MITCHELL'S DUBAI COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE INDEX
Methodology. The Mitchell's Dubai Commercial Real Estate Index ("the Index") is constructed from Dubai Land Department transaction records published via data.dubai. Each monthly point is the median AED-per-square-foot of all sale transactions registered against commercial-use units (Office and Retail sub-types) in that calendar month, normalised to a base value of 100 set at January 2009. Hotel and serviced-apartment assets are reported separately under the Dubai Land Department's Hospitality classification and are not part of this Index. Land transactions and whole-building transactions are reported separately in our Institutional Asset Tracker. Mortgage registrations are excluded to prevent double-counting. The top and bottom 1% of monthly transactions by price are trimmed each quarter to reduce the influence of outlier deals. Three-month rolling default. The headline Index value uses a three-month pooled median: every month's index point is computed from the median of all qualifying transactions over the trailing three-month window. The Monthly toggle exposes the unsmoothed monthly median for users who want to see raw market activity. The three-month view dampens noise from composition shifts — for example, a single new development launch dominating a quiet month — without altering the underlying methodology. Base period. The Index is normalised to January 2009 = 100. Pre-2009 Dubai Land Department digital records are sparse and inconsistent, with insufficient monthly volume to support a stable earlier base. The Index history therefore begins on this date. Data lag. Dubai Land Department transaction records are typically published with a lag of three to fourteen days from registration date. The most recent monthly point may therefore be revised upward as additional transactions are reported. Points older than three months are stable. Sample size. Months with fewer than thirty underlying transactions are flagged as low-confidence on the chart. The Index reflects what was sold in that month, not what is for sale; in periods of low transaction volume, the Index is more sensitive to composition shifts. Sub-segment indices. Office and Retail sub-segment indices are constructed identically to the headline All Commercial Index, but restricted to the relevant Dubai Land Department property sub-type. Other commercial sub-types — Showroom, Gymnasium and similar — lacked the monthly volume to support a separate index and have been excluded from the published series. Currency. AED is primary. USD equivalents are shown at the UAE Central Bank's published peg of 1 USD = 3.6725 AED, fixed since 1997. GBP and EUR conversions, where shown, use end-of-day rates from a public foreign-exchange feed. REIT correlation. Where the Index is shown alongside a correlation coefficient with Emirates REIT or ENBD REIT, the figure represents the Pearson correlation of monthly index movements over the trailing thirty-six months. Correlation does not imply causation, and REIT performance reflects portfolio composition, leverage, and management decisions that the Index does not. Source and attribution. Transaction data is sourced from the Dubai Land Department via data.dubai under the Dubai Open Data Licence. The Index methodology, weighting, and presentation are proprietary to Mitchell's Commercial Realty. Disclaimer. The Index is published for general information only. It is not investment advice, financial advice, or a recommendation to transact in any property or security. Mitchell's Commercial Realty makes no warranty as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the data, the Index, or any analysis derived from it. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Property markets are illiquid, location-specific, and subject to regulation; readers should consult qualified advisors before making investment decisions. All trademarks and source data are the property of their respective owners.
INTRODUCTION
The Mitchell's Dubai Commercial Real Estate Index is a publicly accessible, daily-updated benchmark of unit-level office and retail prices in Dubai. It is the first such index made freely available to the market. The Index draws on Dubai Land Department transaction records published via data.dubai and covers the period from January 2009 through the current calendar month, with three published sub-indices: All Commercial, Office, and Retail.
Our objective is straightforward. Dubai's residential property market is well-served by public benchmarks. Its commercial market is not. The Index addresses that gap, with a transparent methodology and unedited source data.
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WHAT THE INDEX MEASURES
The Index reports the median price per square foot of all qualifying sale transactions registered against commercial-use units in Dubai. Hotel and serviced-apartment assets, which the Dubai Land Department classifies under Hospitality rather than Commercial, are excluded — these behave more like residential investments and would distort a benchmark of true commercial property values. Land transactions and whole-building transactions are reported separately in our Institutional Asset Tracker.
Every monthly point is normalised to a base value of 100, set at January 2009. An Index value of 200 means median commercial unit prices that month were twice the level of January 2009. The current Index value, the dates of historical peaks and troughs, and the percentage change since base are surfaced directly in the headline above the chart.
