# Dubai Real Estate Statistics 2026: 100+ Data Points from 86,946 DLD Sales

> Dubai property market statistics for 2026, from 86,946 registered DLD apartment sales: median AED 1.23M, 76% off-plan, 71% studios and 1-beds, month-by-month volumes, price distribution, top areas and record deals. Free to cite, updated monthly.

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Dubai · Market · Statistics 2026

# Dubai real estate statistics — 2026

Every number on this page comes from individual sales registered with the Dubai Land Department in January–August 2026 — 86,946 apartments and 8,705 villas, aggregated by us and refreshed monthly. Not listings, not press releases: registered prices buyers actually paid.

Key stats

🛡 RERA-licensed 📊 86,946 DLD records analysed 🔄 Updated monthly

86,946

apartment sales registered in Jan–Aug 2026

AED 195B

total residential value incl. villas

76%

of sales are off-plan

AED 1,717

median price per sqft (apartments)

Updated 2 September 2026 · data through 31 August 2026 · By [WIZI Advisory Team](https://wizipremium.com/about.html) · RERA ORN 60234

The headline numbers

## Dubai property market, Jan–Aug 2026: the key statistics

1. Dubai registered 86,946 apartment sales worth AED 160.9 billion in Jan–Aug 2026, plus 8,705 villa/townhouse sales worth AED 34.5 billion — ≈95,650 residential deals, AED 195.4 billion combined.
2. The median apartment sold for AED 1,232,198 (AED 1,717 per sqft); the mean was AED 1.85M — luxury deals pull the average 50% above the median.
3. The median villa sold for AED 3,250,000 (AED 1,771 per sqft).
4. 76% of apartment sales were off-plan (66,043 of 86,946) — buyers paid a 26% per-sqft premium over ready stock (AED 1,774 vs AED 1,403).
5. 71% of all purchases are studios or 1-bedrooms: 35,093 one-beds (40.4%) and 26,711 studios (30.7%). The median studio cost AED 675,000 (389 sqft), the median 1-bed AED 1,249,395 (778 sqft).
6. Only 3.8% of sales closed above AED 5M, and 1.1% above AED 10M — the market's core is AED 1–2M (36.7% of all deals).
7. The busiest month was February (12,703 sales), the slowest May (8,451) — a 33% drop from peak after the February 28 regional escalation; June recovered to 11,121 and July held at 11,472; August eased to 9,280 in the summer lull.
8. The most active area was Dubai South / Madinat Al Mataar: 10,600 apartment sales, 100% off-plan, ahead of JVC (6,402) and Dubailand Residence Complex (4,450).
9. The priciest zone (≥100 deals) was Marsa Dubai at AED 4,456/sqft; the cheapest, International City Phase 1 at AED 701/sqft — a 6.4× spread within one city.
10. The single largest registered deal was an AED 422,000,000 apartment at Aman Residences Dubai (Jumeirah Second); the largest villa: AED 220,000,000 on Amali Island (The World).
11. The top-selling project was Azizi Venice 14 — 1,882 sales in eight months, ahead of DAMAC Lagoons Valencia (1,158) and Maybach Six (1,012).
12. 97.9% of transactions happened in freehold areas — foreign-eligible ownership is the market.

Each statistic above stands on its own — cite freely with a link to this page (see «Methodology & citation» below). Source for all figures: DLD registered sales, Jan–Aug 2026, our aggregation.

Month by month

## Sales by month: the correction in one chart

Registered apartment sales per month. The February 28 escalation shows up as a March–May slide (−33% from the February peak by May); June and July turned back up, and August eased in the summer lull. Medians wobble with the mix — May–June skew affordable as off-plan launches in Dubai South and Dubailand dominate registrations:

January

12,252

February

12,703

March

10,501

April

11,166

May

8,451

June

11,121

July

11,472

August

9,280

| Month | Apartment sales | Median price | Off-plan | Villa sales |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 12,252 | AED 1,390,912 | 73% | 2,092 |
| February | 12,703 | AED 1,382,566 | 70% | 1,529 |
| March | 10,501 | AED 1,378,000 | 78% | 1,249 |
| April | 11,166 | AED 1,460,000 | 80% | 1,056 |
| May | 8,451 | AED 1,087,969 | 78% | 589 |
| June | 11,121 | AED 1,062,115 | 79% | 763 |
| July | 11,472 | AED 1,002,900 | 77% | 747 |
| August | 9,280 | AED 1,100,000 | 75% | 680 |

Prices above are DLD-registered transactions, not portal asking prices.

Registrations lag signings by days to weeks, so the escalation's demand hit lands mostly in March–May numbers. Villa sales follow the same curve at one-tenth the volume.

