnished flats. On that basis, asking rents sat about 12.5 percent above what tenants signed. The gap was 13.0 percent for one-bedroom flats, 12.2 percent for two-bedroom flats and 10.8 percent for three-bedroom flats. It was wider in the new towers, at 14.6 percent, than in the older buildings, at 10.9 percent.

Here are the medians, before any size adjustment:

• One bedroom: tenants signed a median of AED 85,000 a year (n 368). The median asking rent was AED 97,000.
• Two bedrooms: tenants signed a median of AED 130,000 (n 367). The median asking rent was about AED 150,000.
• Three bedrooms: tenants signed a median of AED 225,000 (n 94). The median asking rent was AED 250,000.

Asking rents come from a portal and are directional. Signed rents come from Ejari.

Exhibit 5 takeaway: tenants signed a median of AED 85,000 for one bedroom, AED 130,000 for two and AED 225,000 for three. Asking rents sat about 12.5 percent higher on similar flats, and the 2,486 listings equal about 7.7 months of leasing volume.

What is coming next

More flats are on the way. Elvira (902 units) and 399 Hills Park B (199 units) reached completion in June and July 2026, per the DLD project register. Neither had a lease record by 26 August. Another 2,414 units in eight projects were at least 65 percent built. They are Greenside Residence, Club Drive, Club Place, Parkside Hills, Vida Residences Dubai Hills Estate, Golf Hillside, Ellington House IV and Park Gate. Together, that is roughly 40 percent more than today’s finished stock in the 25 projects, an estimate. Not all of it will arrive at once, and some buyers will live in their flats rather than let them.

Dubai Hills rental prices beside the Dubai-wide figures

You may have read very different numbers in the press this summer. Several can be true at once, because the reports measure different things.

The consultancies disagree

For the second quarter of 2026, the published readings range from a small rise to a clear fall:

Source	Area	What it reports	Period	Change
This article	Dubai Hills apartments	Signed Ejari rents, new leases and renewals kept apart	March to August 2026	New minus 18.9%, renewals minus 7.0%
CBRE	All of Dubai, apartments	Average rents	Q2 2026	Minus 6.5% on the quarter, minus 2.4% on the year
Cushman & Wakefield Core	All of Dubai	Average rents	Q2 2026	Minus 6% on the quarter
Savills	Major communities	Rental rates	Q2 2026	Minus 8 to 10%
Cavendish Maxwell	All of Dubai	Rents	Q2 2026	Minus 2.5% on the quarter, plus 7.8% on the year
ValuStrat	All of Dubai, apartments	Rents	Q2 2026	Plus 1.3% on the year
Property Finder	Dubai Hills apartments	Asking rents in listings	26 August 2026	About 12.5% above signed rents

Each firm uses its own sample and method, and most do not split new leases from renewals.

Handover counts differ just as widely. Savills counted about 27,300 homes in the second quarter alone, while Cavendish Maxwell counted 24,800 for the whole first half. So always check whose number you are reading.

What the Dubai-wide data says about the two markets

One Dubai-wide figure matches our split closely. DXB Interact studied DLD data for the first half of 2026. The average new tenancy in Dubai cost AED 60,000, down 6 percent on a year earlier. Renewals averaged AED 65,000, flat on the year, AGBI reported. New leases falling while renewals hold is the pattern we see in Dubai Hills, only milder.

Dubai Hills sits at the weak end

The community-level reports point the same way as our data. Cushman & Wakefield put Dubai Hills Estate apartment rents 10 percent lower in the second quarter than in the first. Villa rents were 12 percent lower. CBRE also listed Dubai Hills villa rents among the biggest falls. On our own index, new lease rents in the second quarter averaged 13.4 percent below the first quarter.

Our blended index, the closest match to these reports, shows Dubai Hills Estate apartment rent down 10.8 percent on the year to August 2026. Read the gaps as a local signal, not a contest between sources.

RERA rent cap renewal: why sitting rents move slowly

Here is the part that explains the whole article. Sitting rents lag because Dubai law makes them lag.

