Investor Tools
Rental Yield Calculator
Set the inputs, see the net yield
Investor Tools
Rental Yield Calculator
Model the gross and net return on a Dubai buy-to-let purchase — including service charges, void periods and acquisition costs — in seconds.
Estimates for guidance only, assuming full-year occupancy net of the vacancy allowance above. Actual returns depend on financing, unit condition and market timing — speak to an advisor for a deal-specific model.
Email my results
We’ll send this summary — your figures and the results — to your inbox.
Next step
We'll hunt deals that meet or beat this yield hurdle
Send us this scenario and we'll go into the market against it — on-market and off — qualify what we find, and only come back with what clears your number.
How the calculator works, and how to read what it gives you
Five inputs, six outputs, and arithmetic you can check by hand. Nothing is estimated behind the scenes and no assumption is applied that is not visible as a control on the form above.
What the tool actually computes
The calculator does not consult a database, look up a comparable or apply a house view. It takes the purchase price, the expected annual rent, the annual service charge, a vacancy allowance and a buying-costs percentage, and it runs six calculations on them in the browser. Every one of them is reproducible on paper:
- Gross yieldannual rent ÷ purchase price × 100
- Vacancy lossannual rent × vacancy allowance
- Net annual incomeannual rent − service charges − vacancy loss
- Total cash investedpurchase price × (1 + buying costs %)
- Net rental yieldnet annual income ÷ total cash invested × 100
- Monthly net incomenet annual income ÷ 12
The dial plots net rental yield on a fixed scale from 0% to 10% and changes colour at two points: below 4%, between 4% and 6%, and at 6% and above. Those bands also drive the wording of the badge beside it. They are a reading aid so the dial can be understood at a glance — they are not a benchmark published by any authority, and they make no allowance for asset class, lease length, tenant covenant or location.
A worked example, using the tool’s own defaults
Open the page and the form arrives pre-filled. Those starting figures are there to demonstrate the mechanics, not to describe any particular property, and the fastest way to trust the instrument is to follow them through:
- A purchase price of AED 1,500,000 against an expected annual rent of AED 105,000 gives a gross yield of exactly 7.00% — that is 105,000 divided by 1,500,000.
- A 5% vacancy allowance removes AED 5,250 of that rent, on the basis that the unit will not be occupied every single day of the year.
- Subtracting AED 15,000 of service charges and that AED 5,250 vacancy buffer leaves a net annual income of AED 84,750, or AED 7,062.50 a month.
- A 7% buying-costs assumption lifts the cash committed from AED 1,500,000 to AED 1,605,000 — the price plus the fees required to complete.
- AED 84,750 divided by AED 1,605,000 is a net rental yield of 5.28%.
The headline moves from 7.00% to 5.28% without a single pessimistic assumption about the market: the rent did not fall, the tenant did not default and the price did not change. The entire gap of roughly 172 basis points is service charge, an empty-weeks buffer and the cost of transacting. That gap is the whole reason this page reports two yields instead of one, and it is the number most quoted headline yields quietly omit.
What each input is asking for
Purchase price is the all-in price before transaction costs — the figure on the memorandum of understanding, not the asking price and not the price plus fees. Expected annual rent is the total contracted rent for one year before any charge is deducted. Where an agent has quoted a monthly figure, multiply it out first; where a unit is currently let, use the rent on the signed contract rather than the rent the listing hopes to achieve on renewal.
Service charges should be entered annualised, and should include the community or master-community element as well as the building charge. They are set by the owners’ association or the developer rather than by you, they are reviewed periodically, and a building with an expensive plant room, a chilled-water plant or an under-funded reserve fund can carry a materially higher charge than a neighbour that looks identical from the street.
Vacancy allowance runs from 0% to 15% of rent and covers the weeks between tenancies as well as any rent-free period conceded to secure a letting. Setting it to zero asserts that the unit is never empty for a day. Buying costs runs from 0% to 10% and is added to the price to build the cash invested. Use the Buying Costs Calculator to derive that percentage properly rather than guessing it: the transfer fee, the agency commission and the VAT on it, trustee registration and, where relevant, mortgage registration all sit inside that one slider.
Where the model deliberately stops
The result is an unlevered, pre-tax, income-only figure. It contains no mortgage interest and no capital repayment, so it is not a measure of what a geared investor banks. It contains no capital growth and no exit assumption, so a low-yielding asset in a location an investor expects to appreciate will always look worse here than their thesis implies. It contains no letting or property-management fee unless you fold one into the service-charge field yourself, no allowance for fit-out or refurbishment between tenants, and no view on whether the rent you entered is achievable at all.
