Will Dubai Property Prices Rise? Data and Outlooks, 2026

Will Dubai Property Prices Rise? Data and Outlooks, 2026

Will Dubai property prices rise? On 28 October 2026 the published record points in different directions depending on the series. The Dubai Land Department (DLD) recorded about 270,000 transactions worth AED 917 billion ($249.7 billion) in 2025, up 20% on 2024 (Gulf News). In 2026 the price series diverge: CBRE reported home sale prices 1.9% higher year on year in Q2, ValuStrat reported apartments 3% lower year on year in the same quarter, and Knight Frank said on 6 July that mainstream prices had ebbed by 5-20% depending on location. Residential sales volumes in the third quarter were about 38% below a year earlier on both the Savills and Cavendish Maxwell counts.

This article does not answer the question with a prediction, because none is made here. It sets out, with dates, methods and named sources, what has happened to prices and transactions, what the supply pipeline looks like on each counter, what the macro sources cite as of 28 October 2026, what each published outlook says and what its authors say would make it wrong, and how to read a forecast. Amounts in dirhams are shown with US dollars in brackets at the fixed rate of 3.6725 dirhams per dollar. The history of the 2008-2011 fall is covered in a separate article on whether the Dubai property market will crash, and this one stays with the 2026 evidence and the outlooks.

Will Dubai Property Prices Rise? The Record on 28 October 2026

No single number describes the Dubai residential market, because the sources count different things: all real-estate transactions or residential sales only, registered deals or valuations, averages or medians, and every unit sold or like-for-like comparisons. The first table puts the main published readings side by side with the date of each. The sections after it explain how each series is built, so that a reader can see why a 3% fall in one place and a 1.9% rise in another can both be accurate.

Two features of the table matter for everything that follows. First, the series differ in what they measure and when: Knight Frank’s 5-20% range is a statement about mainstream prices by location, ValuStrat’s index is a valuation index, and the Cavendish Maxwell figure is an average of registered sales per square foot. Second, the dates differ. A reading for June predates the third-quarter registrations, and a reading for the third quarter includes sales that were agreed earlier and registered later, a lag that Cavendish Maxwell and Knight Frank both refer to.

How Each Dubai Price Series Is Built

A statement such as prices fell or prices rose is only as informative as the method behind it, and anyone asking will Dubai property prices rise meets the problem at once, because the answer changes with the series chosen. Seven series are used in this article. Their methods, as the publishers describe them, are in the table below.

Average, median and like-for-like

An average price per square foot adds up the value of every registered sale and divides by the area sold. If a month contains more small studios in outer communities and fewer large villas, the average falls even though no individual home has changed in price. A median picks the middle sale instead, which limits the effect of a few very large deals but still moves with mix. A like-for-like measure holds the mix constant by comparing similar homes. Savills makes the distinction in its own report: it said headline movements are partly driven by changes in the type and value of properties being transacted, and it reported apartments down 1.7% and villas and townhouses unchanged on its like-for-like measure, against headline falls of 4.8% and 3.3% on the quarter.

Transactions, valuations and asking prices

Transaction-based series record what buyers and sellers agreed, but registration comes after agreement. Knight Frank said on 6 July 2026 that deals closed before the conflict were registered four to six weeks later, so figures published in the weeks after a shock partly reflect earlier deals. Cavendish Maxwell used similar wording for the third quarter, saying the declines reflected reduced activity as the lag in sales registrations begins to clear. A valuation index such as the VPI does not wait for registrations; ValuStrat says that is why it responds faster to sentiment than DLD data, which can lag. The trade-off is that a valuation is an estimate by a valuer, not a recorded price. Asking prices, which some portals publish, record what sellers want and are a third kind of series, not used for the price tables in this article.

The DLD index and its disclaimers

The DLD publishes a residential sales price index, also called the Dubai House Price Index, on its open-data pages. The page states that DLD and its partner may change the methodology, that no accuracy metrics are provided, and that the index should not be used for pricing, investment decisions or performance measurement. As of 28 October 2026 the figures displayed on that page run to November 2022, so the 2026 readings in this article come from the consultancies and data providers listed above. That is a fact about what is displayed, and it is one reason the sources are quoted by name and date.

