If you have been watching DHA Lahore file rates slide all year and wondering when the bleeding stops, October brings a genuinely interesting answer. Not a rebound. Not a crash either. What the October numbers show, across Phase 10, Phase 9 Prism, Phase 9 Town, Phase 7 and Phase 13, is a market that has mostly stopped falling and started sitting still. Flat isn't exciting. But after the year files have had, flat is news. Here are the actual rates dealers are quoting this week, what moved since September, and what I would do with each phase if it were my money.
One important note before the numbers, because it matters more than any single rate in this post. File rates are indicative dealer-market rates, not an official DHA price list. dharealestate.pk, whose file-rate page I am drawing the main tables from, says this explicitly on the page itself, and they are right to. Two dealers can quote you rates a lakh apart on the same file on the same day. Treat everything below as the market's asking range as of the first week of October 2026, and confirm your specific file's rate, dues, and documentation with your dealer before money moves.
First, what a DHA file actually is (affidavit vs allocation, in plain words)
Half the confusion in the file market comes from people buying a product they don't fully understand, so let us clear this up in one paragraph. A DHA file isn't a plot. It's a piece of paper that represents an entitlement to a plot once DHA allots and develops the phase. You're buying a place in the queue, not land you can visit. That's the whole game, and it's why files swing harder than plots in both directions.
Now the distinction that actually moves prices: affidavit files versus allocation files. An affidavit file is unregistered. It hasn't been allotted to anyone's name yet, and it transfers on a relatively simple affidavit-based process. The practical upshot, as Lahore Real Estate's file guide explains, is that the buyer and seller don't both need to be physically present at the DHA office, and being an active tax filer isn't mandatory. An allocation file is already registered in someone's name. Transferring it means both parties present at DHA, and the buyer must be an active tax filer. Depending on the phase and the week, either one can trade cheaper, which is why you'll see the two prices flip positions in the tables below. Neither is universally better. They are different products with different paperwork, and you should know which one you're holding before you argue about its price.
There's a third category you'll see quoted, balloted files, where DHA has held a ballot and the file now carries a plot number. Those trade closer to plot prices and barely behave like files at all. For this monthly series I am tracking affidavit and allocation files, the two categories most readers actually trade.
DHA Lahore file rates: Phase 10, October 2026
Phase 10, also called Phase X, is where most of the file market's attention sits right now, so it gets the full table. These are dharealestate.pk's rates, updated on their page on October 5, 2026.
Affidavit files, Phase 10: 5 marla at Rs30 lac, 8 marla at Rs40 lac, 10 marla at Rs50 lac, 1 kanal at Rs99 lac, 2 kanal at Rs2.45 crore. Commercial: 4 marla at Rs1.52 crore, 8 marla at Rs4.10 crore.
Allocation files, Phase 10: 5 marla at Rs27.50 lac, 8 marla at Rs36 lac, 10 marla at Rs48 lac, 1 kanal at Rs90 lac, 2 kanal at Rs2.37 crore. Commercial: 4 marla at Rs1.43 crore.
Two things jump out. First, the affidavit premium is real but modest on residential sizes. You're paying roughly Rs2 to 9 lac more for the affidavit version of the same size, which is the market pricing in the easier transfer and the no-filer requirement. On a Rs90 lac purchase, that's a single-digit percentage for meaningfully simpler paperwork. Whether that premium is worth it depends on your situation. If you're an overseas Pakistani who can't easily appear at the DHA office, it very often is.
Second, a different dealer read exists and I want you to see it, because honest rate reporting shows its work. abdulsventure.com's Phase 10 page, updated today, October 6, reads the dealer boards slightly differently: 5 marla at Rs27–27.8 lac, 8 marla at Rs37–40 lac, 10 marla at Rs47–48.5 lac, 1 kanal at Rs86.8–94.3 lac, 2 kanal at Rs2.38–2.40 crore, 4 marla commercial at Rs1.40–1.47 crore. Their 10-marla and 1-kanal reads sit a touch below dharealestate.pk's. That's normal. Dealer boards disagree by a lakh or two on any given day, which is exactly why the "confirm before you trade" line at the top of this post isn't decoration.
