Dubai condos around AED 1.4m–2.1m: is 104 days misleading?

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finn_budgets

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One approach is to read 104 days as evidence that these condos are slow to sell; the other is to assume the active listings are simply the leftovers. I am looking at Dubai properties advertised from AED 1,395,000 to AED 2,092,000, and neither explanation seems sufficient on its own.

Some longer-running listings appear tied to the remaining tenancy period, but condition and seller flexibility may also be involved. Would it be more useful to follow a fixed group of listings through sale, withdrawal or continued marketing, then compare the completed prices? I do not want withdrawn stock to vanish from the analysis or a few determined sellers to define the whole market.
 
The active sample will naturally contain more slow movers because the quick sales leave it. But completed deals create a different blind spot: they exclude withdrawn listings and may not preserve the original listing date. I’d track three groups separately—sold, still active and withdrawn—rather than trying to make one 104-day figure describe all of them.
 
If the area is drawn too broadly, you could mistake a change in the mix of buildings for a change in selling time. I agree with separating active, sold and withdrawn properties, but I would first divide them into tighter neighbourhood and building groups, then match roughly similar sizes and condition.

The reference to lease length also needs clarifying. If you mean the remaining term of an existing tenancy, a vacant unit and a tenanted one may appeal to different buyers even at the same asking price. Once those differences are separated, the 104-day figure will be easier to interpret.
 
I’d also check whether the clock really starts at the first listing. A withdrawn and relisted property can look new even though buyers have already seen it for months. Duplicate advertisements can create the opposite problem. Without cleaning those up, both the 104 days and the apparent number of new listings could be distorted.
 
I’m not convinced completed transactions are the best second opinion on marketing time. They are useful for comparing asking prices with eventual outcomes, but a completed sale may reflect negotiations started earlier. Better to take listings first seen in the same period and follow what happens to each one.
 
A simple working sheet could include first-seen date, latest asking price, date of first reduction, current status, building or tightly defined area, condition, occupancy and whether the listing appears to have been relisted. Then compare the sold and withdrawn groups with those still available. Even without perfect completed data, that would show whether price cuts tend to happen before movement or only after a listing has gone stale.
 
Helena’s point about the first reduction matters. Two homes can both sell after 104 days, but one may have been sensibly priced from day one while the other sat high for 90 days and then cut. Treating those as the same market experience hides seller strategy.
 
Financing may be another divider, although it could be difficult to observe from listings. If you cannot verify how buyers funded completed deals, don’t guess; instead flag properties whose condition, occupancy or seller terms might narrow the buyer pool. Seller motivation is also invisible until a price change or withdrawal gives you a clue.
 
I would go narrower than neighbourhood if the sample allows it. Building-level differences in condition, layout and occupancy can overwhelm a broad price filter. The AED 1,395,000–AED 2,092,000 range is useful for collecting candidates, but it should not be the final comparison group.
 
One basic detail: is 104 days the average or the median, and is it measured from first seen to sale, or simply the current age of online listings? If it is an average of active inventory, a handful of very old units could be driving the result. Show both median and range rather than relying on one number.
 
Recent completed sales can still answer part of the question: whether sellers are actually clearing near the current asking levels. They just cannot independently prove the marketing period unless you can connect each deal to its listing history. I’d use completions for price evidence and the cleaned listing history for timing.
 
Agreed with Mohammed. I’d avoid blending everything into one figure. Build cohorts by first-seen month, then record sold, active or withdrawn status and any price-cut date. Within each cohort, split vacant from tenanted where that information is available. That should reveal whether 104 days reflects the market or mainly older, less attractive survivors.
 
The quickest reality test may be to revisit the same sample in a few weeks. Record new-listing volume, removals, confirmed completions and reductions without resetting relisted units. If many of today’s older listings vanish without a matched sale, the original figure was describing stale or withdrawn stock more than genuine time to buyer.
 
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