What the Price Series Reported in 2026

The next table orders the 2026 readings by the period they describe. Read down a column and the direction is mixed; read across a row and the method explains much of the difference.

Apartments and villas

Every source that splits the market shows the two segments behaving differently. ValuStrat’s Q2 index had apartments 3% lower than a year earlier and villas 2% higher. The DXBinteract medians for September show the same direction with a wider gap, but the villa figure rests on 836 sales, so a handful of large deals in a single community can move a median by double digits. Savills’ average for villas and townhouses fell 3.3% on the quarter and its like-for-like measure was unchanged. REIDIN’s Q3 index had villas down slightly more than apartments on the quarter. Reading these together, the direction for villas depends on whether the series is a year-on-year median, a valuation index or a quarterly average, and the sources do not settle it.

Prime homes

Savills reported that transactions above AED 10 million ($2.72 million) numbered 669 in Q3 2026 against 871 in Q2, a fall of 23.2%, while prime apartments averaged AED 5,237 ($1,426) per sq ft, up 4.0% year on year, and prime villas and townhouses AED 2,791 ($760) per sq ft, up 3.6%. ValuStrat reported that prime villas held their value over the year and that 48 homes sold above AED 30 million ($8.17 million) in the quarter. Those are statements about the top of the market. They are not comparable with a citywide average, which is dominated by apartments priced below AED 2 million ($544,588).

Worked arithmetic: cumulative falls and recovery

Monthly percentage changes compound; they do not add. ValuStrat reported monthly declines of 6% in March, 2% in April, 1% in May and 1% in June 2026. Multiplying the remaining shares gives 0.94 x 0.98 x 0.99 x 0.99 = 0.903, a cumulative fall of 9.7%, which matches ValuStrat’s statement of about 10% since late February. On the reported June index of 220.0, that implies a late-February level of about 243.7 (220.0 / 0.903). A fall of 9.7% also needs a rise of 10.7% to return to the starting point (0.097 / 0.903), because the percentage is applied to a smaller base. This is arithmetic on published figures, not a forecast of a recovery.

Unit conversions are another source of apparent disagreement. A median of AED 1,656 per square foot equals about AED 17,825 per square metre ($4,854) at 10.7639 square feet per square metre. A price quoted per square metre in one report and per square foot in another differs by that factor of about 10.76 before any real difference in the market is considered. The same care applies to the Savills mix effect: if the apartment average fell 4.8% and the like-for-like measure fell 1.7% over the same period, the 3.1-point gap would be the part of the headline fall attributable to what was sold. Savills does not label the period of its like-for-like figure, so that reading is conditional.

Transactions: What the DLD and the Consultancies Counted

Volume matters to the price question because a price series built on fewer sales carries more noise. The table below lists the transaction counts published for 2025 and 2026. The DLD figures cover all registered real-estate transactions; the Cavendish Maxwell and Savills figures cover residential sales only, so the two groups should not be subtracted from each other.

What the arithmetic shows

The half-year DLD split shows how counts and values diverge. Off-plan sales were 68.4% of the 86,000 sales by count (58,840 / 86,000) but 48.8% by value (AED 139.75 billion ($38.1 billion) of AED 286.44 billion ($78.0 billion)). The average off-plan sale was therefore about AED 2,375,085 ($646,722), and the average completed sale about AED 5,400,957 ($1,470,649). A shift in the mix between the two moves a citywide average without any change in the price of a given home, which is the same mix effect described in the previous section.

Subtracting the DLD’s first-quarter figures from the half-year figures gives an implied second quarter of AED 167.94 billion ($45.7 billion) and 52,547 transactions, about 33% less in value and 13% fewer in count than the first quarter. The two figures come from different releases (the DLD for Q1, a news report of DLD data for H1), so this subtraction is indicative only. The same exercise on Cavendish Maxwell’s residential series gives a Q3 share of about 30% of the nine-month total of 112,580 purchases (34,000 / 112,580), against the 33% that an even split across three quarters would give. Scope differs again in September: Cavendish Maxwell counted about 10,300 residential transactions worth nearly AED 23.2 billion ($6.3 billion), while DXBinteract counted 11,340 sales of all property types worth AED 29.73 billion ($8.1 billion).

