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Methodology

We show our math.

Every number on EstateForge has a method behind it. This page explains exactly how we calculate rent, comps, developer scores, and market signals — including what we don't know and won't claim.

Transparency is the only moat that compounds.

In UAE real estate, most "market data" comes from developer brochures, broker spreadsheets, and listing portals. The numbers in those sources are anchored to a sale, not a fact. They tell you what someone wants the price to be, not what the market has actually paid.

We built EstateForge as the opposite of that. Every estimate ships with its source, its method, and its uncertainty. If you can't tell where a number came from, you can't trust it — and we'd rather lose your subscription than lose your trust.

This page is how we hold ourselves to that.

Real Rent estimates

What we estimate

The current achievable monthly rent for a unit, broken down by community, building, unit size, and bedroom count.

Sources

  • Dubai Land Department (DLD) Ejari registry — registered tenancy contracts, anonymised at the unit level.
  • Listing observations from active UAE portals (asking rents, not transacted).
  • Subscriber-submitted deal data — for users who opt in to contribute closed-deal rents.

Method

A rolling 90-day window of registered tenancy contracts in the same building, normalised to a standard unit size and adjusted for view, floor band, and finish grade. Where building-level data is too thin, the window widens to comparable buildings within the same sub-community, with a clear flag in the UI showing the data density.

Update cadence

Weekly, on Mondays at 09:00 Gulf Standard Time. Each estimate carries a "data as of" date stamp.

What we won't claim

That any single estimate is a guaranteed achievable rent. Estimates are point values with an explicit confidence band — wider when data is thin, tighter when it's dense. We will never tell you a number is "the rent." We tell you it is the best inference from the data we have.

Comps

What we surface

Recent sale transactions for the same community, building, and unit type. Each comp shows price, date, unit size, floor, sale type, and a link to the underlying DLD record where one is public.

Sources

DLD public transaction registry — the canonical source for every UAE property sale.

Method

Raw transactions, deduplicated to remove duplicate registrations of the same sale, then normalised into two streams: off-plan (developer-direct sales of unbuilt or under-construction units) and ready-property (resale of completed units). Each comp is flagged with its sale type so you're not comparing an off-plan launch price to a ready-secondary sale.

Update cadence

Within 48 hours of DLD publication. Some categories of transactions lag DLD's own publication by days or weeks — we publish on their cadence, not ours.

What we won't claim

That comps predict the price your specific unit will sell for. Comps are evidence. Price is decided by buyer and seller. We surface the evidence; the decision is yours.

Developer Scorecards

What we score

Active UAE residential property developers on five dimensions:

  1. Delivery reliability — on-time completion of past projects
  2. Build quality — post-handover defect rates and snagging volume
  3. Post-handover service — responsiveness and service-charge transparency
  4. Financial stability — escrow compliance, project funding posture, regulatory standing
  5. Price discipline — alignment between launch pricing and realised resale values

Each developer gets a score on each dimension (0–100) and a weighted composite score. Weights are published below the scorecard so you can see exactly how the composite was built.

Sources

  • DLD project completion status and project release timing data
  • RERA escrow compliance records
  • User-submitted post-handover reports from EstateForge subscribers (verified)
  • Public regulatory actions, news, and court records

Method

Each dimension is calculated from its own data set, then normalised to a 0–100 scale against the cohort of all active UAE developers. The composite weights each dimension as follows:

DimensionWeight
Delivery reliability30%
Build quality25%
Post-handover service15%
Financial stability20%
Price discipline10%

Scores are refreshed quarterly. Each developer's page shows the score, the underlying inputs, and the change since the previous quarter — including any score that moved by more than 5 points and why.

What we won't claim

  • That a high score guarantees future delivery. Conditions change; developers change.
  • That a low score makes a developer uninvestable. A weak score is a flag for due diligence, not a verdict.
  • That our methodology captures every factor. We list the factors we use; there are others we don't try to score.

Market Signals

What we surface

Aggregate market indicators by community: supply (under-construction unit pipeline), demand (rental velocity, sale velocity), price momentum, and rental yield trend.

Sources

  • DLD project pipeline and registered transactions
  • Our own observation of asking-to-closing time on portal listings
  • Subscriber-submitted deal velocity (opt-in)

Method

Each indicator is published as an index series, normalised to 100 against a rolling 24-month baseline for that community. Charts show percentage change vs baseline and vs prior period, with raw counts shown on hover or tap.

Update cadence

Monthly, on the first Monday of each month.

What we won't claim

That market signals predict price direction. They describe what is happening, not what will happen. We don't run forecasts on this page, and we don't sell forecasts elsewhere.

What we are not.

We are not a valuer.

No EstateForge number is a regulated valuation and none of our estimates substitute for one. For a regulated valuation, engage a RICS-accredited valuer or a UAE-registered valuation firm.

We are not a broker.

We don't represent buyers or sellers in transactions. The brokers and developers featured on the platform are independent parties; their presence on EstateForge is not an endorsement of any specific deal.

We are not a financial advisor.

Nothing on EstateForge — including this page, our data products, our scorecards, or any communications from us — constitutes financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Use the data alongside qualified advisors who know your specific situation.

Confidence and change tracking.

Two things that should be visible at all times: how confident the data is, and what changed since you last looked.

Confidence bands
every estimate ships with a confidence band that reflects how much data is behind it. Wide bands mean thin data; tight bands mean dense data. We never hide a wide band to make a number look more certain.
Methodology versioning
when we change how something is calculated, we publish a versioned change note dated to the day the change went live. We never silently re-fit historical data.
Change log
every material methodology update is logged at /methodology/changes (page TBD). Each entry includes what changed, why, and when.

If a number looks wrong, tell us.

We're not above being corrected. If you see a rent estimate, comp, scorecard input, or market signal that you believe is wrong, send it to data@estateforge.ae with three things:

  1. The exact unit, building, comp, or signal in question.
  2. The source of your correction (Ejari contract, DLD record, public document — links or screenshots welcome).
  3. Your contact details, so we can follow up if we need clarification.

We re-check within five working days, publish a correction where warranted, and credit the source where requested.

Read these alongside the methodology: