Dubai Real Estate Market Report — Q3, 2026

fäm Properties · Dubai Real Estate Market Report · Q3 2026

Dubai property sales fall 50% in Q3 2026

AED 73.07 billion in sales, with a median price of AED 1,680/sqft across all property types.

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

Dubai recorded 29,912 property sales worth AED 73.07 billion in Q3 2026, across all property types. Sales count fell 49.6% year on year, while the median sale price per sqft fell 1.2% to AED 1,680. DXBinteract analysis of Dubai Land Department records provides the figures behind this fäm Properties report.

The Q3 aggregate shows weaker activity, with a reconciliation limit

The stored third-quarter aggregate shows a substantial decline in sales count and value compared with Q3 2025. Its median price per sqft moved much less. The quarter’s total does not reconcile with the separate July, August and September snapshots, so the quarterly result is reported as supplied rather than rebuilt from those months.

That difference affects how the report can be used. The quarterly aggregate can describe the supplied Q3 snapshot, but the monthly rows cannot be used to calculate contribution shares against it. No cause for the discrepancy is established by the supplied data.

The underlying figures and their source report are available in the DXBinteract Q3 2026 market report. This fäm Properties edition interprets the same snapshot for buyers, sellers, tenants and landlords.

Sales count fell 21.8% from Q2 2026

Dubai recorded 29,912 sales in Q3 2026, compared with 38,257 in Q2 2026, across all property types. The 21.8% decrease is a comparison of the two saved snapshots. The year-on-year comparison remains the primary reference because adjacent periods can be affected by seasonality and transaction mix.

Developer purchases make up 69.2% of transactions

In Dubai, Q3 2026 primary purchases totalled 20,696 transactions worth AED 42.10 billion, representing 69.2% of all sales by count and 57.6% by value. The resale segment recorded 9,216 sales worth AED 30.97 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 25,123 apartment sales in Q3 2026, 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.

Dubai South leads the reported area table by value

For Dubai in Q3 2026, Dubai South heads the supplied area table by sales value at AED 5.31 billion, while Dubai South leads by count with 4,662 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 68,000

Dubai’s Q3 2026 rental snapshot records 37,715 new apartment contracts at a median annual rent of AED 68,000. Apartment renewals numbered 37,929 at a median of AED 59,000. 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.

19,109 units launched; 11,738 delivered

Dubai’s Q3 2026 supply summary records 19,109 launched units across 47 projects and 11,738 delivered units across 41 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 Q3 2026 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.

Reconciliation note: the component snapshots sum to 37,502 sales and AED 93,252,198,138, while the aggregate records 29,912 sales and AED 73,073,675,907. The supplied data do not explain this difference. Component contribution shares are therefore not calculated.

What the report means for property decisions

For Q3 2026, the year-on-year drop in activity was larger than the movement in the median price per sqft. Buyers, sellers and agents should keep transaction volume, total spending and comparable-home pricing separate. The report describes recorded sales, not the asking prices or time on market of unsold listings.

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 Q3 2026
• 2026 year-to-date review
• Q2 2026
• Same period in 2025