Savills attributed the Q3 moderation mainly to the off-plan segment and to fewer new launches rather than weaker demand, and reported ready-property value rising from AED 21.3 billion ($5.80 billion) in Q2 to AED 25.1 billion ($6.83 billion) in Q3. ValuStrat reported 9,491 resale purchases worth about AED 25 billion ($6.81 billion) in Q3, the first quarterly rise since late 2025, with one in three selling for under AED 1 million ($272,294), and said mortgages funded almost half of ready-property deals. Off-plan sales slowed for a fourth straight quarter on the same source. The two firms describe the same direction in the ready segment even though their counts differ in scope.

The Supply Pipeline and Handover Numbers

Supply is the factor that the rating agencies cite most often when they address the question of will Dubai property prices rise, and it is the one with the widest spread of published numbers. The counters differ in what they call supply: units scheduled, units registered, units under construction beyond a stage, or units expected to complete on historical delivery rates. The table lists each count with its date and definition.

Why the counters differ

Three differences explain most of the spread. The first is the unit of count. A schedule of 160,000 units in the Knight Frank pipeline is a list of registered projects with a delivery date, not a forecast of completions. Knight Frank’s own 2025 comparison shows why the distinction matters: completions of 39,700 in 2025 were 64% of what had been scheduled on time, and the firm’s Shehzad Jamal said the actual completion rate would probably be well below what the pipeline data suggests. The second is the date. The Cushman & Wakefield Core figure for 2026 moved from about 49,700 in a report quoted on 15 August to about 55,600 in one quoted on 20 August, which are two different publications and should be read as such. The third is method. Cavendish Maxwell expects completions of 14,000-23,500 out of 47,000 scheduled for H2, which is 30% to 50% of the schedule (14,000 / 47,000 = 29.8%; 23,500 / 47,000 = 50.0%), based on historical delivery rates.

Worked arithmetic: what the counters imply

Adding Cavendish Maxwell’s 24,800 completions in H1 to its H2 range of 14,000-23,500 gives a full-year 2026 range of 38,800 to 48,300 on that method. As a share of the 160,000 in Knight Frank’s pipeline that is 24% to 30%. Cushman & Wakefield Core’s 55,600 is 35% of the same pipeline, and on ValuStrat’s preliminary target of 129,066 it is 43%. ValuStrat’s own H1 completions (about 20,000) were 15.5% of that target, and its roughly 33,000 by the end of September were 25.6%. On a housing stock of just under 900,000 homes, 55,600 handovers would add about 6.2%, the Knight Frank pipeline of 160,000 would be 17.8%, and ValuStrat’s 322,000 by the end of the decade would be 35.8%. An S&P figure of 20% growth in the stock over two years is of the order of 180,000 homes on a base of 900,000, although S&P’s article does not state the base it used, so that comparison is only a check on scale.

Savills noted that reduced launches and delayed completions are expected to ease near-term supply pressure. Cushman & Wakefield Core said in the same period that contractor capacity and supply-chain issues could delay handovers, and that projects with substantial capital and contractor commitments are less exposed than early-stage ones. ValuStrat’s Haider Tuaima cautioned that delays and rescheduling would likely lead to downward revisions to the pipeline over time. All three statements point to completions below the schedule; none says by how much.

Demand Indicators: Population, Households, Tourism and Output

Any discussion of will Dubai property prices rise has to include demand as well as supply, because prices respond to both, and the official demand series come from the Dubai Data and Statistics Establishment (DDSE), part of Digital Dubai, and from the Department of Economy and Tourism (DET). The table lists the latest readings with dates.

Population arithmetic puts the 2026 pace in context. The 226,885 added between 1 January and 28 September 2026 is 4.95% of the end-2025 population (226,885 / 4,580,300) and about 837 people for each of the 271 days elapsed. The DDSE defines ordinarily resident people as those who usually live in the emirate for at least six months or intend to. In 2025 the number of households rose by 62,800, while Knight Frank counted 39,700 completions; households and completed homes are different units, so the two numbers describe scale and do not measure a gap.