The five tiers

Decree No. 43 of 2013 sets the maximum increase at renewal. It compares your current rent with the average rent for similar units (Decree 43 of 2013):

• Rent up to 10 percent below the average: no increase.
• 11 to 20 percent below: up to 5 percent.
• 21 to 30 percent below: up to 10 percent.
• 31 to 40 percent below: up to 15 percent.
• More than 40 percent below: up to 20 percent.

Where the average comes from

The decree ties that average to the RERA Rent Index. Since 2 January 2025, the Dubai Land Department has run it as the Smart Rental Index. It combines contract data with a building rating system (DLD). You can check your own unit on the DLD rental index page.

The 90-day rule

Timing matters too. Do you want to change the lease terms? Then you must tell the other side at least 90 days before the lease ends, unless you both agreed otherwise. This applies to landlords and tenants alike (Law No. 33 of 2008, Article 14).

Exhibit 6 takeaway: the cap only limits increases. In the worked example, a rent 23.1 percent below the index average may rise 10 percent. Once the average falls and the gap narrows to 6.8 percent, no increase is allowed. Nothing in the cap forces a cut.

Why the flip happened

Follow one flat through the cycle. While rents rose, the cap held its sitting rent below the market, and the tenant quietly gained every year. That is why renewals used to be cheaper. Then new lease rents fell from April. First they met the capped rent, and then they dropped straight past it.

Now the cap gives no help. It limits increases, and nothing in it forces a rent down. So a sitting rent above today’s market falls in only two ways: the tenant moves, or both sides agree a cut.

One caution: the DLD’s Smart Rental Index is not our index. It follows its own method and update cycle. So check your unit on the official calculator before you rely on any tier.

Cheques, payment terms and incentives in 2026

Rent is only part of the deal. In Dubai, the number of cheques often matters as much as the headline figure.

What changed this year

Some flats once marketed on one or two cheques now come with more payment options, Betterhomes told Khaleej Times in March.

The government moved too. On 23 June 2026, the Dubai Land Department launched Flexi Rent. It offers monthly, quarterly and half-yearly payment plans, plus incentives for new tenants. However, it only covers units owned or managed by 11 partner companies. They include Wasl Properties, Deyaar Property Management, Dubai World Real Estate and Dubai Investment Real Estate. The full list is on the DLD announcement. A “rent now, pay later” scheme with a bank was reported as planned for September. We found no report that it has launched.

Private platforms also let tenants pay monthly. One of them, Takeem, charges about 4 percent of the annual rent for that option, The National reported.

What Dubai Hills listings say

Listings rarely state the cheque terms in the title. Of all 2,563 unique Dubai Hills apartment listings, 160 mention cheques at all. Of those, 122 offer “multiple” or “flexible” cheques, and 31 offer 12 cheques or monthly payment. Those are floors, because most agents only discuss terms by phone.

About 30 percent of the titles mention furniture. Only 23 mention a free month or rent-free period. So in Dubai Hills, landlords are mostly competing on price and cheques, not on free months.

How to use this

• Tenants: ask for four or more cheques as a starting point, then trade. Offering fewer cheques is a fair lever for a lower rent.
• Landlords: more cheques can win a good tenant without cutting the headline rent. That also keeps your RERA base higher for the next renewal.
• Both: put the agreed cheque count and dates in the Ejari contract.

Dubai has not frozen rents. Abu Dhabi, a separate market, did freeze increases in June 2026, AGBI reported. Dubai renewals still follow the RERA calculator.

What to expect next for Dubai Hills Estate rent in 2026

Every landlord wants to know where Dubai Hills Estate rent goes from here in 2026 and beyond. Nobody can promise that, and we will not print a forecast. However, some things are already locked in, and they shape every path.