What buyers buy

## What Dubai actually buys: studios and 1-beds

Bedroom mix of all 86,946 registered apartment sales (DLD records the room count for ~100% of deals). The investor profile is unmistakable — compact stock dominates:

Studio

30.7%

1 bedroom

40.4%

2 bedrooms

22.8%

3 bedrooms

5.4%

4+ bedrooms

0.7%

| Type | Sales Jan–Aug | Median price | Median size, sqft | AED/sqft |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | 26,711 | AED 675,000 | 389 | 1,743 |
| 1 bedroom | 35,093 | AED 1,249,395 | 778 | 1,635 |
| 2 bedrooms | 19,796 | AED 2,200,000 | 1,248 | 1,762 |
| 3 bedrooms | 4,726 | AED 3,921,490 | 1,855 | 2,106 |
| 4+ bedrooms | 592 | AED 12,764,750 | 4,082 | 3,211 |

Price distribution

## Price distribution: where the deals cluster

Share of the 86,946 apartment sales by registered price band. More than a third of the market trades under AED 1M; the AED 1–2M band is the fattest at 36.7%:

Under AED 500k

3.4%

AED 500k – 1M

33.8%

AED 1M – 2M

36.7%

AED 2M – 3M

14.4%

AED 3M – 5M

7.8%

AED 5M – 10M

2.7%

Over AED 10M

1.1%

Off-plan vs ready

## Off-plan vs ready: the 26% premium

Off-plan units registered at a median AED 1,774/sqft against AED 1,403 for ready stock — a 26% premium for payment plans and new product. That gap is the number to watch in the correction: it compresses if off-plan demand cools:

| Segment | Sales Jan–Aug | Median price | AED/sqft | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Off-plan | 66,043 | AED 1,250,757 | 1,774 | 76% |
| Ready (resale & handover) | 20,903 | AED 1,150,000 | 1,403 | 24% |

Deciding off-plan vs ready at your budget? We'll price both against DLD registrations — free, one message.

Geography

## Top 10 areas by transaction volume

| Area | Sales Jan–Aug | Median price | AED/sqft | Off-plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dubai South (Madinat Al Mataar) | 10,600 | AED 785,000 | 1,701 | 100% |
| JVC — Jumeirah Village Circle | 6,402 | AED 1,007,446 | 1,463 | 60% |
| Dubailand Residence Complex | 4,450 | AED 809,671 | 1,430 | 92% |
| Majan | 3,393 | AED 722,999 | 1,440 | 82% |
| Business Bay | 3,218 | AED 2,132,089 | 2,433 | 56% |
| Dubai Islands (Palm Deira) | 3,168 | AED 2,870,004 | 2,819 | 100% |
| City of Arabia (Dubailand) | 2,227 | AED 604,000 | 1,699 | 99% |
| Arjan | 2,197 | AED 939,510 | 1,593 | 64% |
| Dubai Production City | 2,108 | AED 993,730 | 1,338 | 77% |
| Jabal Ali First (Azizi Venice) | 2,102 | AED 1,634,500 | 1,648 | 98% |

Prices above are DLD-registered transactions, not portal asking prices.

### Most expensive per sqft

- Marsa Dubai — AED 4,456/sqft (322 deals)
- [Palm Jumeirah](https://wizipremium.com/areas/palm-jumeirah.html) — AED 3,615/sqft (645 deals)
- Business Park — AED 3,586/sqft (1,525 deals)
- [Dubai Harbour](https://wizipremium.com/areas/dubai-harbour.html) — AED 3,561/sqft (252 deals)
- [Palm Jabal Ali](https://wizipremium.com/areas/palm-jebel-ali.html) — AED 3,498/sqft (305 deals)

### Most affordable per sqft

- International City Ph 1 — AED 701/sqft (971 deals)
- Remraam — AED 953/sqft (147 deals)
- Discovery Gardens — AED 970/sqft (703 deals)
- Liwan — AED 1,084/sqft (524 deals)
- Dubai Investment Park First — AED 1,119/sqft (1,011 deals)

Zone names as registered by DLD (≥100 deals threshold). «Marsa Dubai» is DLD's marina-adjacent registration zone — a distinct polygon from the Dubai Marina community pages use. Full 102-area table lives in our price index (link below).

Want these numbers for your own shortlist? Every option we send is priced against the DLD median for its building.

