Dubai Land Department records whether a registered tenancy contract is a new one or a renewal. Aggregate that across an area and you get something a yield calculation never shows you: how often the tenant actually changes.
The pattern runs opposite to the yield pattern. The apartments that earn the most per dirham invested are the ones whose tenants leave soonest. Figures below are new tenancies as a share of all registered contracts, 90 days to 2 August 2026, with the contract count behind each share.
Where the churn is steepest
Business Bay shows the clearest gradient in the data, on the deepest counts. 72.6% of its 1,116 studio contracts were new tenants — nearly three in four. One-beds ran 65.1% of 1,528 contracts, two-beds 47.0% of 1,081, and three-beds 42.9% of 471. From studio to three-bed the churn rate almost halves.
JLT runs the same shape from a lower base: 62.1% of 456 studio contracts, 54.5% of 945 one-bedroom, 52.8% of 409 two-bedroom, 42.8% of 325 three-bedroom.
Downtown Dubai declines steadily too: 70.4% of 199 studio contracts, 62.4% of 892 one-bedroom, 58.8% of 817 two-bedroom, 50.7% of 353 three-bedroom.
Dubai Marina starts high and then flattens rather than continuing down: 70.4% of 372 studio contracts, 58.1% of 1,720 one-bedroom, 54.0% of 1,749 two-bedroom, 55.8% of 819 three-bedroom. Even its most settled segment turns over more than half its tenants inside the window.
Palm Jumeirah has the highest studio churn we record — 76.7% of 73 contracts — then 65.1% of 295 one-bedroom and 53.3% of 469 two-bedroom, before rising again to 63.1% of 369 three-bedroom.
What a new tenancy actually costs you
A renewal costs an owner almost nothing. The tenant stays, the contract is re-registered, the rent arrives.
A new tenancy costs a void, a re-let, and usually a commission. On a Business Bay studio at the registered median of AED 60,000 a year, every month empty is AED 5,000 gone. Two weeks of turnaround, twice in a year, is a fortnight's rent each time before you have paid anyone to find the tenant.
Now set that against the yield figures. A Business Bay studio shows a 5.73% gross yield and a Business Bay three-bedroom 4.43%. On paper the studio wins comfortably. But 72.6% of studio contracts were new tenants against 42.9% at three bedrooms — so the studio is carrying materially more turnover cost inside that headline number, and the real gap between the two is narrower than 5.73 against 4.43 suggests.
Gross yield is rent over price. It does not know about voids, and no published yield figure does.
The two areas that break the pattern
DIFC inverts it entirely. One-bedrooms ran 51.6% of 91 contracts against three-bedrooms at 69.2% of 39, with two-beds between at 57.7% of 123. That is the opposite of everywhere else — the large units churn and the small ones stay. The counts are thin, so this is a signal to check rather than a conclusion, but it is a real inversion in the data, not noise around a flat line.
Dubai Creek Harbour and Creek Beach is flat.60.5% of 554 one-bedroom contracts, 59.8% of 632 two-bedroom, 61.4% of 306 three-bedroom. Those are healthy counts, and the flatness is consistent with the other Creek finding: its gross yields barely move with bedroom count either. It behaves like a district where unit size does not sort tenants into different behaviours, which is unusual.
Palm Jumeirah deserves a separate note. It carries both the highest studio churn we record and a three-bedroom figure that climbs back to 63.1%. High three-bedroom churn on a segment already showing the lowest gross yield in our data (2.84%) is a combination worth understanding before buying into it.
What to do with this
If you are buying for income, ask what the yield is net of turnover. The registry cannot tell you your void period, but it can tell you how often the segment changes hands. A segment where seven in ten contracts are new tenants is a segment where you will be re-letting, and that belongs in the model before you commit.
If you already own a small unit, the churn is not a fault to fix — it is the shape of the asset. Studios and one-beds serve people whose plans change: new arrivals, single professionals, people between leases. That is why the rent per square foot is high, and it is the same reason the tenant leaves.
And this is precisely the case where the letting model matters. If a segment is going to turn over anyway, the annual contract is buying you less certainty than it appears to — you are accepting a fixed twelve-month price and a locked rate, on an apartment that has a better-than-even chance of needing a new tenant at the end of it regardless. Short and mid-term letting treats turnover as the normal operating condition rather than as a failure, and prices to the month instead of to last year.
The honest comparison is arithmetic, in your building: what a registered annual tenancy closes at, less the turnover you are actually carrying, against what short and mid-term stays achieve net of the work.
Registered contracts, new-versus-renewal shares, rents and sale transfers by area and bedroom count are published weekly on our Market Gauge.
Sources, checked 2 August 2026
- New-tenancy share of registered contracts, registered rent medians, and gross yields — Dubai Land Department open data, Ejari contracts and property sale transfers, apartments only, 90 days to 2 August 2026, via the Solayra Market Gauge feed.
- Every share is shown with the contract count it was calculated from. Dubai Creek Harbour and DIFC recorded no studio contracts in the window.
Turnover cost illustrations are arithmetic on the published registered median, not observed void periods. We do not publish our own occupancy figures.
Solayra Holiday Homes Management runs short and mid-term letting for owners and investors across some of Dubai’s most sought-after areas — including Dubai Marina, JBR, Downtown, DIFC, and Dubai Creek Beach. Every apartment is DTCM registered and priced against extensive market data, and you see the occupancy and every dirham as it earns. See what your apartment could be doing on the Market Gauge, read what we do for owners, investors, investment companies and agents & partners, or write to us at owners@solayra.com.