Phase 10 is also the phase where I can give you verified month-over-month movement, because abdulsventure.com carries a September 4 comparison on the same page. Since early September: 10 marla down about 5.4%, 1 kanal down about 2.4%, 2 kanal down about 1.4%, 4 marla commercial down about 1.4%, 8 marla commercial affidavit down about 10% from Rs4 crore to Rs3.60 crore. On the other side, 5 marla is essentially flat (up 0.2%) and 8 marla residential is up about 1.7%. Week over week, everything is unchanged. So the story of September was a gentle continued softening in the bigger residential sizes and a sharper step down in 8-marla commercial, while the small residential files held their ground. If you bought a 10-marla affidavit in early September at the top of that range, you're sitting on a paper loss of two to three lac a month later. That stings, but it's also the market telling you where the floor-hunting is happening.
Phase 9 Prism and Phase 9 Town
Phase 9 Prism is the phase everyone asks about, so here it's. dharealestate.pk's October 5 update quotes Phase 9 Prism allocation files at Rs44 lac for 5 marla, Rs86 lac for 10 marla, and Rs1.45 crore for 1 kanal. Affidavit files for those residential sizes were not publicly quoted in this update, listed as on call. On the commercial side, 4 marla affidavit files are quoted at Rs2.08 crore and 4 marla allocation at Rs1.98 crore. Lahore Real Estate's October 5 update independently shows the 5-marla allocation at Rs43.75 lac, which lines up almost exactly with dharealestate.pk's Rs44 lac. When two separate dealer sources land within half a lakh of each other, you can treat the number as solid.
Prism's residential files are worth pausing on because of the gap between the file and the developed plot. A 5-marla allocation file at Rs44 lac against on-ground 5-marla plots in Prism trading far higher is the entire investment thesis in one line: you're paying for the wait. Whether that wait pays depends on development pace and balloting, not on anything the file itself does.
Phase 9 Town, the more developed sibling, trades at a different level entirely. dharealestate.pk quotes 5-marla affidavit files at Rs60 lac and 5-marla allocation at Rs55 lac, 10-marla affidavit at Rs1.35 crore, 4-marla commercial affidavit at Rs2.30 crore and 4-marla commercial allocation at Rs2.15 crore. Lahore Real Estate's October 5 read is nearly identical: 5-marla affidavit Rs60 lac, allocation Rs56 lac, 10-marla affidavit Rs1.35 crore. Town's files cost more because Town is further along. You're paying less of a time discount and more of a near-possession premium. For a buyer who wants DHA exposure with less waiting, that premium is the whole decision.
Phase 7, Phase 8, Phase 11 and Phase 13
Phase 7 is the established-phase file market. dharealestate.pk's October 5 update shows 5-marla affidavit at Rs33.25 lac and 5-marla allocation at Rs29 lac, 7-marla allocation at Rs46 lac, 10-marla allocation at Rs95 lac, 1-kanal allocation at Rs1.60 crore, and 4-marla commercial allocation at Rs1.35 crore. The remaining affidavit categories were on call. Note the 1-kanal allocation at Rs1.60 crore. That's a serious number for a file, and it reflects Phase 7's position as a genuinely developed phase where the file is a short hop from a plot.
It's worth adding some September context here. Lahore Real Estate's market video on September 23 reported DHA Phase 7 plot prices correcting down roughly Rs5–10 lac over the previous month. That was plots, not files, but files and plots in the same phase breathe the same air. If Phase 7 plots were softening through September, don't be surprised if Phase 7 file quotes drift in the coming weeks. Watch this space in the November edition.
