Dubai Real Estate Market Report — 2026

fäm Properties · Dubai Real Estate Market Report · 2026 year to date

Dubai 2026 YTD: 115,989 recorded sales, led by developer purchases

AED 359.35 billion in sales, with a median price of AED 1,694/sqft across all property types.

By Fateh Al Msaddi, Founder, DXBinteract. Updated 2026-10-17; source data retrieved 2026-10-16.

2026 is still in progress. The exact cutoff of this year-to-date snapshot is not supplied; these figures are not full-year totals.

Dubai’s 2026 year-to-date snapshot records 115,989 sales worth AED 359.35 billion across all property types. The median sale price was AED 1,694/sqft, and developer purchases represented 71.6% of sales count. These figures come from DXBinteract analysis of Dubai Land Department records. The exact YTD cutoff is unspecified, and monthly snapshots do not reconcile with the aggregate.

Developer purchases account for most recorded YTD transactions

The 2026 page is an interim review, not a completed annual result. Its aggregate equals the stored Q1–Q3 sales totals, while the separate January–September monthly snapshots add to a different total. The supplied annual record does not identify an exact transaction cutoff.

For that reason, this review does not present an annual growth rate, a full-year record claim or a forecast for December. It sets out the supplied sales, rental and supply figures, with the limits that matter when buyers, sellers and landlords use them. The underlying DXBinteract snapshot remains the common numerical source for both websites.

The underlying figures and their source report are available in the DXBinteract 2026 year to date market report. This fäm Properties edition interprets the same snapshot for buyers, sellers, tenants and landlords.

Developer purchases make up 71.6% of transactions

In Dubai, 2026 year to date primary purchases totalled 83,003 transactions worth AED 242.87 billion, representing 71.6% of all sales by count and 67.6% by value. The resale segment recorded 32,986 sales worth AED 116.48 billion. These are all-property-type figures from DXBinteract analysis of DLD records.

Primary means a purchase directly from a developer. It can include ready developer stock. Resale means a secondary-market purchase, which can include an off-plan resale. The channel split therefore cannot be relabelled as off-plan versus ready. Differences between these medians also do not establish that one channel offers a discount on a comparable property.

Apartment transactions lead the property-type split

Dubai recorded 93,307 apartment sales in 2026 year to date, the highest transaction count among the property types in this snapshot. The table separates counts, total value, median ticket price and median price per sqft, so a change in activity is not mistaken for a change in unit pricing.

For a household, the median sale price gives a different reference from the median price per sqft: one describes the transaction ticket and the other its unit rate. Neither includes an individual buyer’s financing and transaction costs. Medians from categories with fewer than 50 sales are particularly sensitive to the mix of properties sold; they are shown with their counts rather than treated as a broad pricing signal.

Business Bay leads the reported area table by value

For Dubai in 2026 year to date, Business Bay heads the supplied area table by sales value at AED 19.67 billion, while Dubai South leads by count with 12,960 sales. These rankings cover apartments, villas and commercial property only, excluding townhouses, plots and buildings. They use a narrower basis than the citywide headline.

Activity rankings show where transactions were concentrated, not which area delivered the highest investment return. Area names are retained as recorded. An official DLD land district may contain several communities, so its figures should not be assigned to one smaller community without a matching geographic breakdown.

New apartment leases show a median annual rent of AED 68,500

Dubai’s 2026 year to date rental snapshot records 106,983 new apartment contracts at a median annual rent of AED 68,500. Apartment renewals numbered 127,452 at a median of AED 58,000. These are different populations of recorded contracts, according to DXBinteract analysis of DLD records.

For a tenant considering a move, the new-contract median is the relevant population to distinguish from renewals. For a landlord reviewing a renewal, the gap between the two medians is not a permitted or expected increase on a particular lease. The report does not specify the underlying rental date basis, so the figures are described as recorded contracts, and rental growth rates are not inferred from rounded percentages alone.

Rental yield is not calculated by dividing these rental medians by unrelated sales medians. A property-level yield needs matched purchase and rental information, and a net yield also depends on ownership costs. Those inputs are outside this snapshot.

66,391 units launched; 33,025 delivered

Dubai’s 2026 year to date supply summary records 66,391 launched units across 219 projects and 33,025 delivered units across 134 projects. These figures describe two different stages of the development process, not a single measure of stock available for sale.

A launch introduces units into a project’s sales cycle; a delivery brings a completed project into use. Units delivered now may have sold years earlier. Subtracting launches from deliveries therefore does not establish unsold stock, and comparing launched units with transaction count does not produce a reliable absorption rate. No future handover schedule or forecast is asserted here.

The component periods add context to the aggregate

Dubai’s 2026 year to date aggregate is shown alongside the available component-period snapshots below. These rows retain their own source figures; a quarter’s or year’s median cannot be reconstructed by averaging monthly medians.

The Q1–Q3 counts and values reconcile with the yearly snapshot. However, the nine January–September monthly counts sum to 123,579, compared with 115,989 in the yearly aggregate. The exact YTD cutoff remains unspecified. The difference is disclosed rather than resolved by choosing a different total.

Historical annual figures use a narrower property scope

The historical Dubai series below covers apartments, villas and commercial property only. It excludes townhouses, plots and buildings, which appear in the all-property headline. The 2026 row is incomplete and is not ranked against full years or used to calculate an annual growth rate.

What the report means for property decisions

The most useful distinction in this YTD snapshot is between developer purchases, at 71.6% of transaction count, and the resale segment. The aggregate establishes the recorded scale and mix, with an explicit coverage limit. It does not support a completed annual performance verdict.

For tenants and landlords, the rental table is a separate set of evidence. New leases and renewals should remain distinct, and neither median alone describes an individual lease negotiation. The useful next step is to identify the relevant property and contract population before comparing prices.

Source, coverage and definitions

Source: DXBinteract analysis of Dubai Land Department (DLD) records.

This fäm Properties edition uses the same saved figures as the corresponding DXBinteract report, retrieved on 2026-10-16. Editorial copy was updated on 2026-10-17. The retrieval date is not a confirmed last-registration date, and figures may be revised when the source snapshot is refreshed.

The sales headline and category table cover all property types. Area rankings and the historical series cover Apartment, Villa and Commercial only. Rental counts cover the listed categories and separate new contracts from renewals; their underlying date basis is not supplied. Currency is AED and floor area is sqft. Category and channel values may differ slightly from overall totals because source figures are rounded separately.

Year-on-year sales changes are recalculated from the same reporting period in the saved 2025 and 2026 rows. Current annual data are labelled YTD, with no full-year comparison. A median is the middle observation, not an average; segment medians are not combined into a citywide median. Where period snapshots do not reconcile, the difference is disclosed rather than treated as a measured market change.

Related market reports

• All fäm Properties market reports
• Source report: DXBinteract 2026 year to date
• Same period in 2025