How CraneScore works out its figures Public Dubai data · our own calculations, labelled · a source under every block Data used now: DLD projects register exported 1 November 2026, registered sales to 5 November 2026, DLD developers register of 1 November 2026.

01Sources

We use public data from Dubai government bodies and a few other sources, read on a schedule and stored with the date of each reading.

CraneScore is not part of, or affiliated with, the Dubai Land Department.

02Construction progress and dates

% completed is the figure in the DLD projects register on the register date: DLD's load timestamp, shown as "DLD register as of {date}". It is not an inspection date.

DLD’s own site-inspection readings, the inspection date and the % built, join the same series and are credited to DLD. We never copy DLD’s inspection photos or reports: project pages link to DLD’s Project Status service instead.

Months to go or past the DLD end date count whole calendar months to the register date, never to today; a project counts as past its DLD end date from one full month.

The DLD end date is the one in the latest register reading, and DLD can revise it. From 28 October 2026 we keep every reading and log each reload with its date; the project page lists every change.

When the register we hold is more than 45 days old, no page, list or share card shows months past the DLD end date: pages show only the DLD end date and the register date, and lists of projects past their DLD end date are hidden until a newer reading loads.

Planned period elapsed = (register date − start date) / (DLD end date − start date). Over 100% means the DLD end date has passed.

planned period elapsed = (register date − start date) ÷ (DLD end date − start date)Example: start 3 Oct 2024, DLD end date 31 Dec 2028, register date 1 Nov 2026: 759 ÷ 1,550 days = 49%

03Our completion calculation New

From the last two DLD readings at least 60 days apart we work out the recent pace, in percentage points a month, and the % built that pace gives on the register date. A reading that repeats the % before it counts from the day that % was first given.

There is no pace when it is not above zero, when the latest reading is more than 12 months older than the register, or once the project is completed.

pace = (latest % − earlier %) ÷ months between the two readings % at the register date = latest % + pace × months since the latest reading, never above 100Example: 13.0% and, 4.8 months later, 17.9%: (17.9 − 13.0) ÷ 4.8 = 1.0 point a month; a month after the latest reading ≈ 18.9%

It describes the recent pace only. We never turn it into a completion or handover date, and it carries the label “Our calculation from DLD data” wherever it appears.

04Dates read from satellite imagery New

We look at dated historical satellite imagery of a project’s plot and note the month in which we first see each stage:

• Works started: the site is cleared, fenced or piled.
• Structure rising: floors appear above ground.
• Topped out: the structure reaches its full height.
• Finished: the facades are complete and the site is cleared.

Images are not taken every month, and cloud or gaps between images widen the range, so each date shows as a month ± 6 months. A stage we have not seen yet reads “Not seen yet”.

We show only the months, labelled “Our calculation from DLD data”, never the images themselves. These dates are our reading, not DLD’s.

05Developer delivery record

Counts cover every project with the same DLD developer number. That is one legal entity: companies of the same group are shown separately.

Median build time is the median number of months from start to completion over the developer’s completed projects; medians need at least 3 projects.

For completed projects we show how many finished a month or more after the DLD end date and how many have a completion date equal to the DLD end date. In 69% of completed projects in the register the two dates are the same day, which suggests DLD sets the end date at completion, so completed projects can show a smaller gap than there was.

CraneScore gives no score, rank or rating to developers; the figures are DLD data only.

06Launch price and latest registered sales

Launch price = median AED/sqft of the project's off-plan home sales in the 90 days from its first one. It is shown only when that first sale is on or after 1 March 2020: our sales data starts in January 2020, and an earlier first sale may not be the launch. Skyline Index uses the same rule.

Latest = median AED/sqft of the project's home sales, ready and off-plan, in the last 12 months after the launch window; for a project launched within those 12 months, only the sales after its window count. Each side needs at least 5 sales.

Sales more than 4 times above or below their window’s median are left out as likely errors.

Change = the same home types on both sides (type and bedroom count with at least 5 sales each), weighted by the later sales; it shows only when those types cover enough of the later sales. The bedroom table compares the launch window with the last 6 months (12 when 6 have fewer than 5 sales).

Off-plan registrations include both developer sales and resales; DLD open data does not tell them apart.

Market context: the Dubai Statistics Center index change from the launch quarter to the latest quarter, for flats or villas by the project’s main unit type.

07DLD area price line

The grey dashed line beside a project's price line is its DLD area: the median AED/sqft of registered home sales in the same DLD area, of the same home type as the project's figures (apartments, villas and townhouses, or hotel apartments), by quarter. Open projects compare with the area's off-plan sales, completed projects with its ready sales.

