Dubai Property Market Q3 2026 Report: Sales, Prices and Index

Dubai Property Market Q3 2026

We start with what happened in the market overall. Then we look at prices, sales, rents, mortgages and new homes. At the end, we show what the numbers mean for you, and how to check your own building in five minutes.

Here are the four numbers to remember from this quarter:

Dubai Property Market in Q3 2026: What Happened

Let's start with the big picture. The Dubai property market was slower in Q3 2026 than a year before. About 33,870 homes were sold from July to September. That is 36% fewer than in the same three months of 2025.

Can you trust that number? Yes. Every home sale in Dubai must be registered with the Dubai Land Department, which everyone calls the DLD. So these are real, registered sales, and they are not estimates.

Sales also slipped a little each month during the quarter:

Look closely and you will see something odd. The number of sales fell by about 20% from July to September. But the money spent stayed at about AED 21 billion a month.

So fewer homes were sold, and the homes that did sell cost more on average. We will come back to the reason.

Fewer new homes sold, more existing homes resold

Here is the most important thing to understand about this quarter. The total hides two very different stories, because there are two kinds of home sale:

• A sale by a developer. The developer sells a new home, and the home is often not built yet. A home that is sold before it is finished is called off-plan.
• A resale. An owner sells an existing home to a new buyer.

In Q3 these two moved in opposite directions:

So buyers did not disappear. More of them bought a finished home, and fewer bought a home that is still being built.

Why the market slowed in 2026

To understand the summer, you have to go back to the spring. A regional conflict started in late February 2026, and property sales dropped sharply in March. We reported on that fall in sales at the time.

May was the slowest month of the year. Sales picked up a little in June and July, and then fell again in August and September. So Q3 stayed well below 2025.

Here is the year so far, step by step:

1. Late February 2026A regional conflict startedProperty sales fell in the weeks that followed.
2. March 2026Property sales dropped sharplyThe value of existing homes fell by about 6% in one month.
3. May 2026The slowest month of the yearSales reached their lowest point.
4. June and July 2026Sales recovered a littleJuly had 12,599 home sales.
5. August and September 2026Sales fell againSeptember had 10,108 home sales.
6. 17 September 2026Interest rates went upThe Central Bank raised its main rate from 3.65% to 3.90%.

Dubai Property Prices in Q3 2026

Now for the question everyone asks first: what happened to prices? Dubai property prices were lower in Q3 2026 than at the start of the year. But most of that fall happened in the spring.

By July and August, existing homes were losing only 0.2% to 0.3% of their value a month.

Are Dubai property prices falling?

Yes, but much more slowly now. The clearest way to see it is a price index from ValuStrat, a valuation firm.

An index is one number that shows how prices change over time. Each month, the firm's valuers estimate the value of the same set of existing villas and apartments.

In August 2026 this index was 10.2% lower than in February 2026. That sounds alarming. But look at how the fall became smaller month by month:

More than half of the whole fall came in March alone. By the summer, the monthly change was close to zero.

Compared with August 2025, the index was 3.1% lower. Apartments lost more value than villas over that year. Apartments were down 5.3%, and villas were down 1.7%.

The September figure is not published yet. We will add it to this report when it is.

The price paid per square foot

There is a second way to measure prices, and it looks at what buyers really paid. It takes every home sale registered in a month and finds the median price per square foot.

The median is simply the middle price. Half of the homes sold for more, and half sold for less.

This measure hardly moved all quarter. It was AED 1,680 in July, AED 1,692 in August and AED 1,639 in September.

A separate count by Cavendish Maxwell, another valuation firm, gave an average of AED 1,636 per square foot in August. That was 1.7% lower than in August 2025. It was also the first yearly fall since February 2021.

Why two price measures disagree

So which one is right? One measure says prices fell by a tenth since February. The other says prices were almost flat.

The surprising answer is that both are correct. They are measuring different things:

The valuation index follows the same existing homes every month. So it tells you what an owner's home is worth today.

The price per square foot covers every sale in the month. About seven in ten of those sales are off-plan homes, and most are sold by developers at list prices.

Developers rarely cut a list price. Instead, some offered other savings in 2026, such as paying the buyer's 4% DLD fee. The saving is real, but it does not show up in the price per square foot.

So if you own a home, the valuation index is closer to your situation. Prices also moved very differently from one area to another, and we come to that below.

Asking prices and sold prices

One more thing before we leave prices. The price in an advert is usually not the price a home sells for. In July 2026, the property website Property Finder compared the two:

So when you judge a price, look at what homes sold for, and not at what sellers are asking. We show you how to find sold prices near the end of this report.

