Cash flow on a Dubai buy-to-let is almost always smaller than the agent’s model suggests, and the gap is almost always the service charge.
Cash flow is the net of money actually moving in and out of the investment over a defined period — monthly or annually. For a rental unit the inflow is rent, paid quarterly or in four cheques; the outflows are service charge, chiller bills if separately metered, maintenance, agency fee on tenant renewal (5% of annual rent, typically), Ejari renewal, any mortgage instalment, any short-let management fee if you’re running it that way.
On a typical JVC 1BR bought at AED 900k and rented at AED 68k annually, the gross looks like 7.5% yield. Strip out AED 12-14k service charge, AED 3.4k renewal agent fee, AED 2k Ejari/admin, a two-week vacancy buffer, and the cash flow actually landing in the account is closer to AED 46-48k — a real cash yield of around 5.1%.
That number still beats most savings accounts, but the point is to calculate it before you buy, not discover it in year two. I’ve seen clients shocked when the first quarterly cheque landed at 60% of what they’d modelled.
Model net, not gross. Always.
Related: Net Cash Flow, Rental Yield, Net Yield, Holding Cost.
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