Playbooks / Property
Short let versus long let
The rule
The comparison is nearly always made on nightly rate multiplied by three hundred and sixty five, against the annual rent. That calculation has never been true for any property anywhere.
What actually differs
Occupancy. An annual tenancy is occupied one hundred percent of the term by definition. A short let is occupied at whatever the market gives you, and the honest planning figure in most Dubai buildings is somewhere in the sixties to seventies across a full year, with a strong season and a soft one. Revenue is nightly rate times nights actually sold, and the second term is the one nobody models.
Who pays for what. On an annual tenancy the tenant pays their own utilities, their own internet, and furnishes the place themselves. On a short let all of that is yours, plus cleaning between every stay, plus consumables, plus replacing what guests break.
Commission. Platform fees and management take a meaningful share of gross. Full service short let operators in Dubai typically take a fifth to a quarter of revenue, against five to eight percent for annual letting management.
Capital. Furnishing a one bedroom to a standard that photographs well is a real number that has to be earned back before the strategy has made anything, and it depreciates.
Regulation. Holiday homes require a permit from the Department of Economy and Tourism, with an annual fee, tourism dirham charges per night, and rules on which buildings allow it. Some owners associations do not.
The shape of the answer
A unit letting annually for one hundred and five thousand might gross one hundred and sixty thousand as a short let. That looks decisive until the deductions run.
Take twenty percent to management and platform, so 32,000. Utilities, internet and consumables, perhaps 18,000. Cleaning across a hundred and eighty stays, another 20,000 or more. Permit and tourism fees. Furnishing amortised across three years. What began as a fifty five thousand advantage is frequently under fifteen, and sometimes under nothing.
That does not mean short let loses. In the right building, in the right location, run well, it wins clearly. It means the comparison has to be run net, on realistic occupancy, with the furnishing capital counted.
The part that is not financial
An annual tenancy is one signature and four cheques. A short let is a business: pricing, calendar, reviews, guest messages at midnight, a cleaner who did not show up. Paying an operator to absorb that is exactly what the twenty percent buys, which is why the comparison after paying an operator is the honest one for most owners.
The arithmetic
Where it breaks
- Occupancy is the assumption that decides the answer and it is the one most often taken from a best month rather than a full year. Model the soft season honestly or do not model at all.
- Furnishing is capital, not a cost of the first year. Spreading it over a realistic refurbishment cycle is what makes year one comparable to year five.
- Building rules and owners association rules can prohibit short letting entirely, and finding out after furnishing is an expensive way to learn it.
- Wear is higher and the reserve should be too. A unit turning over a hundred and eighty times a year does not age like one turning over once.
- It ignores the exit. A furnished short let unit is sold to a narrower pool of buyers than an empty apartment, and the furniture rarely returns what it cost.
- Regulatory treatment can change. A strategy whose margin depends on a current permit regime carries a risk that an annual tenancy does not.
When to use it
Before furnishing anything. Also before believing a projected short let yield produced by a company that earns a percentage of the gross rather than the net.
The Net Rental Yield does this arithmetic for you, in your currency, in about thirty seconds.
Open the calculatorSources
- Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism, holiday homes
- Dubai Land Department, Ejari and tenancy registration
- Dubai Land Department, fees and charges
Last reviewed . Commercial relationship disclosure: the author works in Dubai real estate brokerage. See the disclosure standards. Disclosure standards.