Dubai Property Transactions in Q3 2026

Now let's look more closely at the sales themselves. Dubai recorded about 33,870 home sales in Q3 2026. A transaction is simply one registered sale.

Our count covers apartments, villas and townhouses. It leaves out land, whole buildings, offices and shops.

Home sales by month, compared with 2025

How does that compare with last year? Sales were lower than in 2025 in every month, and the gap grew each month:

A word of caution about September. September 2025 was a very busy month, so September 2026 looks weak next to it.

The money spent fell even more than the number of sales. Buyers spent about AED 64.4 billion on homes in Q3 2026, and AED 119.8 billion in Q3 2025. That is a fall of 46%.

The year so far tells the same story. From January to September 2026, about 111,000 homes were sold. That is 24% fewer than in the same nine months of 2025.

Off-plan and ready home sales

The DLD records each home sale as off-plan or ready. Off-plan means the home was not finished when it was sold. Ready means the home was finished. Here are both kinds, month by month:

Watch the two colours. Off-plan sales fell every month. Ready home sales fell in August and then rose by about 8% in September.

This is the answer to the puzzle from earlier. Because more ready homes sold, the median price of a home rose to AED 1.28 million in September. It was AED 1.16 million in August.

But let's keep this in proportion. Ready home sales were still lower than a year before. In August 2026 they were about a fifth below August 2025. So the ready market is recovering from a weak spring, and it is not yet back at the level of 2025.

Our guide to off-plan vs ready property compares the two kinds of home.

One project changed the September total

Here is a detail that changes how you read the September number. A large part of the fall in sales came from one project.

Azizi Venice is a very large development in Dubai South. Many of its sales were registered in July and August, and far fewer in September. This chart separates it from the rest of Dubai:

From August to September, total home sales fell by 1,055. Sales at Azizi Venice alone fell by 1,049. In the rest of Dubai, sales fell by only six homes.

How can one project do that? It comes from the way off-plan sales are registered. The developer registers each sale in Oqood, which is the DLD's register for homes not yet built.

A developer can register hundreds of sales in the same week, so one big project can move the monthly total. Our off-plan property guide explains Oqood.

Dubai Rents in Q3 2026

If you are a landlord or a tenant, this section is for you. And we have to be honest: no rent figures for Q3 2026 are published yet. The firms that track rents usually publish them a few weeks after the quarter ends.

The latest figures cover April to June 2026. Three firms measured the same market, and they got three different answers:

All three agree that rents fell. They do not agree on how much, because each firm follows a different set of homes.

Here is the good news for tenants and landlords alike. At renewal, the city average does not decide your rent. The DLD has a rental index for each building, and you can see it in the Dubai REST app. This index limits how much a landlord can raise the rent when a contract is renewed.

Investors also look at yield, which is one year of rent divided by the price of the home. In mid-2026 it was about 7% for apartments and 5% for villas, before costs. Our guide to the best areas to buy property in Dubai compares yields by area.

Mortgages and Interest Rates in Q3 2026

If you have a home loan, or you want one, September brought unwelcome news. Mortgages became more expensive. The Central Bank of the UAE raised its main interest rate from 3.65% to 3.90% on 17 September.

Why did it do that? Because the central bank of the United States raised its rate first. The UAE dirham is tied to the US dollar, so interest rates in the UAE follow interest rates in the United States.

Most home loans in Dubai follow a rate called EIBOR. EIBOR is the interest rate that UAE banks charge each other, and the Central Bank publishes it every day. The three-month EIBOR rose from 3.99% on 1 September to 4.32% on 30 September.

What the rate rise costs a borrower

Percentages are hard to feel, so let's turn this into money. Imagine a buyer with a loan of AED 1 million over 25 years, at EIBOR plus 0.99%:

So the payment rose by about AED 200 a month for each AED 1 million borrowed. On a loan of AED 2 million, that is about AED 400 a month.

If your rate is fixed, you can relax for now. Your payment does not change until the fixed years end. Our mortgage in Dubai guide explains fixed and variable rates.

Cash buyers and bank valuations

Here is something that surprises many newcomers. A lot of buyers in Dubai do not use a loan at all:

The rate rise does not affect a cash buyer directly.

The other buyers need a bank loan, and the bank sends a valuer to check the home. If the valuer says the home is worth less than the agreed price, the bank lends less. The buyer must then pay the difference in cash.

New Homes: Supply in 2026 and After

Now we turn to the homes that are still being built. Supply means the new homes that builders finish and hand over.

Why does it matter to you? More homes mean more choice for buyers and tenants. So when many homes are finished in one area, prices and rents there can fall.