WHY WE BUILT IT
Several public benchmarks track Dubai's residential market. The Mo'asher index, published quarterly by the Dubai Land Department, is the official residential reference. DXBInteract, Property Monitor, and individual brokerage research desks publish their own residential figures. None of these publish a continuous, transparent commercial-only index.
The gap matters. Commercial real estate in Dubai trades at materially different yields, on a different supply curve, and against a different mix of investor demand than residential. Institutional investors, family offices, and developers evaluating Dubai's commercial pipeline require a benchmark calibrated to their asset class — not a residential-led indicator that obscures commercial cycles. Mid-market investors considering a transition from residential portfolios into commercial holdings need a comparable historical reference to assess timing and relative value.
The Index has been designed to serve both. The methodology is intentionally simple, the source data is unedited, and the construction is fully disclosed in the section above.
HOW TO READ THE INDEX
Two views and three segments are available at the top of the chart.
The default 3-month rolling view smooths short-term composition shifts. A single new development closing many off-plan units in an otherwise quiet month would otherwise distort the monthly figure; the rolling view dampens this effect by computing each point as the median across a trailing three-month window of transactions. The Monthly toggle exposes the unsmoothed monthly median for users who want the raw trace, including its volatility.
Three sub-indices are selectable.
1
ALL COMMERCIAL
Combines Office and Retail transactions into a single headline value. This is the broadest measure of commercial unit prices in Dubai and the appropriate reference for portfolio-level analysis.
OFFICE
2
Restricts the Index to the Office sub-type. Office accounts for roughly 80% of all Dubai commercial unit transactions and is the most reliable benchmark of underlying institutional commercial property value. The Office sub-index is broadly comparable to office-price indices in mature global markets, with the caveat that Dubai's commercial freehold inventory is concentrated in a smaller number of master-developments — Business Bay, DIFC, JLT, Downtown — than is typical of cities such as London or Singapore.
3
RETAIL
Restricts the Index to the Retail sub-type, classified by the Dubai Land Department under the property sub-type "Shop". Retail covers street-level retail units, mall units, and similar standalone retail premises. Retail accounts for roughly 19% of commercial unit transactions and tends to be more sensitive than Office to footfall, mall positioning, and tourism flows.
SOURCE AND ATTRIBUTION
Transaction data is sourced from the Dubai Land Department via data.dubai under the Dubai Open Data Licence. The Index methodology, weighting, and presentation are proprietary to Mitchell's Commercial Real Estate.
THE COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITY
Commercial real estate in Dubai is structurally underrepresented in private investor portfolios. Most discretionary capital from regional and overseas individual investors flows into residential — apartments and villas in well-known master communities. Commercial transactions, by contrast, are concentrated among institutional buyers: real estate investment trusts, family offices, sovereign wealth funds, and developer-affiliated entities. The information gap is partly cultural — residential is what private investors physically inhabit and intuitively underwrite — and partly structural, because commercial yield benchmarks have not historically been published in a form private investors could easily read. This Index is one effort to close that second gap.
The asset class merits closer attention now for a specific reason. Dubai's residential pipeline has expanded materially over the past five years: master developers continue to launch new towers and communities, and end-buyer demand, while strong, is no longer pricing in the same scarcity premium it did during the post-2020 recovery. Yields on standard residential investment formats — one- and two-bedroom apartments in Marina, JVC, JLT, and similar — have compressed accordingly. Commercial real estate has followed a different trajectory. New office and retail supply in Dubai's primary commercial nodes — Business Bay, DIFC, JLT, Downtown — has been more measured, and yields on prime office and retail units are commonly four to six percentage points above comparable residential. By mature-market standards that is an unusually wide spread.
For residential portfolio investors weighing diversification, this is the basis of the conversation. It is not an argument for wholesale reallocation — residential and commercial play different roles in a balanced property portfolio. It is an argument for considering commercial as the marginal next purchase rather than another residential unit, particularly where the existing portfolio is already concentrated in a single residential asset class. The articles below examine the supply and yield dynamics behind these conditions in greater depth.