What is already locked in

• More flats are coming. About 3,515 units were recently completed or at least 65 percent built at the August data cut, per the DLD project register. None had a lease record yet.
• Renewal rents face pressure. On similar flats, renewals cost 4.5 percent more than new leases in August 2026. As those leases come up, tenants can point to cheaper new leases. So renewals face downward pressure while new leases stay cheaper. How far and how fast depends on future leasing, new supply and tenant demand.
• Autumn is the strong season. The new lease index rose from August to December in each of the last three years. It gained 7.1 percent in 2023, 2.7 percent in 2024 and 6.3 percent in 2025. That is history, not a promise.
• Buying got dearer. The Central Bank of the UAE raised its base rate to 3.9 percent, effective 17 September 2026. Higher financing costs can keep some would-be buyers renting.
• The war is not over. As of 22 September, the conflict is still active.

Three paths for the months ahead

Each path depends on two things: the war, and how fast the new flats fill.

• Path A, a calmer region: a ceasefire returns, and new flats fill through the autumn season. New lease rents hold steady or firm a little. Renewals drift down to meet them. The first signal: the time to clear today’s listings falls below 7.7 months.
• Path B, a slow grind: the conflict simmers, and new stock such as Elvira comes to market. New lease rents keep easing slowly, and landlords offer more cheques. Most renewals see a cut. The first signal: the time to clear rises above 7.7 months.
• Path C, a renewed shock: escalation hits airports, shipping or population again. Leasing drops, as it did in March, and rents step down again. The first signal: monthly new leases fall sharply.

Exhibit 7 takeaway: about 3,515 units are coming, and renewals sit 4.5 percent above new leases. Autumn has lifted new lease rents in each of the last three years. Which path follows depends on the conflict and on how fast new flats fill.

What to watch each month

Three numbers will tell you which path is unfolding. Watch the new lease index, the gap between renewals and new leases, and the months of leasing volume in listings.

If you are a landlord with a sitting tenant

Your tenant reads the same portals you do. Assume they already know.

Step 1: check the cap

Start with the official calculator. If your rent sits at or near the RERA average, the cap allows no increase at this renewal. That decision is made for you.

Step 2: compare with today’s new leases

Next, compare your rent with recent new leases for similar flats. In August 2026, like-for-like renewals cost more than new leases. So expect a request for a cut, and plan your 90-day notice with that in mind.

Step 3: price the cost of losing the tenant

Now do the arithmetic that most owners skip. A re-let today means a new lease at the lower level. It can also mean empty weeks and agency fees. Our study of how long Dubai apartments sit empty shows what that vacancy costs.

Put the two paths side by side. Often, a small cut that keeps a good tenant beats a re-let at the new lease level. Sometimes it does not. Run both numbers before you decide, and use our guide to stress testing a Dubai portfolio to frame the downside.

A note for owners of new towers

Some owners hold out for the “second cycle bump”. The record does not show one. With calendar effects removed, new leases in a tower’s first three months carry a small premium. Leases signed 4 to 11 months later came in 3.2 percent lower, and after two years they came in 6.7 percent lower. So do not plan on a step up that has never arrived.

Buying a flat with a tenant in it

If you buy a tenanted flat, the lease comes with it, cap and all. Our guide to buying a tenanted apartment explains what you inherit.

Want to know where your rent sits against today’s like-for-like new lease level? A short data check before your notice date can save you a costly re-let.

If you are a landlord with a vacant unit

An empty flat earns nothing while you wait to be proved right.

Price to today, not to last year

Set your asking rent from the current new lease level, not from last year’s median. A 12-month median trails the market, so in a falling market it sits above what tenants will pay now. The vacancy data shows the cost of getting this wrong. In early 2026, flats that re-let did so in a median of 11 days, while the share that took 15 to 90 days shrank. A flat that misses the first two weeks is now more likely to keep waiting.

Use the right comparables

• Use new leases from the last three months.
• Stay in your own project, with a similar size and bedroom count.
• Treat portal asking rents as a ceiling, not a guide.

Start from the signed-rent benchmarks in Exhibit 5, not the asking medians. Like for like, asking rents sit about 12.5 percent above signed rents, so a listing priced at the asking median is likely to wait.