How many homes were finished in 2026

A record number of homes were finished in the first half of 2026. Cavendish Maxwell counted 24,800 homes. Other firms counted fewer, between about 18,000 and 20,000, because each firm counts in a different way.

No count for July to September is published yet.

How many new homes are planned

The numbers for the next two years are much bigger. Here is what developers plan to finish, according to Cavendish Maxwell:

That looks like a flood of new homes. But these are plans, and plans in Dubai are often late. Here is what happened to the plans for the first half of 2026:

Cavendish Maxwell said this is normal for Dubai. For the second half of 2026, the same firm expected 14,000 to 23,500 homes to be finished. That is far fewer than the 47,000 planned.

Why supply matters for prices

So should you worry about 2027 and 2028? There are two sides to this, and it is fair to show both.

On one side, many homes are due. On the other side, developers started far fewer new projects in 2026:

Demand also depends on how many people live in Dubai. The city's population grew by about 227,000 in the first nine months of 2026, which is about 5%. More people need more homes.

In the end, the effect of supply is local. If thousands of homes are finished near your building, you will compete with them for buyers and tenants. Our guide to off-plan payment plans explains what a late handover means for your payments.

Which Areas and Homes Did Best and Worst

So far we have talked about Dubai as one market. In real life, nobody buys "Dubai". You buy one home in one area, and the areas had very different results.

Areas where prices fell or rose the most

The biggest price falls were in some of the most expensive apartment areas. Some cheaper areas rose. This chart shows the change in value from August 2025 to August 2026, from ValuStrat:

Think about what that means. An apartment near the Burj Khalifa lost about a fifth of its value in one year. In the same year, an apartment in Dubai Silicon Oasis gained a little.

Areas with the most sales

Dubai South had the most home sales, because Azizi Venice is there. It recorded 2,079 sales in August and 842 in September.

Jumeirah Village Circle, which is also called JVC, was steady. It had 758 sales in August and 784 in September.

Cheap homes and very expensive homes

News about Dubai property is often about luxury villas. The real market looks very different:

That AED 2 million line also matters for the Golden Visa through property, which needs property worth at least AED 2 million.

Very expensive homes still sold, of course. The largest sale in September was a six-bedroom villa on Palm Jumeirah, which sold for AED 260 million.

What the Q3 2026 Market Means for You

We have covered a lot of numbers. So what should you do with them? The same quarter means different things to different people, so find yourself below:

If you remember one thing from this report, make it this: your own building matters more than any city average. The next section shows you how to check it.

If you are new to buying, start with our guide to buying property in Dubai.

Where These Dubai Property Market Numbers Come From

You may wonder where all these figures come from, and why different reports give different totals. They all start in one place, which is the Dubai Land Department. Every sale, mortgage and gift of property in Dubai is registered there.

“"Dubai Land Department is the sole legally authorised entity to register and document all real estate transactions."”

Dubai Land Department, Frequently asked questions

The DLD's own figure for Q3 2026 is not published yet. Until it is, the figures come from firms that read the DLD's records and count them.

Who counts what

Have you seen a headline with a much bigger number than ours? It is probably not wrong. Different firms count different things, and this chart shows three ways to count the same quarter:

This report uses the first line, because most readers want to know about homes. Many news headlines use the last line.

A mortgage or a gift is not a sale. So that last total is much bigger than the value of homes sold.

A five-minute check: sold prices in your own building

Now for the most useful part of this report. You can see recent sold prices yourself, for free, and it takes about five minutes. Follow these steps:

1. Open the DLD's records. Use the Dubai REST app, or the real estate data page on the DLD website.
2. Search for your area and building. Use the official area name if the usual name does not work. For example, JVC is Al Barsha South Fourth, and Dubai Marina is Marsa Dubai.
3. Choose sales, and choose ready homes or off-plan homes. Do not mix the two, because their prices are different.
4. Look at the last six months. Find homes with the same number of bedrooms as yours. Write down each price and size.
5. Work out the price per square foot. Divide each price by the size. Leave out the highest and the lowest result.
6. Compare. Put the middle result next to your asking price or your bank's valuation.

What does your result tell you? Here is how to read it:

• There are fewer than three sales. That is too little to judge. Look at the buildings next to yours as well.
• The asking price is more than 11% above recent sales. That gap is bigger than the usual gap in Dubai.
• Each sale is lower than the one before. Prices in your building are still falling.

Our guide to distressed property and negotiating a price shows how buyers use these figures.

What to Watch in Q4 2026

This report is not the final word on the quarter, because several figures are still missing. Here is what to look out for before the end of the year:

We will update this report as each of these figures is published.