Phase 8's file market is thinner in the public quotes. dharealestate.pk lists Phase 8 Ivy Green allocation files with 5 marla at Rs59.50 lac and the rest on call. Lahore Real Estate's October 5 update adds Phase 8 Z Block: 5-marla affidavit at Rs75 lac and 5-marla allocation at Rs56 lac, plus a 1-kanal allocation in the Ex Park View D Block at Rs2.65 crore. The Z Block affidavit-to-allocation spread, Rs75 lac versus Rs56 lac, is one of the widest in this month's data. A Rs19 lac gap on a 5-marla file is the market screaming that transfer ease matters. If you're buying Z Block, understand exactly which document type you're pricing before you compare two dealers' quotes.
Phase 11, marketed as Rahbar Sector 4, is the budget end of the Lahore file market. Lahore Real Estate's October 5 update quotes 5-marla allocation at Rs35 lac and 10-marla allocation at Rs75 lac. dharealestate.pk had the Phase 11 categories on call in its October 5 update, so treat the Lahore Real Estate numbers as the working read. These are genuinely small-ticket entries into the DHA system, which is their entire appeal and their entire risk in one package.
Phase 13 is the cheapest on-ramp of all. dharealestate.pk quotes allocation files at Rs18 lac for 5 marla, Rs28.50 lac for 10 marla, and Rs57 lac for 1 kanal. Lahore Real Estate's read is a touch softer: 5 marla at Rs17.75 lac, 10 marla at Rs28.75 lac, 1 kanal at Rs57 lac. At Rs18 lac for a 5-marla DHA file, you're buying the longest wait in the system. Phase 13 is years from meaningfully resembling a neighbourhood. Price it accordingly in your head: this is a lottery ticket with a DHA logo on it, not an investment with a timeline.
On the commercial side, Lahore Real Estate's October 6 update quotes Phase 6 CCA-3 commercial affidavit files from Rs6 crore for 4 marla up to Rs64 crore for 32 marla, with 5 marla at Rs7.50 crore, 6 marla at Rs9 crore, 8 marla at Rs12 crore, and 12 marla at Rs21 crore. Phase 7's 4-marla commercial allocation sits at Rs1.34–1.35 crore across both sources. Commercial files are a different sport from residential, priced on rental and business potential rather than the residential queue, so don't compare a 4-marla commercial file's price against a residential file of the same size and conclude anything. They aren't the same product.
DHA Lahore file rates: what moved this month, and what didn't
Let me put the verified movement in one place, because this is the section that will matter most when you compare against the November edition.
In Phase 10, the only phase with a proper September baseline, the month belonged to the sellers of small files and the buyers of big ones. Ten-marla files gave up about 5.4% since September 4. One-kanal files gave up about 2.4%. Two-kanal about 1.4%. The 8-marla commercial affidavit took the sharpest hit, down roughly 10% from Rs4 crore to Rs3.60 crore. Meanwhile 5-marla files basically didn't move, up 0.2%, and 8-marla residential actually ticked up 1.7%. Week over week, into the first week of October, every size was unchanged. Read that pattern for what it's. The affordable end of the file market has found its floor. The expensive end is still looking for its.
That pattern makes sense if you think about who is actually trading files right now. The buyers in this market are small-ticket investors and end users parking modest amounts. They buy 5 and 8 marla. The 1 and 2 kanal file buyer is a bigger fish, and bigger fish are sitting out, waiting for the budget cycle and for clearer signals on taxes and the economy. When the small sizes hold and the big sizes slide, it's retail money keeping the market alive while institutional patience waits on the sidelines.
What I can't verify, and won't claim: precise month-over-month moves for Phase 9 Prism, Phase 9 Town, Phase 7, or Phase 13 files, because neither source I used carries a clean September baseline for those phases. Next month's edition will have it, since this post now serves as the baseline. That's one of the quiet benefits of a monthly series. The second data point is always more valuable than the first.
Files vs on-ground plots: the honest tradeoff
Every month I will include this section, because every month someone new discovers files and needs to hear it. A file is cheaper than a plot in the same phase for exactly one reason: uncertainty. You don't know when balloting happens. You don't know your plot number, your street, or whether your block develops first or last. You're being paid a discount to carry the developer's timeline risk. Sometimes that discount is generous and the wait is short, and files are the best trade in Lahore. Sometimes the discount is thin and the wait is a decade, and you would have been better off buying a smaller on-ground plot in a developed phase.
