Cash or mortgage
What does each return on your money?
A home priced from registered completed sales, let at the registered new-let rent, bought with cash or with a loan. Drag the loan, the rate and a price scenario; the return on the cash you actually put in is recomputed as you do.
Return on the cash put in, a year · 10-year hold · across price scenarios
Solid: cash. Outlined: mortgage. Bars clipped at −40% and +60%. Dashed line: the crossover.
Cash
+5.2%
AED 1.07M in on day one
Mortgage · 60% loan
+6.3%
AED 470.2K in on day one
The two paths return the same at -1.5% a year over 10 years (-0.2% over 5: the one-off fees weigh less on a longer hold). In this comparison, borrowing raises the annualised return on the cash put in when the home's net yield on price (6.2%) plus the appreciation scenario exceeds the cost of the loan including its fees, and lowers it when it does not. The textbook version — yield plus appreciation against the 4.00% rate — is only roughly right: the one-off fees fall on a smaller stake over a short hold.
The mortgage path leaves AED 595,500 in your hands; the rates above say nothing about what that money earns. If it earned +0.0% a year, the whole sum would return +2.9% against +5.2% for cash — set that in the assumptions.
Assumptions4.00% · 25y term · 10y hold · price AED 1M · rent AED 73K · service AED 11.29K · exit 2%
Every cost left at zero here — vacancy, maintenance, letting fees, insurance, a rate reset after a fixed period, early-settlement charges — is a percentage of the home, not of the stake, so each one hurts the mortgage path more than the cash path once it is counted.
Ledger · what went in and what came out
| Cash | Mortgage | |
|---|---|---|
| Cash in on day oneprice less loan, plus every fee | AED 1,065,700 | AED 470,200 |
| Fees on day oneDLD transfer 4% (DLD) · agency 2% (agent) · trustee AED 4,200 typical (trustee office) · NOC AED 1,500 typical (developer); with a loan, registration 0.25% of the loan (DLD) · valuation AED 3,000 typical (bank) | AED 65,700 | AED 70,200 |
| Mortgage payments, year oneAED 23,740 interest, AED 14,264 repaid | — | AED 38,004 |
| Rent after costs, year oneafter empty weeks, maintenance, service charge and any insurance | AED 61,714 | AED 61,714 |
| Cash flow, year onerent after costs, less the mortgage payments | AED 61,714 | AED 23,710 |
| Net cash return on all-in cost, year onecash flow ÷ cash in; counts principal repaid as a cost — it comes back as equity at sale and is in the rate above | +5.8% | +5.0% |
| Sale after 10 yearsat +0.0% a year — your scenario | AED 1,000,000 | AED 1,000,000 |
| Agency on sale | AED 20,000 | AED 20,000 |
| Loan still owed | — | AED 428,156 |
| Equity out at sale | AED 980,000 | AED 551,844 |
| Total gain over 10 yearsequity out plus every year's cash flow, less cash in | AED 531,440 | AED 318,741 |
Scenario arithmetic on registered medians and figures you set. Not a quote, an offer of credit, a valuation of any home, or advice; Keyva is not a bank, broker or adviser and is not affiliated with DLD, RERA or the Central Bank. As of 12 September 2026. Floors and method · What a bank may lend you.
Who borrows here
43 mortgages are registered for every 100 completed-property sales in Dubai
198,025 against 455,954 across the whole record; the last twelve months run higher, and the figures for the chosen area below name both windows. This tells you something a price chart cannot: whether an area is bought by people borrowing to live somewhere, or by money that can leave as quickly as it arrived.
Jumeirah Village Circle
Last twelve months: 63 mortgages registered per 100 completed-property sales here, 69 across Dubai. Whole record: 44 here, 43 across Dubai.
Amount recorded on mortgage entries against 1-bedroom homes here, Sept 2025 – Aug 2026: median AED 783,209, half between AED 637,028 and AED 920,000 (1,595 entries). DLD does not say whether the amount is the loan or the value secured, the entries include remortgages and equity releases with no sale beside them, and a mortgage record carries no unit to match to a sale — so this is not a loan-to-value.
Why this only counts completed property
Off-plan buyers use developer payment plans, not bank mortgages — 4% of mortgage registrations are off-plan, while 56% of sales are. Comparing all mortgages to all sales would mix two different markets. Both sides here are restricted to completed homes, which is the market a mortgage actually applies to.
Every area with at least 100 completed-property sales
Ratios above 100% are real, not errors: a remortgage or equity release registers as a mortgage with no sale beside it, so an area where owners borrow against homes they already hold can exceed the number of sales.
Show all 64 areas
Mortgage records carry no unit number, so this is a ratio of counts rather than a match of each loan to its property. It measures financing intensity in an area, not the financed share of any individual sale.