Whole-unit sales with a size only. A quarter with fewer than 5 sales is left as a gap, never drawn as 0. The latest quarter is usually partial and runs to the last registered sale date. The line is not adjusted for the mix of projects sold each quarter, so a quarter with many large or prime units reads higher.

The area is DLD's own area, as the register names it, not a marketing community name.

08Registered sales and the report's evidence

Project pages list the newest registered sales as DLD publishes them: date, off-plan or ready, type and bedrooms, size, price and AED/sqft. DLD publishes no buyer or seller names. A page shows the newest 10, and up to 50 on request; there is no download.

Off-plan registrations include sales by the developer and resales; DLD's open data does not tell them apart.

The project report has a section with each figure and how many registered sales it uses, and lists those among the project's newest 50, each of which is also free on the project page. For estimates over comparable projects only the project's own sales are counted; estimates over the community are not listed.

The records are DLD open data, published on Dubai Data under the Dubai Data Open Data Licence, which stays the place to get them.

• DLD Transactions on Dubai Data
• Dubai Data Open Data Licence (PDF)

09What launch buyers got, and a developer's completed projects

On a completed project, the launch price (the median AED/sqft of off-plan sales in the 90 days from the first one, 2020 onward) is compared with ready resales in the 12 months after the DLD completion date, or 24 when 12 hold fewer than 5. The change compares the same home types, weighted by the resales. Ready homes in the DLD area over the same two windows give the change around it.

A price change is not a return: it leaves out the DLD fee, agent fees, service charges, rent received and the payment plan.

A developer's page shows medians over its completed projects that have both windows: the change from launch to resale, the area's change over the same spans and the time between the windows, and the median gross yield of those with enough rents. A median needs at least 3 projects. A developer with too few completed projects of its own shows its group's figures, named as the group's.

10Estimated value range

The range comes from our automated valuation model over the project's registered off-plan sales: a bedroom count needs at least 5 off-plan sales in the 12 months to the newest one. Ranges are rounded to AED 10,000 and show the number of sales, the window and the level the model compared at (the project, else its building or community).

Automated estimate from registered off-plan sales (developer sales and resales mixed); not a valuation by a registered valuer; not for mortgage or court use.

Where no level has enough sales, the page says so instead of showing a range.

Coverage on the DLD register of 1 November 2026: of 1,239 projects under construction, 1,183 (95%) get an estimate for their most sold unit type, 826 at project level and 357 from their community. The other 56 have too few registered sales at every level (52) or no matching place in the model (4). The median estimate rests on 43 sales.

Automated estimate, not a valuation

11Resale asking prices

Premium = the asking price against the offer’s original price, with the 4% DLD fee removed on both sides. A negative premium means asking below the original price.

Offers with a premium of 50% or more either way, and offers whose price looks misread, are left out.

A project figure needs at least 5 offers. By share of the price already paid (under 30%, 30–49%, 50–69%, 70% or more) the all-Dubai figure is shown next to the project’s.

Portal asking median: listings for the project’s place in the last 30 days, at least 5.

12Rents and gross yield

Rents come from DLD's Ejari open data: new contracts for one unit, with renewals and contracts over several units left out. For each bedroom count, the median annual rent of the last 12 months is compared with the 12 months before; a figure needs 5 contracts, a change 5 in both years.

Completed projects show their own rents and a gross yield: the median annual rent over the median registered ready sale price of the same bedroom count in the project over the same 12 months, when there are at least 10 such sales. It is before service charges, maintenance, empty months and other costs, so the net yield is lower.

Projects not completed yet show the rent level and its change across their DLD area, without a yield. A tracked unit's page shows the yield on the owner's own purchase price instead of a market price.

13Service charges

Service charges are what owners pay a year in completed buildings, from the owners’ association budgets DLD publishes. For a project’s master community we show the median AED per sq ft a year of its residential budgets, each development counted once, in the newest budget year with at least 10 developments.

Apartment buildings and villas are kept apart where the budgets tell them apart. Plots, shared areas and hotel rooms are left out. A budget is not any one owner’s bill, and a building’s own charge is set by its own budget.

14Registered units and mortgages

Registered units count the project’s units in DLD’s units register by type and bedrooms, with villas from its buildings register. Sizes are the middle half of the homes’ registered areas (25th to 75th percentile), villas by built-up area.