Hotel and visitor data give a second demand reading. August occupancy of 66% as a share of 89% of the prior August implies a prior-year level of about 74% (66 / 0.89), against 80.7% for the whole of 2025. Moody’s wrote on 7 May that a sharp slowdown or reversal in population inflows would worsen absorption risk as completed supply rises, and Fitch said weaker activity, reduced tourism and slower population growth could make the correction larger than first forecast. The population series up to 28 September shows continued growth, and the tourism series shows recovery from the March low; both are descriptions of what has happened, and the two agencies describe what would change their views.

The Macro Context Cited by the Sources on 28 October 2026

Only agencies and official bodies are used in this section, and each statement is attributed and dated. Al Jazeera dated the start of the war to 28 February 2026, when United States and Israeli strikes on Iran began. The IMF’s July statement described the economy as showing remarkable resilience to the conflict in the Middle East, and its October projections attach explicit assumptions about shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The table gives the indicators that the sources link to the property market.

Interest rates

The dirham is pegged to the dollar and the UAE base rate follows the US Federal Reserve. The Central Bank of the UAE raised the base rate by 25 basis points to 3.9% effective 17 September 2026 after the Fed raised its target range to 3.75%-4%. Moody’s listed lower interest rates among the factors that make mortgages more affordable in its February report; rates have since moved the other way, and The National’s report on the IMF’s October outlook noted that the Fed and other central banks have begun raising rates or are expected to. The agencies do not publish a calculation of the effect of the 25-point rise on Dubai prices.

Oil, shipping and the IMF assumptions

The IMF’s July statement said hydrocarbon output was expected to pick up in the second half of 2026 as oil exports recovered after the UAE’s exit from OPEC, and that the on-and-off closure of the Strait of Hormuz was weighing on activity. The October projection is lower than the July wording suggested: a 3.9% contraction in 2026, 7 points below the April projection, then a 7.7% rebound in 2027. The EIA’s October outlook assumes Middle East oil flows stay constrained through the fourth quarter. These are conditional projections, and the conditions are listed in the sources: the pace of reopening, the duration of the conflict and the path of rates.

Tourism, output and the regional events the sources cite

Official and agency sources cite the regional events as drivers of the weaker months. Hotel occupancy reached a low of 36% in March and 66% in August. Dubai’s real GDP for H1 2026 was 2.3% below H1 2025 on DDSE data, with finance and insurance the fastest-growing large sector and transport and storage down 7.4%. Cavendish Maxwell’s Ronan Arthur said purchasing activity became more measured after the conflict began, and Fitch tied its larger-correction view to weaker activity, lower tourism and slower population growth. The same sources also report resilience: the IMF described the banking system as well capitalised, and Savills described the prime segment as resilient. This article does not weigh those statements against each other, and none of them is a statement on whether Dubai property prices will rise.

Rents and Gross Yields as Published

Rents matter to the price question because they feed both owner-occupier affordability and the income that investors compare with purchase prices. The published rent readings are as mixed as the price readings, and for the same reasons: some are indices of new and renewed contracts, some are medians, and some are asking rents. Asking rents are what landlords list; registered rents are what tenants signed.

The new-lease median for apartments in September (AED 70,000) is 16.7% above the renewal median (AED 60,000), a gap that reflects different units as much as different rents, since the two groups are not the same properties. DXBinteract notes that rental yields cannot be derived from these figures alone.

Gross yields

Gross yield is annual rent divided by purchase price, before service charges, vacancy, management and financing costs. Cavendish Maxwell put average gross yields in H1 2026 at about 7% for apartments and 5% for villas and townhouses, with Dubai Investments Park at 9.7% and International City at 8.9% among apartment communities. Engel & Völkers reported an average gross yield of 6.6% in June 2026 (apartments 6.9%, townhouses 5.1%, villas 4.5%) and about 6.34% for August. The two firms use different samples and months, and neither is a prediction of what a particular purchase would earn.

Will Dubai Property Prices Rise? Published Outlooks, One by One

The table records each outlook with its author, date, method as described, and range. The outlooks are listed by publication date and not ranked. The earliest were written before the war began on 28 February 2026, which affects how they should be read, and the later ones include the conflict among their assumptions.

