This page lists publicly the categories of sources used for the commercial real estate analysis on this site, and explains how the most volatile figures are re-checked before publication. Because this site is published by someone who works in the field it covers, the sourcing is set out in full: it is what allows a reader to check the argument rather than take it on trust. For how the material is prepared, see How This Analysis Is Prepared.
Official and government sources
- Dubai Land Department (DLD) and its DXBinteract portal: transaction volumes, prices, and off-plan versus ready-property splits.
- RERA (Real Estate Regulatory Agency): registration, escrow and licensing rules for the real estate sector.
- Dubai Municipality: planning, building and land-use frameworks.
- DEWA (Dubai Electricity and Water Authority): connection and infrastructure indicators relevant to commercial and logistics assets.
- Dubai Economy and Tourism (DET): business licensing, economic activity and visitor data.
- u.ae (the federal government portal) and WAM (Emirates News Agency): official texts of laws and decrees, and government announcements.
Real estate consultancies
For commercial real estate market data — vacancy, absorption, prime and asking rents, yields by segment, new-stock pipeline — this site relies on public reports from JLL, Knight Frank, CBRE, Savills and Cushman & Wakefield, always citing the report and the quarter a figure originates from.
Additional source categories
- Legal and regulatory framework: official texts of federal and Dubai laws and decrees (for example the escrow-account law governing off-plan sales, and freehold-zone designations for commercial assets), not uncontrasted third-party interpretations.
- Specialised economic press: used as contextual reference, never as the sole source for a market figure.
- Verifiable corporate data: investment and development announcements with an identifiable public source (official statements, public records), not market rumours.
How volatile data is re-checked
Certain indicators change frequently and go stale fast: prime yields, asking rents, segment vacancy and quarterly transaction volumes. Before each publication or relevant update, these figures are checked again against the most recent primary source available; an article does not automatically reuse a figure from an earlier piece without re-checking it. When the available data is not current as of the publication date, the article states that explicitly along with the data’s origin date.
What is not used as a source
The following are not cited as sources of market data: anonymous publications without verifiable authorship, forum or social-media estimates, broker marketing material presented as neutral research, or figures repeated across multiple outlets without any of them identifying the primary origin. When there is reasonable doubt about a figure’s origin, it is omitted rather than published unsupported.