The short answer
A home is below market only if it asks less than what similar homes in the same building actually sold for recently. Not what other sellers are asking, not the average for the whole area, and not a price per square foot taken from homes of a very different size.
This is the check we run on every listing before it appears on our hot deals list. You can run it yourself on any home you are considering.
Step 1: Compare with sales, not with other listings
Asking prices tell you what sellers hope to get. Registered sales tell you what buyers paid. In Dubai every sale is recorded by the Dubai Land Department (DLD), and those records are the only honest baseline.
A listing that is cheaper than the other listings in its building can still be more expensive than what that building's homes actually sell for. If all the asking prices are high, being the cheapest ask is not a deal.
Step 2: Same building, same bedrooms
Area averages hide big differences: within one community, a new tower and an older building next door can sell at very different prices per square foot. Compare a home only with sales in its own building, and only with homes that have the same number of bedrooms.
If the building has too few sales to compare against, say so to yourself honestly: there is no reliable "usual price" yet. We do not list a home as a deal unless its building has at least 10 comparable sales in the last 12 months.
Step 3: Similar size, or the per-sqft maths lies
This is the trap that catches most buyers. Bigger homes usually sell for less per square foot than smaller ones in the same building. So if you multiply a building's typical price per sqft by a much bigger home's size, you invent a discount.
A real case from our own checks:
| The listing | The building's two-bedroom sales | |
|---|---|---|
| Size | 2,378 sqft | 1,159 to 1,340 sqft (24 sales) |
| Price per sqft | AED 884 | Median AED 1,268 |
| "Usual price" by per-sqft maths | AED 3.0M | |
| Asking price | AED 2.1M |
On paper that looks 30% below market. In reality not one of the 24 sales was of a similar size, so there is nothing to compare it with. We compare only with sales within about a third of the home's own size, and this listing never made our list.
Step 4: Use the median, and check the units
- Use the median, not the average. One penthouse or one distressed sale can drag an average a long way. The median, the middle sale, is not moved by a single outlier.
- Check the units. DLD records sizes in square metres. Listings in Dubai usually quote square feet. One square metre is 10.764 square feet, so a price per sqm read as a price per sqft makes everything look ten times more expensive, and a mix-up the other way makes everything look ten times cheaper.
- Off-plan is a separate market. An off-plan resale competes with the developer's own current price list as well as with past sales. Ask what the developer is charging today for a similar unit.
Step 5: Check the advert's permit
Every property advert in Dubai must show a Trakheesi permit number and its QR code, issued to the agency that is advertising it. Scan the QR: it should open the permit and match the property and the agency in front of you. No permit, or a permit belonging to someone else, is a reason to stop, however good the price looks.
A worked example
In Zada Tower in Business Bay, 34 one-bedroom apartments of a similar size sold over the last 12 months at a median of AED 2,094 per sqft. For a 551 sqft one-bedroom that gives a usual price of about AED 1.15M. A similar one-bedroom asking AED 1.03M would be about 11% below what that building's one-bedrooms actually sell for, and that is the kind of gap worth acting on.
The same building, the same bedrooms, a similar size, enough sales, the median, and a valid permit: when all six line up, the discount is real.
Where to see this done for you
Our hot deals page runs exactly this check every morning on the homes we sell, and shows the comparison on each card: the usual price, the asking price, how many sales it is based on, and the listing's permit. It also tracks the off-plan projects selling fastest, counted from DLD registrations.