Reading the table without ranking the outlooks, three points stand out. The only published figure that points to higher prices in 2026 is the Knight Frank forecast of 2 February, which was made before the conflict and was followed by Knight Frank’s 6 July statement that mainstream prices had ebbed by 5-20%. The only numerical range for a fall in the table is Fitch’s, a correction of up to 15%, which Fitch said in June may be larger. Most other entries are descriptions of direction without a number: modest cooling, selective correction, rebalancing, plateau. A comparison of forecasts therefore compares the vocabulary as much as the figures, which is addressed in the section on reading a forecast below. For a reader asking will Dubai property prices rise, the table shows the range of published answers and the dates on which they were given.

Savills’ Rachael Kennerley described the market as in a phase of rebalancing rather than a reversal. Moody’s said in February that large rated developers were well placed to absorb a moderate slowdown because of strong revenue backlogs and front-loaded payment structures, and S&P named Damac, Emaar, Omniyat and Sobha Realty as rated developers with large backlogs and limited payment delinquencies. Those are statements about the finances of developers, not about the price a buyer would pay for a particular home.

What the Authors Say Would Make Their Outlooks Wrong

Several authors state the conditions on which their view depends. The table collects those statements, so that a reader can see which developments each source itself treats as important. They are the authors’ own caveats and are not assessments made here.

The conditions that decide will Dubai property prices rise, in the authors’ own framing, fall into four groups. Some concern supply (completions against schedule, the frequency of launches). Some concern demand (population inflows, tourism, buyer caution). Some concern money (rates, financing, bank asset quality). Some concern the regional situation (shipping, duration of the conflict). The sources name them but do not attach probabilities, and this article does not either. Where an author says the effect will be clearer later, as Knight Frank and Cavendish Maxwell do, the reading is that the data available at the time of writing did not yet settle the question.

Price and Rent Change by Area From Named Sources

Area-level data are scarcer than citywide data, and each table below comes from one source, one period and one method, because mixing sources by area mixes methods. The first two tables are from the Cushman & Wakefield Core Q2 2026 report as reported by Khaleej Times on 9 August 2026 (quarter-on-quarter changes in average sale prices and rents). The third is from the Savills Q3 2026 report as reported by Khaleej Times on 13 October 2026 (year-on-year changes in apartment rents for July-September).

Cushman & Wakefield Core: sale prices, Q2 2026, quarter on quarter

Cushman & Wakefield Core: rents, Q2 2026, quarter on quarter

Citywide, the same report had sale prices down 4% and average rents down 6% on the quarter. The firm said price corrections were increasingly evident across most apartment and villa submarkets and that established end-user communities were expected to stay relatively resilient.

Savills: apartment and villa rents, Q3 2026, year on year

Savills said the relatively modest quarterly movements suggest early signs of stabilisation, with the trend uneven across locations. The year-on-year rent changes in this table and the quarter-on-quarter changes in the Cushman & Wakefield Core table are not interchangeable: a 10% fall over one quarter would, if repeated, be larger than a 10% fall over a year. ValuStrat’s Q2 review gives a third area view from valuations rather than rents: annual villa capital-value gains of 17.9% in Jumeirah Islands, 10.7% in Emirates Hills and 10.0% in The Meadows, and quarterly apartment gains of 2.4% in International City, 1.4% in Dubai Sports City and 1.1% in Al Quoz Fourth. The Cushman & Wakefield Core table shows The Meadows with villa sale prices down 9% on the quarter alongside The Springs, which is a reminder that quarterly and annual changes, and sales and valuations, answer different questions.

How to Read a Forecast Before Asking Will Dubai Property Prices Rise

Forecasts in this market use ordinary words with specific meanings, and the same word can mean different sizes of move. The definitions below are those used in the sources in this article. The Engel & Völkers analysis, for example, separates moderation (slower growth), correction (selective price adjustments in particular segments) and market decline (sustained, widespread falls), and Fitch’s forecast uses correction for a fall of up to 15%.