Mortgage registrations count the home mortgages DLD has registered on the project’s units each quarter, including pre-registrations on off-plan units and lease-to-own registrations; portfolio and developer mortgages are left out. Amounts show from 5 registrations. A registration says nothing about the lender or the terms.

15Payment-plan calculator

The calculator runs in your browser on the figures you enter; nothing is sent or stored.

Construction instalments are equal and spread evenly between booking and handover; post-handover payments are monthly. The DLD fee (4% of the price) and the admin fees are paid at booking.

Handover starts at the DLD end month; the slider moves it later. The developer's median months past the DLD end date is shown as a hint, never applied by default, and not while the register is more than 45 days old.

With a resale price, the unit is sold at handover and the buyer takes over any unpaid balance: profit = resale price − price − fees; return = profit / cash paid by handover; per year = that return spread over the months from booking to handover. Agent fees, mortgage costs and service charges are not included.

16Currencies and units

Today’s rates (9 November 2026)

Every figure is kept as the Dubai Land Department records it, in UAE dirhams and square feet; DLD’s square metres become square feet at 10.7639 sq ft to the m².

You can show prices in one of eight currencies and areas in square feet or square metres, from the menu, the footer or your account. Your choice is kept in a cookie on this device and, once you sign in, with your account.

Pages convert at display, at the day’s rate, for every figure and every point of a chart. Changes in percent stay measured in AED, so a chart shows how Dubai prices moved, not how your currency moved.

The dirham is pegged to the US dollar at 3.6725 AED. The other currencies take the day’s rates from ExchangeRate-API, with the European Central Bank’s reference rates as the fallback (the ECB publishes no rouble rate).

A rate that moves more than 10% in a day (25% for the rouble and the lira) is held back until the next reading confirms it. Rates older than 72 hours are not used: pages then show AED and say so.

Prices we charge are always in AED, and so are the figures of your own unit that come from your SPA: purchase price, payment plan, paid and still due. An amount shown in another currency is a conversion for reference.

Estimate ranges are rounded to AED 10,000. In another currency each end is converted, then rounded to 1,000 (USD, EUR, GBP), 10,000 (CNY, TRY) or 100,000 (RUB, INR).

• Rates By Exchange Rate API

17Places near a project

A project’s map pin comes from its Dubai Municipality plot, from Makani or from our own team where we can match it: those pins are exact. A pin standing for several plots, a property-portal location or an OpenStreetMap name match is approximate and drawn with a dashed ring. A project we cannot place gets no pin and no distances: we never put one at the centre of its area.

Metro and tram stations come from the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) via Dubai Data; malls, hospitals, supermarkets, schools, parks and beaches from OpenStreetMap. Distances are straight lines, rounded to 10 m.

The filter that picks the OpenStreetMap places is published below, so anyone can run it again.

• OpenStreetMap filter (plain text, English)
• Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors

18Communities

A community is a Dubai Municipality community outline. A DLD project belongs to the one its land parcels lie in, or else to the one its DLD area falls in.

A community page maps its projects not yet completed with their units by DLD end year, and shows the area’s prices and rents, service charges and the newest registered sales, each by the rules on this page.

19Thresholds and limits

No figure is made from fewer than 5 sales or offers. Where a project has less, the page says so instead of showing a smaller sample.

Every DLD project number has a page. Projects without an English name show as "Project {number}" with the Arabic name from the register. They, projects no longer in DLD's feed and projects hidden after a correction are not offered to search engines.

A project page is offered to search engines only when at least 4 of these hold real numbers: progress (a reading and a DLD end date), launch vs latest (5 sales on each side), the estimated value (5 sales), the developer’s delivery record (3 values) and 5 sales in 24 months. Up to 200 open projects with 10 or more sales in 24 months qualify first.

Figures describe registered data. They are not valuations, forecasts or investment advice.

20Independence

CraneScore is not part of, or affiliated with, the Dubai Land Department or any other government body. DLD open data is used as published; DLD has not reviewed these pages.

Every project and developer goes through the same rules on this page. Nobody can pay to change, add or remove a figure.

We do not share your details with brokers, developers or partners: requests you send through our forms stay with CraneScore.

Nothing here is legal, tax or investment advice. Before you buy, check the project in the DLD register, read the sale contract and take professional advice.

21Updates and corrections

Figures are rebuilt from each new DLD register reading, and each reload is logged with its date. If a figure looks wrong, use "Report a data error" on the project page: we check it against the DLD register, correct our own errors within 5 working days and log each correction with its date.