Right now, with 10-marla and 1-kanal files still softening, the discount is widening on the bigger sizes. That's genuinely interesting for patient capital. A 1-kanal Phase 10 affidavit at Rs99 lac, down from higher levels, against developed 1-kanal plots in older phases at multiples of that, is a real spread. But be honest about your timeline. If you need this money working within two years, files are the wrong product no matter how good the discount looks. Files reward the buyer who can forget about the money for five years. They punish everyone else.
The mistake I see most isn't buying files. It's buying files with plot expectations. If you buy a Phase 13 file at Rs18 lac expecting Phase 7 behaviour, you'll spend years angry at a piece of paper that never promised you anything. Match the product to your patience. If you're trying to work out which category fits your timeline and budget, the team at Saiban Associates does this comparison with buyers every week, files against plots, phase against phase, with the actual current numbers rather than last year's memory of them.
If you're buying a file from the Gulf
A large share of DHA file buyers never set foot in Lahore during the transaction. If you're reading this from Riyadh, Dubai, or Doha, three things in this month's data matter specifically to you.
First, the affidavit versus allocation choice isn't academic for you. It's the whole transaction. An allocation file requires both parties physically present at the DHA office and requires you to be an active tax filer. An affidavit file transfers without that in-person requirement and without the filer condition. If you can't travel, or your filer status isn't sorted, the affidavit file stops being the slightly pricier option and becomes the only practical one. Price the Rs2–9 lac affidavit premium in Phase 10 against the cost of a trip to Lahore plus the filer registration hassle, and it usually wins.
Second, dues. A file's quoted rate isn't its cost. Outstanding development charges, surcharges, and transfer fees sit on top, and they vary by file. An overseas buyer who prices only the file rate and discovers the dues later has made the classic remote-buyer error. Get a written dues statement before you commit to anything, not after.
Third, verification at a distance. You can't walk into the DHA office, so someone has to verify the file's status, the seller's identity, and the documentation on your behalf, and that someone should not be the seller's cousin. This is exactly the kind of transaction Saiban Associates' overseas desk handles every week: independent verification of the file and the paperwork, coordination with your family in Pakistan if someone is helping locally, and nothing moving forward until there's proof rather than a promise. The file market runs on trust, and trust at 2,000 kilometres needs a system, not a handshake.
My honest take
October's file market is a buyer's market with an asterisk. The asterisk is that it has been a buyer's market for a while, and buyers' markets can stay buyers' markets longer than your patience lasts. What is genuinely new this month is the shape of the softness: small files flat, big files sliding. That tells me the floor is forming from the bottom up, which is how healthy bottoms form.
If I had fresh capital for DHA files right now, I would be looking at 5 and 8 marla in Phase 10, where the price has stabilised and the downside looks limited, and I would be watching 10 marla and 1 kanal for another month before committing, because the slide there hasn't clearly stopped. I wouldn't touch commercial files on momentum; the 8-marla commercial's 10% drop in a month is a warning, not an invitation. And I would keep Phase 13 exactly where it belongs in a portfolio: a small, speculative corner, sized so that if it takes a decade, I shrug.
The one thing I wouldn't do is wait for someone to ring a bell at the bottom. Nobody rings it. You buy in stages, you buy verified files with clear dues, and you give it years. That's the whole strategy, and it has worked through every DHA cycle I have watched.
Where DHA buyers often start
Most buyers start by narrowing it to two or three phases that fit their budget, then getting live dealer quotes on verified files in those phases before deciding. If you want a second pair of eyes on a specific file, its dues, and its documentation before you commit, message the Saiban Associates team on WhatsApp. And if you're weighing DHA files against what the same money does in Dubai, our guide to investing in Dubai from Pakistan and the Dubai property prices in PKR guide lay out the other side of that decision. For the tax side of holding property in Pakistan, our Section 7E refund guide is worth a read while FBR's refund window is open.
