Market data

What the market is actually doing.

Figures rather than sentiment — each with a source, a date and a sample size. What is missing here is missing on purpose: values I cannot evidence do not appear on this page.

Data as at 08/29/2026 Source Dubai Land Department (via data.dubai and the Bayut API) · Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre

Key points

  • Dubai price trend: the official residential price index stood at 167.3 in Q4 2025 (2019 = 100), +8.9 % on the same quarter a year earlier. It describes Dubai as a whole, not individual locations.
  • Dubai transactions: in Q1 2026 the Dubai Land Department registered 47,987 purchases worth AED 176.4 bn in total.
  • Price level: the median price per m² in the six Dubai locations analysed ranges from AED 14,185 (Jumeirah Village Circle) to AED 33,114 (Palm Jumeirah).
  • Gross yield: between 3.9 % (Palm Jumeirah) and 6.9 % (Jumeirah Village Circle). This is the yield before service charges, vacancy and management, an order of magnitude per location, not per property.
  • Abu Dhabi: according to ADREC, apartments in H1 2026 cost on average AED 42,000 per m² on Saadiyat and AED 25,000 on Yas Island, up 31 % and 32 % respectively on 2025. That is a different source and a different kind of figure than for Dubai: an average, not a median.

Data date and source are given for every section; how the figures are produced is explained under How the figures are produced.

Key figures at a glance

Registered purchases and price levels across the six Dubai locations analysed.

Purchases, 12 months

34,089

Residential sales, six locations combined.

Purchases, last month

3,258

Same scope, last 30 days.

Median price per m²

14,185 – 33,114

From the cheapest to the most expensive of the six.

Locations analysed

6

Dubai. Abu Dhabi is not in this register — see below.

Price development in Dubai

The official price index of the Dubai Land Department, quarterly. Base year 2019 = 100 — a value of 167 means roughly two thirds above the 2019 level.

Residential property price index, base 2019 = 100
2020Q2Q3Q42021Q2Q3Q42022Q2Q3Q42023Q2Q3Q42024Q2Q3Q42025Q2Q3Q4
Werte als Tabelle
ZeitraumWert
202098
Q297
Q394
Q495
202196
Q298
Q3107
Q4110
2022112
Q2115
Q3119
Q4123
2023128
Q2131
Q3135
Q4136
2024142
Q2146
Q3151
Q4154
2025159
Q2162
Q3162
Q4167
General index · 2025 Q4
167.32
Flats
147.06
Villas
224.96
Purchases in the quarter · 2026 Q1
47,987
Total purchase value in the quarter · 2026 Q1
176.4 Mrd. AED

The series of purchases is not complete in the dataset — 2024 Q1, 2024 Q2, 2024 Q3, 2024 Q4, 2025 Q3 are missing. The figures for the remaining quarters are unaffected.

Dubai Land Department · data.dubai · View the dataset →

Price levels across the Dubai locations

Median price per square metre from the most recent sales in each location. Median rather than average, because individual penthouse deals tip an average.

Median price per square metre, by locationin AED
Palm JumeirahDowntown DubaiBusiness BayDubai Hills EstateDubai MarinaJumeirah Village Circle (JVC)
Werte als Tabelle
ZeitraumAED
Palm Jumeirah33,114
Downtown Dubai29,420
Business Bay25,149
Dubai Hills Estate23,947
Dubai Marina23,666
Jumeirah Village Circle (JVC)14,185
Location Median per m² Median price Sample Period
Palm Jumeirah 33,114 AED 5,250,000 AED 58 07/29/2026 – 08/27/2026
Downtown Dubai 29,420 AED 3,472,500 AED 60 08/17/2026 – 08/27/2026
Business Bay 25,149 AED 1,682,500 AED 60 08/21/2026 – 08/28/2026
Dubai Hills Estate 23,947 AED 2,216,888 AED 60 08/19/2026 – 08/27/2026
Dubai Marina 23,666 AED 2,500,000 AED 59 08/19/2026 – 08/27/2026
Jumeirah Village Circle (JVC) 14,185 AED 900,500 AED 60 08/26/2026 – 08/27/2026

Gross yield across the Dubai locations

Annual rent divided by purchase price, both per square metre and both as medians. This is the GROSS yield: before service charges, management, vacancy and maintenance. What remains of it is decided by the individual property.

