Tbilisi against Dubai: Dubai wins on yield and on mortgages. Tbilisi wins on the size of the cheque

Gross rental yield in the centre: Tbilisi 6.32%, Dubai 7.45%. Outside the centre: Tbilisi 7.28%, Dubai 8.19%. Price to income: Tbilisi 13.75, Dubai 8.10. The 20-year fixed mortgage rate: Tbilisi 12.62%, Dubai 4.54%. On price the site publishes per square foot, so converting to metres: the centre figure of 580.14 lari per square foot works out at roughly 6,240 lari per square metre in Tbilisi, against roughly 18,670 in Dubai. At the National Bank's official rate of 2.5989 lari to the dollar on 14 October 2026 that is something like $2,400 a square metre in Tbilisi and $7,200 in Dubai. Tbilisi's data was last updated on 6 October 2026 from 155 contributors over the past year; Dubai's on 14 October from 271.

A buyer paying cash can ignore it. A buyer borrowing cannot. At 4.54% over twenty years, a mortgage in Dubai costs less than the rent the property generates on the figures above, which is the arithmetic that makes leveraged buy-to-let work. At 12.62% in Tbilisi, interest eats most or all of a 6% to 7% gross yield before any costs, so the Georgian case has to rest on cash purchase and on capital, not on the spread between rent and debt. That single difference reorganises the comparison. If you intend to borrow, Dubai is a different proposition and the yield gap is the smaller half of the story; if you are buying outright, the mortgage line is noise and the price per metre becomes the thing.

At around a third of Dubai's cost per metre, Tbilisi lets a buyer take a position with far less capital — which is the honest reason most Gulf-based buyers look at Georgia at all. It also means less capital at risk, and the ability to own outright rather than at the edge of what a bank will lend. What the discount costs is depth. Dubai's market has more buyers, more institutional owners, more data, more professional management and a resale market that clears quickly at scale; Tbilisi has a far smaller pool of buyers, particularly at the top, and a thin secondary market for anything unusual. A lower entry price and a slower exit are two sides of the same coin.

These are user-submitted figures averaged by a website, and the sample behind Tbilisi is noticeably thinner than the one behind Dubai — 155 contributors against 271 over the same twelve months. That matters more than it sounds: a smaller sample in a smaller market moves further on fewer submissions. Treat the yields as indicative, the price-per-metre gap as broadly sound because it is large, and the mortgage rates as the item most worth verifying yourself, since a bank's published rate sheet is a public document in both places. Anything you would actually sign on, check against live listings and a local valuation rather than a comparison table.