It is, in other words, a clean comparison instrument. Feed two properties through it on the same assumptions and the difference you see is a real difference between the assets. Feed one property through it and treat the answer as a decision, and you are relying on a model that was never asked about half of your economics.
Risk warnings worth taking seriously
- Service charges are not fixed. They are reviewed and can rise, and a rise lands entirely on your net income. A charge that moves materially will move net yield more than most investors expect, because the charge is subtracted from income while the price in the denominator stays put.
- Rent is not guaranteed for the holding period. A renewal is negotiated, not automatic. Build the possibility of a flat or reduced renewal into your own view before treating a single year’s contracted rent as a permanent income line.
- Void periods are lumpy, not smooth. A vacancy allowance spreads an empty period evenly across a year. Reality delivers it as one continuous gap at an inconvenient moment, which is a cash-flow problem as well as a yield problem.
- Valuation is not price. If you intend to borrow, the lender will advance against its own valuation or the purchase price, whichever is lower. A valuation that comes in under the agreed price changes the cash you need and therefore the denominator in this calculation.
- The fee assumptions behind the buying-costs slider are market practice, not policy. Government fees, agency commission and lender charges are set by third parties and can change. Treat any percentage you carry over from the Buying Costs Calculator as an estimate to be confirmed for your specific transaction.
- Estimates are not advice. Nothing this tool produces is financial, tax or investment advice, and no output should be relied on as the basis of an offer.
Who this calculator is for
It is built for the investor comparing several units and needing one consistent basis on which to rank them; for the first-time Dubai buy-to-let purchaser who has been quoted a gross yield and wants to know what survives the charges; for the owner testing whether a re-let at a new rent justifies a void; and for the seller who wants to understand the arithmetic a buyer will run on the asking price before it is run on them. It is not built to replace a deal-specific model, a lender’s affordability assessment or a valuation.
Want these figures pressure-tested against real units rather than assumptions? Send the scenario over and we will go into the market against it.
Speak to usRental yield questions we are asked most
What is the difference between gross and net rental yield?
Gross yield divides one year of rent by the purchase price and stops there. Net yield takes the same rent, subtracts the service charges and the vacancy allowance you set, and divides the result by the cash actually committed — the purchase price plus the buying-costs percentage. Gross yield tells you how the asset is priced against its rent roll. Net yield is closer to what reaches your account.
Does the calculator include mortgage payments?
No. The result is an unlevered figure: it assumes the property is bought for cash and it never subtracts interest or capital repayments. That is deliberate, because it lets you compare two properties on their own merits before financing is layered on. Model the debt separately in the Mortgage Calculator, then read the two together.
What should I put in the vacancy allowance?
The slider runs from 0% to 15% of annual rent and is a buffer for the weeks a unit sits empty between tenants, plus any rent-free period you concede to win a letting. Leaving it at zero assumes the unit is never empty for a single day across the whole holding period, which is the single most optimistic assumption available on this form.
Why do buying costs change the yield if they are a one-off?
Because they change the denominator, not the income. The buying-costs slider is applied to the purchase price to give total cash invested, so a transaction that costs more to complete earns the same rent on a larger commitment. That is what makes the headline a cash-on-cash figure rather than a rent-to-price ratio.
Are the colours on the dial a market benchmark?
No. The gauge plots net yield on a fixed 0% to 10% scale and changes colour below 4%, between 4% and 6%, and at 6% and above. Those thresholds are a reading aid built into the component so the dial can be understood at a glance. They are not published by any authority and they take no account of asset class, lease length, tenant covenant or location.
Can I use this for commercial property as well as residential?
The arithmetic is asset-neutral, so yes — rent, service charges, voids and buying costs behave the same way on an office floor, a warehouse or an apartment. For a commercial asset you may also want the Commercial Property Value Estimator, which works the other way round: it starts from net operating income and applies a capitalisation rate to estimate value.
Can you send me these numbers?
Yes. Every calculator on the site has an email-my-results panel under the figures: enter your address and the inputs you set and the outputs they produced are sent to you as they appear on screen. Sending the scenario to us as an enquiry also puts it in front of the team, who will go into the market against it.
The rest of the toolkit
4 more tools that work from your own figures, on the same set of Dubai investment questions.