A checklist for any forecast

1. Identify the author and the date. A forecast written before 28 February 2026 was written without the conflict as an input.
2. Identify the measure: transaction average, median, valuation index, or asking price, and the segment: all residential, apartments, villas, prime, off-plan or ready.
3. Identify the horizon and the starting point. Fitch’s 15% runs from July 2025 to the end of 2026, so part of it is already in the 2025 and 2026 data.
4. Identify the stated assumptions. S&P and the IMF both state a regional assumption; Moody’s and Savills state population and supply assumptions.
5. Identify whether the number is a point estimate or a range, and whether the author says what would change it.
6. Compare with the reported outcome on the same measure. A forecast for prime prices cannot be tested against a citywide average.

The DLD itself gives the clearest disclaimer on the point: on the index page it states that it does not claim any forecast accuracy and that external macroeconomic factors are not captured by its model. The same limit applies to every outlook in this article. The question of whether Dubai property prices will rise is a question about the future, while the sources can only report what has been measured and what their authors expect.

Percentages also work asymmetrically, which affects how a forecast of a fall followed by a rise should be read. A fall of 15% leaves 85% of the starting price, and a rise of 17.6% (0.15 / 0.85) is needed to return to it. A fall of 9.7% needs 10.7%. A forecast of a 15% correction followed by a 15% rise therefore does not return to the starting price; it ends at 97.75% of it (0.85 x 1.15). In the same way, a quarterly decline of 4.8% repeated for four quarters would compound to a 17.9% annual fall (1 – 0.952 to the power of 4), which no source forecasts; the example only shows why a single quarter should not be annualised.

Related Reading on This Site

This article stays with prices, transactions, supply and outlooks. Related topics are covered separately: the crash history and indicator dashboard for 2008-2026, how buyer protection works in Dubai for escrow and registration, the off-plan buyer guide for payment plans and assignment rules, the mortgage guide for bank financing, the area-by-area price per square metre guide, the guide to timing a purchase and the Dubai real estate market guide. For area profiles see Jumeirah Village Circle apartments and Downtown compared with Marina, and for ownership terms freehold and leasehold in Dubai and property taxes and fees in Dubai.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will Dubai property prices rise in 2027?

No source cited here publishes a probability. Knight Frank’s February 2026 forecast covered 2026 and was made before the conflict. Moody’s expected modest cooling over 12-18 months from February 2026, S&P said 2027-2028 deliveries could accelerate a correction in investor-driven apartments, and the IMF projected a 7.7% UAE GDP rebound in 2027 conditional on shipping normalising. Whether Dubai property prices will rise in 2027 is a forecast, and this article reports the sources without making one.

Are Dubai property prices falling in 2026?

The series disagree. Cavendish Maxwell had an average of AED 1,636 ($445) per sq ft in August, down 1.7% year on year. ValuStrat had its index about 10% lower in June than in late February and broadly unchanged in Q3. REIDIN had apartments down 0.4% and villas down 1.1% in Q3. CBRE had sale prices up 1.9% year on year in Q2. Knight Frank said mainstream prices had ebbed by 5-20% by location in its 6 July statement. The answer to will Dubai property prices rise is therefore stated differently by each source.

Which index measures Dubai property prices most accurately?

None is described by its publisher as the definitive measure. The DLD index uses a hedonic method and states that it provides no accuracy metrics, ValuStrat uses valuations, and the consultancies use averages or medians of registered sales. Each answers a different question, as the method table shows, and a comparison of two periods should use the same series when asking will Dubai property prices rise or fall.

How much new housing is due in Dubai?

Moody’s counted about 180,000 homes over 2026-2028, Cushman & Wakefield Core about 55,600 handovers in 2026 and more than 60,000 in 2027, Knight Frank more than 160,000 units in the registered 2026 pipeline, and Cavendish Maxwell 162,500 units scheduled for 2027. Cavendish Maxwell expects 14,000-23,500 of 47,000 units scheduled for H2 2026 to complete. Scheduled and delivered numbers differ, which is why the question of whether Dubai property prices will rise depends partly on how much of the schedule is completed.

What do the rating agencies say about the property market?

Moody’s expected modest cooling and modest apartment price declines over 12-18 months from February 2026. Fitch forecast a correction of up to 15% and in June 2026 said it may be larger. S&P said prices had fallen only moderately and that 2027-2028 deliveries could accelerate a correction in investor-driven apartments. The IMF described bank exposure to real estate as contained in July 2026.