Gross yield by location, in per centin %
Jumeirah Village Circle (JVC)Dubai Hills EstateDowntown DubaiBusiness BayDubai MarinaPalm Jumeirah
Werte als Tabelle
Zeitraum%
Jumeirah Village Circle (JVC)7
Dubai Hills Estate6
Downtown Dubai5
Business Bay5
Dubai Marina5
Palm Jumeirah4
Location Rent per m² / year Purchase price per m² Gross Tenancies
Jumeirah Village Circle (JVC) 974 AED 14,185 AED 6.9 % 908
Dubai Hills Estate 1,403 AED 23,947 AED 5.9 % 256
Downtown Dubai 1,473 AED 29,420 AED 5.0 % 330
Business Bay 1,202 AED 25,149 AED 4.8 % 548
Dubai Marina 1,125 AED 23,666 AED 4.8 % 645
Palm Jumeirah 1,308 AED 33,114 AED 3.9 % 156

Two sources: rents come from the Dubai Land Department Ejari contracts (tenancies starting from January 2025), purchase prices from the most recent sales via the Bayut API. Both are medians for the same location, but not for the same flats — the yield is therefore an order of magnitude, not a promise for a particular property.

Abu Dhabi — a different source, a different kind of figure

The Dubai Land Department keeps only Dubai's register. For Abu Dhabi there is the market report of the Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre. It gives district averages rather than medians from individual sales — both are market figures, but not the same quantity. Abu Dhabi therefore stands separately here and is not folded into the tables above.

Purchase price per m², H1 2026
District Flats avg. high Villas avg. high
Al Saadiyat Island 42,000 142,000 23,000 100,000
Fahid Island 40,000 52,000
Al Maryah Island 36,000 92,000
Yas Island 25,000 104,000 18,000 53,000
Al Hidayriyyat Island 24,000 33,000 15,000 36,000
Al Raha 21,000 39,000 12,000 12,000
Al Jubail Island 20,000 26,000 24,000 34,000
Al Reem Island 18,000 38,000 14,000 16,000
Zayed City 16,000 21,000 16,000 22,000
Khalifa City 14,000 25,000 12,000 26,000
Al Shamkhah 14,000 21,000 6,000 26,000
Al Reef 11,000 20,000 12,000 17,000
Al Bahyah 10,000 16,000
Madinat Al Riyad 6,000 18,000

Average and highest value per district, in AED per square metre. The report itself notes that in most districts the maximum is two to four times the mean — an average here does not describe a typical home, but the middle of a wide field. A dash means nothing was reported for that type in that district.

What has changed since 2025

The 2025 annual report states the same quantity — the district average — so the two points in time can be compared. Flats are shown; for villas the older report covers too few districts.

District Avg. 2025 Avg. H1 2026 Change
Al Saadiyat Island 32,000 42,000 +31.3 %
Fahid Island 39,000 40,000 +2.6 %
Al Maryah Island 20,000 36,000 +80.0 %
Yas Island 19,000 25,000 +31.6 %
Al Raha 15,000 21,000 +40.0 %
Al Jubail Island 18,000 20,000 +11.1 %
Al Reem Island 15,000 18,000 +20.0 %
Zayed City 15,000 16,000 +6.7 %
Khalifa City 13,000 14,000 +7.7 %
Al Reef 8,000 11,000 +37.5 %

The comparison sets a full-year average beside a half-year one — the direction holds, the exact size does not. Large jumps in individual districts usually say more about the product mix than about price: when one expensive project goes on sale in a small district, it lifts the average without a single flat having become more expensive. Two districts are missing from this table: for Al Hidayriyyat and Al Shamkhah the 2025 report states a maximum below the average. A figure that contradicts itself is better left out.

The 2024 report cannot be joined to this: it gives price ranges rather than averages, and its price index uses a different base year. A longer series would be a calculation across three different zero points.

Gross yield on Yas Island

Only for Yas Island can the yield be calculated reliably: there the sales and lettings sections of the report carry the same project names, so the calculation stays within one project.