Projects & records

## Record deals and top projects of Jan–Aug 2026

### Top-selling projects, Jan–Aug 2026

- AZIZI VENICE 14 — 1,882 deals
- DAMAC LAGOONS - VALENCIA — 1,158 deals
- Maybach Six — 1,012 deals
- Azizi Venice 6 — 891 deals
- Azizi Venice 15 — 745 deals

### Largest registered deals, Jan–Aug 2026

| Registered price | Type | Project | Area |
|---|---|---|---|
| AED 422,000,000 | Apartment | Aman Residences Dubai | Jumeirah Second |
| AED 356,232,500 | Apartment | Aman Residences Dubai | Jumeirah Second |
| AED 225,965,000 | Apartment | The Alba Residences by Omniyat | Palm Jumeirah |
| AED 220,000,000 | Villa | AMALI ISLAND | The World |
| AED 115,000,000 | Villa | EOME | Palm Jumeirah |

Asking vs registered · the gap

## What a square metre in Dubai actually costs

A square metre in Dubai cost AED 18,514 between January and July
2026 — about $5,041 — measured across all 77,666 apartment sales registered with
the Dubai Land Department. Listing portals quote higher, and on averages they quote much higher:
three to four times the registry. Both numbers are arithmetically true. They
describe different things, and only one of them is what buyers paid.

*Advertised prices against registered prices — portal figures as published, registry figures from DLD, January–July 2026*

| What is compared | Advertised | Registered | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Villas, average price | AED 13,022,850 | AED 3,968,808 | 3.3× |
| Villas, advertised average vs median deal | AED 13,022,850 | AED 3,200,000 | 4.1× |
| Apartments, top of range | AED 1,230,000,000 | AED 422,000,000 | 2.9× |
| Apartments, "prices from" | AED 183,632 | AED 599,000 | −69% |
| Median price per m² | ~AED 19,110 | AED 18,514 | +3% |

Advertised figures as published by the
portals themselves: the villa average and the apartment range are Bayut's own stated numbers; the
"from" price is Emirates.Estate's stated entry point ($50,002); the per-m² median is our own count
across 13 listing cards on the first page of a large Russian-language Dubai catalogue on 15 August
2026 — a small sample, quoted as indicative only. Registry figures: DLD Sales-group residential
transactions, deduplicated by transaction number, apartments Unit/Flat ≥AED 100k, villas
Building/Villa ≥AED 300k. The AED 599,000 is the 10th percentile of registered apartment sales.

### Why the averages diverge and the medians agree

The pattern in that table is the whole story. On averages the gap is
multiples; on the median it is three percent. Two mechanisms produce that.

First, a portal shows inventory, and inventory is not the market. A villa listed at
AED 80M that nobody buys stays on the site for years and keeps lifting the advertised average every
day it sits there. The registry only records closings, so an unsold trophy asset never enters it at
all. Second, the average is dragged by that tail while the median is not: move the top 1% of
listings and the mean jumps, the median barely twitches. Which is why the medians of the two sources
end up almost on top of each other — they are both describing the ordinary middle of the same
market, where things actually transact.

The practical rule follows directly. Ignore any "average price" quoted from
listings — it is arithmetically correct and practically useless. Use medians, and prefer
medians of registered deals, because that is the only number that means "someone paid this".

### What Google currently answers

Ask Google in Russian how much an apartment in Dubai costs and its AI Overview
replies that a square metre averages $5,400–5,800. That figure sits above both
numbers we measured: above our registry median of $5,041 and above the
~$5,200 asking median from the catalogue sample. We are not going to guess how the
answer was assembled — but a reader who takes it as the market price is budgeting from the
advertised side of the market, and from the upper part of it.

If you cite one number for the price of a square metre in Dubai, the defensible one
is AED 18,514 / $5,041, and it should be cited with its period (January–July 2026),
its source (Dubai Land Department) and its type (median of registered sales, not asking prices).
Every figure on this page can be recomputed from the open DLD file — that is the point of publishing
the method alongside the number.

Methodology & citation

## Methodology — and how to cite these numbers

Source. Individual sales transactions registered with the Dubai Land Department (open data), January 1 – August 31, 2026. We de-duplicate by transaction number, keep residential Sales only, and split apartments (Unit/Flat, ≥AED 100k) from built villas (Building/Villa, ≥AED 300k). Price-per-sqft uses DLD's actual area with a 100–30,000 AED/sqft sanity band; medians, not averages, headline every table because Dubai's luxury tail distorts means by ~50%.

What this is not. Not listing prices (registered prices run below asking), not developer press releases, not projections. Index-style price movements live in our [price index](https://wizipremium.com/dubai-property-price-index.html); interpretation and H2 scenarios in the [market report](https://wizipremium.com/dubai-real-estate-market-report.html). This page refreshes monthly when DLD's next batch lands.