What would change these outlooks, according to their authors?

The authors name supply delivered against schedule, population and tourism inflows, interest rates and financing, bank asset quality, and the duration of the regional conflict. The IMF’s projections assume Hormuz reopening gradually from March 2027. Cushman & Wakefield Core and ValuStrat say delays could reduce the delivered pipeline. The section on author-stated conditions lists each one with its date.

How many people live in Dubai and is the number growing?

The Dubai Data and Statistics Establishment counted 4,807,185 ordinarily resident people at midday on 28 September 2026, up 226,885 from 4,580,300 at the end of 2025. In 2025 the population grew by about 332,000. Moody’s and Fitch both name population inflows as a variable in their views of the market, and in the question of will Dubai property prices rise they are an input, not an outcome.

Where do rents stand in 2026?

The readings differ by source and measure: Cavendish Maxwell’s index was up 7.8% year on year in June, CBRE had average rents down 2.6% on the year in Q2, ValuStrat’s rental index was up 1.7% on the year, and Savills reported apartment rents down year on year in every listed area in Q3, from 0.4% in International City Phases 2 and 3 to 12.8% in Dubai Marina.

Does the UAE interest rate affect Dubai property prices?

The base rate rose to 3.9% on 17 September 2026 after the Fed raised its range to 3.75%-4%. Moody’s listed lower rates among the supports for affordability in February, and Savills lists financing conditions among the factors that matter as deliveries arrive. No cited source quantifies the effect of the 25-basis-point rise on prices.

Where can the primary data be found?

Transaction data are published by the Dubai Land Department, population and output by the Dubai Data and Statistics Establishment, tourism by the Department of Economy and Tourism, rates by the Central Bank of the UAE, and macro projections by the IMF and the EIA. Price and supply series come from consultancies such as Savills, Cavendish Maxwell, Knight Frank, CBRE, Cushman & Wakefield Core, ValuStrat and REIDIN, each with its own method.

Last checked: 28 October 2026. Sources: DLD 2025 data via Gulf News, DLD Q1 2026 release, DLD H1 2026 data via Emirates 24|7, DLD residential sales price index page, IMF staff statement, 17 July 2026, IMF World Economic Outlook, October 2026, The National on the IMF outlook, 13 October 2026, The National on Moody’s, 10 February 2026, Khaleej Times on S&P Global Ratings, 7 October 2026, Fortune on Fitch and Moody’s, 1 June 2026, Gulf News on Fitch, 29 May 2025, Knight Frank Dubai Residential Market Review Q4 2025, Knight Frank US$10m sales analysis, 6 July 2026, Gulf News on CBRE Q2 2026, Savills Q3 2026 release via Zawya, Savills Dubai Residential Market Report Q3 2026, Khaleej Times on Savills rents, 13 October 2026, Cavendish Maxwell H1 2026 release via Zawya, Cavendish Maxwell Q3 2026 release via Zawya, Cavendish Maxwell August 2026 prices via Zawya, ValuStrat Dubai Real Estate Review Q2 2026 via Zawya, Dubai Chronicle on DDSE and ValuStrat data, 21 October 2026, Khaleej Times on Cushman & Wakefield Core Q2 2026, 9 August 2026, Khaleej Times on Cushman & Wakefield Core H1 2026, 20 August 2026, Khaleej Times on the pipeline to 2030, 15 August 2026, Engel & Völkers Dubai price analysis, 9 September 2026, Engel & Völkers Dubai H1 2026 report page, fäm Properties September 2026 report (DXBinteract, DLD records), REIDIN Dubai Real Estate Market Insights Q3 2026, 28 October 2026, Gulf News on DDSE population data, 29 September 2026, Emirates 24|7 on DDSE population data, 29 September 2026, Zawya on the CBUAE base rate, September 2026, EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook, 6 October 2026, Al Jazeera on Hormuz shipping, 12 October 2026, Gulf News on DET visitor data, 14 September 2026, Dubai Media Office on 2025 tourism, 9 February 2026.