Your entry price is not the sticker. It’s the sticker plus everything it cost you to own the asset by end of day on transfer day.
Entry price is the all-in acquisition cost — purchase price plus DLD 4%, agent 2%, trustee and admin fees, mortgage registration if applicable, Ejari for immediate occupation, Dewa and chiller deposits. On a typical AED 2M Downtown 1BR, the entry price lands around AED 2.13M-2.14M all-in for a cash buyer. For a mortgage buyer add another 0.25% of the loan amount for registration and roughly AED 3-5k for bank valuation.
The reason to track entry price carefully is that every return metric — ROI, ROC, cap rate, yield — should be calculated against it, not against the headline. A 5% gross yield on AED 2M is 4.7% on AED 2.13M entry price. Small gap, real consequence across a multi-year hold.
A first-time buyer last year told me his “entry” was AED 1.2M. I asked whether that included DLD. It didn’t. His real entry was AED 1.28M. His rental-yield model flattered itself by 6-7%.
Total cost to the door. That’s the only entry number worth using.
Related: Down Payment, DLD Fee, ROI, Financing Cost.
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