Guide11 June 2026

How to read Dubai Land Department (DLD) transaction data

What's in official DLD property data, what the columns mean, and the common pitfalls — off-plan vs ready, area names and price per sqft.

Dubai Creek Harbour waterfront development — reading Dubai Land Department transaction records

Every property sale in Dubai is registered with the Dubai Land Department (DLD), and the data is public. dxbpropy.ai is built on it. Here's how to read it without being misled.

What a transaction record contains

Each sale has an area, a project/building, a property type (apartment, villa, land), the size, the price, the date, and whether it was off-plan or ready. From price and size you get price per sqft — the fairest way to compare across unit sizes.

Pitfall 1: never blend off-plan and ready

Off-plan and ready trade at different prices. Averaging them together gives a meaningless number. Always segment them — dxbpropy.ai does this automatically.

Pitfall 2: area names are layered

DLD uses cadastral names (e.g. "Marsa Dubai") that differ from the popular names buyers use ("Dubai Marina"). A single popular community can also span several sub-areas. Good data maps these correctly so you don't miss sales.

Pitfall 3: medians beat averages

A few ultra-luxury sales can drag an average way up. The median (the middle sale) is more representative of what a typical unit costs. Look at the median plus a range (e.g. the 25th–75th percentile).

Pitfall 4: reporting lag

DLD data has a short lag (typically a couple of weeks), so "this month" may be partial. dxbpropy.ai labels the data cut-off date on every page.

The shortcut

Instead of downloading spreadsheets, just ask dxbpropy.ai in plain English — "median 2-bed price in Business Bay, ready vs off-plan" — and it pulls the right segmented figures from the official records.

Ask dxbpropy.ai a question →