Holiday-home letting earns more per night than an annual tenancy, but costs more to run. Move the sliders to project the gross and net yield of a DTCM-licensed short let on your property.
Operating costs cover cleaning, utilities, the DTCM holiday-home permit, listing fees and consumables. A management company typically takes 15–25% of gross revenue to run the listing end to end.
5.6%net yield
gross yield 9.2% on 256 booked nights
Indicative only. Short-let occupancy and nightly rates swing hard with season, location and reviews — stress-test a lower occupancy before you bank on the headline yield, and compare against a standard annual let.
The nightly rate multiplied by the nights you actually let — 365 days times your occupancy. At 70% occupancy a unit is booked roughly 256 nights a year, so the headline nightly rate matters far less than the rate-times-occupancy product.
Gross revenue minus the management company's cut and your annual operating costs — cleaning, utilities, the DTCM permit, listing fees and consumables. Short lets gross more than an annual tenancy but carry materially higher running costs, so the net is what counts.
Both yields divide annual income by the property price. Gross yield flatters the short-let model; net yield, after fees and costs, is the figure to compare against a standard annual let's net yield before deciding which strategy wins for your unit.
Holiday-home occupancy moves hard with season, location, reviews and events. The annual average hides quiet months. Model a conservative occupancy as well as your optimistic one — the gap between 60% and 80% changes the whole investment case.
Short letting in Dubai is regulated: the unit must hold a Department of Economy and Tourism (DTCM) holiday-home permit, renewed periodically, and some communities restrict or ban short lets. Factor the permit cost and check the community rules before you buy to short-let.
A short let can out-earn an annual tenancy, but with more work, more voids and more cost. Run the same property through the standard rental-yield calculator and compare net yields before committing to the short-let model.