Ejari records what tenants actually signed. Portals, by contrast, show what owners hope for. Our checklist on how to tell if a Dubai property is a good deal applies the same logic to prices.

Watch the supply

You are not bidding against your neighbour alone. The listings section shows about 7.7 months of leasing volume already on the market, with about 3,515 more units on the way. New stock takes time to fill, as our JVC lease-up study and our look at the JVC supply pipeline both show.

If you are a tenant moving in

For once, the numbers are on your side of the table.

You hold the stronger hand

You are negotiating in the weaker of the two markets. Every one of the 16 older projects we tested was cheaper this summer than last. That gives you room to ask.

Four practical steps

1. Ask for the rents on recent new leases in the building, not the asking prices. Like for like, asking rents sit about 12.5 percent above signed rents. Put the other way, tenants signed about 10 to 12 percent below the asking rent. So an opening offer in that range is backed by the data.
2. Ask for four or more cheques, and ask about move-in terms, not only the headline rent.
3. Check the RERA index for the unit, because it will matter at your first renewal.
4. Think about the full term. A lower starting rent can also matter at future renewals, because permitted increases are judged against the official rental index.

Should you break your lease to move somewhere cheaper?

Only if the saving beats the cost. Many Dubai contracts set an early-exit penalty, and two months’ rent is a common clause, but check yours. On top of that, an agency fee on the new lease is commonly around 5 percent of the annual rent. Then add moving costs.

Here is the rough maths, an estimate. Say the penalty is two months and the fee is 5 percent. Then your new rent must be about 21 percent lower just to break even in the first year. Take a hypothetical flat at AED 130,000 a year:

• If you signed at the March peak: the same flat now lets for about 18.9 percent less. That saves about AED 24,600 a year. The penalty is about AED 21,700 and the fee about AED 5,300. So the first year is roughly break-even or slightly worse. Staying two years at the lower rent could make the move pay.
• If you are a sitting tenant near renewal: comparable renewals sit about 4.5 percent above new leases. So moving saves only about 4.3 percent, roughly AED 5,600 a year. That does not cover a penalty. Negotiate at renewal instead, using the 90-day notice window.

Rent or buy?

Buying got slightly dearer this month. The Central Bank of the UAE raised its base rate by 0.25 points to 3.9 percent, effective 17 September 2026, Gulf News reported. Higher financing costs and softer rents can change the rent-versus-buy sums. The effect depends on the price, the financing, service charges and how long you plan to stay.

If you are weighing whether to keep renting at all, start with our rent vs buy guide for Dubai. Then read our view on the best time to buy property in Dubai.

Frequently Asked Questions

Methodology and sources

Data limitations

This analysis uses registered Ejari contracts available through DXB Interact on 26 August 2026, and Property Finder listings captured the same day. Our rent index measures signed apartment rents. It is not the DLD’s official Smart Rental Index. Listing counts are not vacancy rates, and the data cannot see flats that are sold, owner-occupied or deliberately left empty. Outside reports use different data and methods, so they will not match ours exactly.

Data dates

Dataset	Cut-off
Ejari rental contracts (our analysis)	26 August 2026
Property Finder listings	26 August 2026
DLD project register	26 August 2026
Consultancy reports	Q2 2026
Dubai population	end of June 2026
Conflict status	22 September 2026
UAE base rate	effective 17 September 2026

How we calculated

We calculated all Dubai Hills Estate rent figures for 2026 ourselves from Ejari contracts registered with the DLD and published through DXB Interact. The filters, outlier rule and model appear in the index section above. The vacancy measure follows each unit’s lease history. The listing figures come from Property Finder on the same date, with repeats removed, and are directional. We cite every third-party figure to its publisher, and we give dates and sample sizes with each figure.

About the author. Fahad Al Kuwari is a Dubai-based buyer’s consultant for Dubai Hills Estate. He advises investors on off-plan and resale homes in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, works with clients in Arabic and English, and builds the analysis in these articles himself from registry data.

Are you pricing a lease, planning a renewal or deciding whether to re-let? Get in touch at fahadalkuwari.com for a data check on your unit.