Project Rent per m² / year Purchase price per m² Gross
Ansam 1,350 AED 22,000 AED 6.1 %
Water's Edge 1,200 AED 22,000 AED 5.5 %
YAS Acres 1,150 AED 22,500 AED 5.1 %
Noya 1,100 AED 22,000 AED 5.0 %
Mayan 1,400 AED 28,000 AED 5.0 %

No yield is given for the other Abu Dhabi locations, deliberately. On Al Saadiyat the same calculation would give between 1.9 and 6.0 % depending on the project — what sells there is mostly new-build at the upper end, while the registered tenancies come from existing stock. For Fahid Island there are no rents yet, and Al Ghadeer is not broken out in the report.

Worth noting: since 2 June 2026 a rental increase freeze applies in Abu Dhabi — renewals at zero per cent, re-lettings at the value of the preceding contract, ADGM communities exempt. In the first half of the year new-letting prices still rose 17 % for flats and 9 % for villas; in June it was half a per cent. The figures above therefore describe a period half of which falls before that measure. The report gives no end date.

Source: Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre, market report H1 2026 and annual report 2025 · Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre (ADREC) →

How much is traded in Dubai

Registered purchases over the past twelve months. The figure says nothing about prices — it says how readily a flat in that location sells again.

Purchases over twelve months, by location
Jumeirah Village Circle (JVC)Business BayDubai Hills EstateDowntown DubaiDubai MarinaPalm Jumeirah
Werte als Tabelle
ZeitraumWert
Jumeirah Village Circle (JVC)14,579
Business Bay9,110
Dubai Hills Estate3,270
Downtown Dubai2,984
Dubai Marina2,750
Palm Jumeirah1,396

How the figures are produced

Anyone passing on a figure should know where it comes from and what it measures. This section therefore sets out how every figure on this page was produced, including the points where the sources themselves have limits.

Sources

  • Dubai Land Department via data.dubai: the official residential price index and registered purchases per quarter. The data is open and published under a licence that permits use with attribution.
  • Bayut API (DLD transaction data): purchase prices from a sample of the most recent sales per location, and purchases over the last twelve months.
  • DLD Ejari tenancy contracts: annual rents per m². The analysis uses a sample spread evenly across the register, only contracts with a start date from January 2025.
  • Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre (ADREC): market report H1 2026 and annual report 2025. The values appear there in maps and charts and have been read off by hand. There is no interface for them.
Median rather than average
Dubai figures are medians, because individual deals at the very top of the market distort an average. ADREC publishes averages per district. The two emirates are therefore never combined in one table.
Location names
The Dubai Land Department records some locations under names other than those used in the market: Dubai Marina as Marsa Dubai, Downtown Dubai as Burj Khalifa, Jumeirah Village Circle as Al Barsha South Fourth, Dubai Hills Estate as Hadaeq Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid. The mapping has been checked against the project names in the contracts themselves.
Gross yield
Median annual rent per m² divided by median purchase price per m² in the same location. The two come from different sources and therefore not from the same flats. A net yield cannot be calculated from open data, because it depends on the individual property.
Abu Dhabi
A yield is shown only for Yas Island, because the sales and rental parts of the report list the same projects there. In the H1 2026 report the rental maps are wrongly labelled as sales prices. Which figure is which follows from the order of magnitude and from the correctly labelled previous edition.
Missing data is not zero
Where a source returns nothing for a location, the page shows a sentence explaining why, not a zero.
Updates
The data is not queried on every page view. It is fetched deliberately, checked and loaded in. The date is shown for every section.

What these figures do not say

  • The figures above are Dubai. The Dubai Land Department keeps Dubai's register; for Yas Island, Saadiyat, Al Ghadeer and Fahid Island this source returns nothing — not zero sales, simply no data. Abu Dhabi therefore has its own section, with a different source and a different kind of figure.
  • The median prices come from a sample of the most recent sales, not from every transaction in the period. Sample size and time window are in the table above.
  • Purchase prices cover residential property and purchases only; commercial property and land are not included. Rents come separately from the Ejari contracts, see “How the figures are produced”.
  • No price trend by location. The price trend above is the official index for Dubai as a whole. The location figures come from rolling periods without quarterly values; a trend by location could be asserted from them, not evidenced.

Market data describes the past. It permits no statement about future developments and does not constitute investment advice. Individual properties can deviate considerably from the market average.

What does that mean for your plans?

Market averages help with orientation, not with the decision. In an introductory call we work with the figures of your specific property.