HOW TO CITE THIS PAGE

«According to WIZI PREMIUM's analysis of 86,946 DLD-registered sales, …» — with a link to this page. All figures are free to reuse with attribution (CC BY 4.0). Journalists: for a custom cut of the data (area, segment, month), write to [hello@wizipremium.com](https://wizipremium.com/mailto:hello@wizipremium.com?subject=Data request — Dubai statistics) — same-day turnaround.

FAQ

## Common questions

**How many properties were sold in Dubai in 2026?**

Between January and August 2026 the Dubai Land Department registered 86,946 apartment sales (AED 160.9 billion) and 8,705 villa/townhouse sales (AED 34.5 billion) — roughly 95,650 residential deals worth about AED 195.4 billion combined. Full-year 2026 numbers will depend on H2; this page updates monthly. That is roughly 390 registrations a day, and 97.9% of them went through freehold zones open to foreign buyers. February was the busiest month with 12,703 apartment sales; May the quietest with 8,451, before June rebounded to 11,121 and July held at 11,472; August eased to 9,280 in the summer lull.

**What is the average price of an apartment in Dubai?**

The median registered price in Jan–Aug 2026 was AED 1,232,198 (AED 1,717 per sqft). The arithmetic average was AED 1.85M — 50% higher, dragged up by a luxury tail that includes deals up to AED 422M. Median is the honest yardstick; anyone quoting «average» prices is including that tail. The core of the market is far more modest than the headlines: 36.7% of all deals closed between AED 1M and AED 2M, and only 3.8% above AED 5M. For villas and townhouses the median was AED 3,250,000 at AED 1,771 per sqft.

**What share of Dubai property sales are off-plan?**

76% of Jan–Aug 2026 apartment registrations (66,043 of 86,946) were off-plan. Off-plan traded at a 26% per-sqft premium to ready stock — AED 1,774 vs AED 1,403 — the price of payment plans and new product. The pattern is driven by launch-heavy districts: the busiest zone of the period, Dubai South (Madinat Al Mataar, 10,600 sales), was 100% off-plan. Watch that premium through the correction — it is the first number that compresses if off-plan demand cools.

**What do buyers actually buy in Dubai?**

Compact investor stock: 40.4% one-bedrooms and 30.7% studios — together 71% of all Jan–Aug 2026 deals. Median studio: AED 675,000 for 389 sqft; median 1-bed: AED 1,249,395 for 778 sqft. Only 3.8% of deals closed above AED 5M. At the other end only 1.1% of deals closed above AED 10M — the luxury segment that dominates headlines is a thin slice of actual trading. The compact mix reflects investor demand: studios and one-beds are the easiest units to rent out in high-yield districts like JVC and Dubai South.

**Which Dubai area is the most expensive per square foot?**

Among zones with 100+ registered deals in Jan–Aug 2026: Marsa Dubai (AED 4,456/sqft), Palm Jumeirah (AED 3,615), Business Park (AED 3,586) and Dubai Harbour (AED 3,561). The cheapest: International City Phase 1 at AED 701/sqft — a 6.4× spread across the city. Price per square foot is the honest way to compare areas, because unit sizes differ hugely between them. The record single deal of the period — an AED 422,000,000 apartment at Aman Residences Dubai — sits in the same top tier of waterfront zones.

**Where do these statistics come from?**

From sales registered with the Dubai Land Department (open data), January–August 2026, aggregated by us: de-duplicated, residential only, apartments ≥AED 100k. These are prices buyers actually paid — typically below portal asking prices. The dataset refreshes monthly; figures are free to cite with a link. Medians, not averages, headline every figure — a handful of nine-digit deals would otherwise distort the picture. For a custom cut of the data — by area, segment or month — email hello@wizipremium.com; journalists get a same-day turnaround.

Go deeper

## The data pages behind these numbers

[Price index — 102 areas (DLD) →](https://wizipremium.com/dubai-property-price-index.html) [Market report Jan–Aug 2026 →](https://wizipremium.com/dubai-real-estate-market-report.html) [Is it a bubble? The verdict →](https://wizipremium.com/dubai-real-estate-bubble.html) [Best areas 2026 →](https://wizipremium.com/best-areas-to-buy-property-dubai.html)

We publish a fresh cut of DLD data every month. Add WIZI PREMIUM as a preferred source in Google to see it in Top Stories and AI results.

[Add as preferred source →](https://google.com/preferences/source?q=wizipremium.com)

### Get a shortlist priced against DLD data

Tell us your budget and target area — we'll send options priced against the registered DLD median for their buildings, so you see exactly what is above and below the real market. WIZI PREMIUM — Property Finder Awards 2025 winner (Quality Brokerage, Dubai Boutique).