Dubai property market, Q3 2026: a steadier quarter in prime
What the quarter showed
Every figure below is a median taken from registered transactions, not an asking price and not a valuation. The quarter is complete, so it can be read against earlier quarters. All figures are in UAE dirhams. The dirham is pegged to the US dollar at AED 3.6725, so AED 1 million is about USD 272,000, and AED 1,000 per square foot is about USD 272.
Across Dubai, registered home sales fell for the third quarter in a row, to 32,262. That is 4.0% fewer than in the second quarter and 37.0% fewer than a year ago. The mix shifted: off-plan sales fell 9.7%, to 23,591, while sales of completed homes rose 15.7%, to 8,671.
Prices held better than volumes. Apartments resold in the same buildings, with the same bedroom count, sold for 1.1% less than in the second quarter. In the prime areas below, the same comparison was flat or slightly up. The weakness this quarter sat in Business Bay and Al Jaddaf, where same-building prices fell 5.3% and 6.6%.
Every area, every table and every chart, in one document.
Price per square foot by area
Title-deed area, balconies included. Downtown is registered as Burj Khalifa, Marina and JBR as Marsa Dubai, and Dubai Hills as Hadaeq Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid. The Dubai areas include off-plan and completed sales together; DIFC is shown separately for each.
| Area | Sales | Off‑plan share | Median per sq ft | Same buildings on Q2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palm Jumeirah | 171 | 32% | 3,010 | +4.4% |
| Downtown Dubai | 438 | 23% | 2,589 | 0.0% |
| Dubai Hills Estate | 410 | 38% | 2,273 | +1.1% |
| Dubai Marina and JBR | 725 | 14% | 2,244 | +1.8% |
| DIFC | 223 | 79% | 2,179completed3,834off-plan | notmeasured |
The same-building column is the one I would read first. A median of everything sold moves whenever the mix moves, so it can fall even when no home has lost value. Comparing sales in the same building, with the same bedroom count, removes most of that effect. On that measure, Palm Jumeirah rose 4.4% and the other prime areas held within 2% either way.
Villas
| Area | Sales | Median price | Median per sq ft |
|---|---|---|---|
| Palm Jumeirah | 21 | AED 50 millionUSD 13.6 million | 4,870 |
| Dubai Hills Estate | 38 | AED 5.56 millionUSD 1.5 million | 2,109 |
Downtown, Dubai Marina and DIFC hold almost no villas, so only Palm Jumeirah and Dubai Hills appear here. On the Palm, a villa registered at a median of AED 4,870 per square foot, about 60% above an apartment on the same island. Across Dubai, villa prices in the same communities, with the same bedroom count, were 0.3% lower than in the second quarter and 1.6% higher than a year ago.
Both samples are small. Twenty-one villa sales on the Palm in a quarter means a single large plot can move the median by millions, and there were too few sales to compare the same villas from one quarter to the next. I would treat these figures as a guide to the level rather than a measure of change.
DIFC, for the first time
The Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) registers property with its own Registrar, not with the Dubai Land Department, so it does not appear in the Dubai totals. Its sales and leases are taken from the DIFC Authority's public transaction tables and shown separately.
| Q3 2026 | Q2 2026 | Q3 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sales of completed homes | 46 | 45 | 110 |
| Median per sq ft, completed | 2,179 | 2,046 | 2,123 |
| Off-plan sales | 177 | 247 | 272 |
| Median per sq ft, off-plan | 3,834 | 4,001 | 4,175 |
| Rental contracts | 427 | 275 | 402 |
| Median rent per sq ft a year | 129 | 127 | 137 |
| Gross yield, completed homes | 5.9% | 6.2% | 6.5% |
Two things stand out. Completed homes in DIFC sold at a median of AED 2,179 per square foot, 6.5% above the second quarter, while the off-plan median eased for the second quarter running. New towers in DIFC still register at about 1.8 times the price per foot of the existing buildings around them, so the two are different purchases rather than substitutes.
The sample is small. Forty-six completed sales in a quarter means a few large or small units can move the median noticeably, so I would read the direction over several quarters rather than the change in any one.
What existing stock yields
| Area | Rent per sq ft a year | Gross yield |
|---|---|---|
| Palm Jumeirah | 123 | 5.2% |
| Downtown Dubai | 125 | 5.2% |
| Dubai Hills Estate | 128 | 5.9% |
| Dubai Marina and JBR | 104 | 5.2% |
| DIFC | 129 | 5.9% |
These are gross figures: the median rent per square foot on new contracts, divided by the median resale price per square foot of completed apartments in the same area. Service charges come off the top. On the budgets buildings file, the median charge is about AED 20 per square foot a year in Downtown, AED 17 in Dubai Marina and AED 16 on Palm Jumeirah, which takes between about 0.7 and 0.9 of a percentage point off each yield.
Lettings picked up sharply. New apartment rental contracts across Dubai rose 66% on the second quarter, to 64,420, and the median new-contract rent was AED 67,000 a year (about USD 18,200), 3.1% higher than in the second quarter.
The top of the market
The third quarter of 2026 is highlighted.
Sales at AED 10 million (about USD 2.7 million) or more fell to 425, from 551 in the second quarter and 803 a year ago, with a combined value of AED 9.7 billion (about USD 2.6 billion). The largest registration of the quarter was a completed villa on Palm Jumeirah at AED 260 million (about USD 71 million), followed by an off-plan apartment in Aman Residences Dubai at AED 166.1 million (about USD 45 million).
What I take from it
The first half of the year was an off-plan story. This quarter, completed homes took a larger share of sales, prices in the established prime buildings held, and lettings rose strongly. For a buyer who wants income from the first month, that is a firmer picture than the volume figures alone suggest.
The fall in volumes is real, and so is the weakness in some areas with heavy new supply. I would not read one steady quarter as a turn. I would read it as a reason to compare the building and the bedroom count, rather than the area average, before deciding what to pay.
Every area, every table and every chart, in one document.
The Dubai figures are calculated from registered Dubai Land Department sales and the project register, with rents from Ejari and service charges from the budgets buildings file with Mollak. DIFC sales and leases come from the DIFC Authority's public transaction tables, cleaned of repeated rows. Medians are used rather than averages so that one very large deal does not move the figure. Land, whole-building registrations and non-sale transfers are excluded. Abu Dhabi and Ras Al Khaimah are registered separately and are not in these numbers. Late registrations reach the registers for some weeks after a quarter closes, so the most recent figures can still move slightly.