Dubai Market Update — Q2 2026

Dubai's residential market entered Q2 2026 with the same characteristic that defined Q1: selective strength. Average prices across the city held flat year-on-year, but the spread between the strongest and weakest sub-markets widened again — and that is what matters for any buyer or seller planning a move in the next twelve months.

On the sales side, Dubai Hills Estate, Palm Jumeirah and Downtown apartments continued to outperform — each up between 6% and 11% on a like-for-like transaction basis. JVC and Business Bay were softer, with inventory still building and developers running incentives that quietly translate into 3–5% effective discounts on headline prices.

Off-plan absorption remained the headline story. Roughly 62% of the launches we tracked in Q2 sold out within the first eight weeks. The pattern is consistent: branded residences, sub-AED 2.5M units, and anything with a meaningfully post-handover payment plan move fastest.

Rental yields compressed in the prime end of the market as capital values outpaced rents, but yielded comfortably 6–8% in JVC, Arjan and parts of Business Bay. For yield-driven buyers, that mid-market band remains the most efficient way to deploy capital in the current cycle.

Our read for the next two quarters: expect prices to flatten further in the established prime areas as record handover volumes hit the market through 2026 and 2027 — and expect off-plan to keep absorbing demand, particularly anything within walking distance of a metro line.

“62% of the launches we tracked in Q2 sold out within the first eight weeks — that's the story of the cycle.”