Dubai Property Market Report Q3 2026: AED 70.8bn or 72.6bn?

Savills counts about 34,500 Dubai residential sales worth AED 70.8bn in Q3 2026, 38% fewer than a year earlier; Cavendish Maxwell reports more than AED 72.6bn. Rents are lower year on year in all 16 communities Savills reports, apartments by as much as 12.8% in Dubai Marina, and net yield falls faster than rent.

• Sales, Q3 2026: Savills has about 34,500 sales and AED 70.8bn; Cavendish Maxwell 34,000 and more than AED 72.6bn (as reported by Zawya); Springfield Properties 33,949 residential deals and AED 72.58bn, inside a 36,738-deal, AED 90.62bn total that includes commercial (as reported by Arabian Post).
• Prices: Savills’ average apartment is AED 1,817 per sq ft, 4.8% down on the quarter; betterhomes’ September median is AED 1,404 per sq ft, 2.2% up on the year.
• Rents: Savills’ new-lease rents are lower than a year earlier in all 16 communities it reports, by 0.4% to 15.0%; REIDIN’s citywide rent index is 6.81% lower.
• Net yield (our arithmetic): on an illustrative unit, a 12.8% lower rent takes net yield from 4.28% to 3.63% and net income down 15.10%, using the method of our yield calculator.

How many homes did Dubai sell in Q3 2026?

Savills counts about 34,500 residential transactions, down 4% on Q2 and 38% on Q3 2025, with a transacted value of AED 70.8bn: down 14% on the quarter and 46% on the year. The split is where the change sits. Off-plan value fell from AED 61.3bn to AED 45.7bn, while ready-home value rose from AED 21.3bn to AED 25.1bn.

Springfield’s AED 90.62bn looks like the outlier, but it includes AED 18.04bn of commercial deals. Take those out and its residential figure sits on Cavendish Maxwell’s. Savills’ AED 70.8bn is then about AED 1.8bn, or 2.5%, lower (our arithmetic). The three residential counts are within 1.6% of each other. betterhomes publishes no total, but its off-plan and secondary counts add up to 34,615, within 0.4% of Savills.

None of the pages we read says which date a sale is counted on, or whether each firm counts the same registrations, so we cannot tell you why the totals differ. Cavendish Maxwell does attribute its year-on-year declines to reduced activity as the lag in registrations begins to clear, a reminder that a quarter’s count depends on when sales are registered.

Did Dubai property prices fall in Q3 2026?

It depends which price you read. Savills’ headline average for apartments fell, its matched-property measure barely moved, and betterhomes’ median rose on the year.

Savills says the headline fall reflects a different mix of stock being traded: with launches down to about 5,000 units, the average off-plan ticket fell from about AED 2.4m in Q3 2025 to AED 2.1m, while the ready-market ticket was broadly stable. Its own summary is “a phase of rebalancing rather than a reversal”.

The other gap is definition. Savills’ AED 1,817 is a quarter’s average and betterhomes’ AED 1,404 is one month’s median, so the first is about 29% above the second (our arithmetic) without either being wrong. ValuStrat and REIDIN publish indices, not prices per square foot, and their year-on-year readings differ again. For the first annual dip in one price series, see our prices post.

How far did Dubai rents fall in Q3 2026?

Every source shows lower rents. How much lower depends on what is measured: signed new leases, a citywide index, a median, or the rent a landlord asks.

Savills’ figures cover new leases only, matched by property type and bedrooms, so a renewal at your old rent is not in them. It reads the quarter as showing early signs of stabilisation: most quarterly moves were small, 0.5% to 3.1% lower, while the annual comparison is negative everywhere it looked.

Asking rents are not signed rents. In Downtown Dubai, Property Finder’s asking rents were down 21.74%, while fäm Properties’ registered contracts were down 11%, and Gulf News notes the two are not like for like. Our Q2 rents post covers CBRE’s earlier reading, and villa or apartment the house-versus-flat cost gap.

Supply is the pressure behind it. Savills expects 50,000 to 60,000 deliveries in the second half of 2026 after about 26,500 in the first, with more than 525,000 units scheduled between 2027 and 2030. Those are schedules, which it says continue to be delayed.

What does a 10% to 13% fall in rent do to net yield?

More than the rent fall itself, because the service charge does not move. The unit below is illustrative: not a listing and not a specific building. It uses the opening figures of the yield calculator: a price of AED 1,650,000, 900 sq ft and last year’s rent of AED 108,000. Open the tool and it shows this unit; change only the rent to reproduce a column.

The assumptions are ours, not market data. The service charge is AED 15 per sq ft, or AED 13,500 a year, inside the AED 3 to AED 30 range in our guide. The transfer fee is 4%, the agency fee 2% and the trustee office fee AED 4,200. Management and maintenance are 5% of rent each and vacancy 8% of the year: the calculator’s own opening values. The three columns apply the year-on-year falls Savills reports for JVC, Business Bay and Dubai Marina to this one unit as a sensitivity.

From the table (our arithmetic, using the calculator’s method): at a 12.8% fall, rent loses AED 13,824 a year and net income AED 11,336. That is a smaller sum but a larger share, 15.10% against 12.8%. Management, maintenance and vacancy follow the rent down; the AED 13,500 service charge does not, and it adds about 2.3 points to the fall. Read the columns as sensitivities, not forecasts. They are the size of a re-let at Savills’ new-lease rates, and nothing here says your unit’s rent will move by any of them.

What should you check before relying on a Q3 number?

This section is the advisory view of Jalili Real Estate. Four checks follow from the tables above.

First, ask what the number is. A count, a value, an average, a median or an index; residential only or with commercial; a quarter or a month. A gap like AED 1,817 against AED 1,404 per sq ft is a gap in definition before it is a gap in the market.

Second, match the statistic to your decision. Savills’ matched-property figures say little about the price of the unit you are offered; they say the stock being traded changed. If you are weighing one unit, comparable sales in its own building are the evidence, not a citywide average.

Third, price income on signed rents, in your building. A district figure averages many buildings, and an asking rent is a hope, not a lease. Ask for the lease date and the current service charge, and keep the service charge as its own line, as the table does. Our area pages cover Dubai Marina, Business Bay and Jumeirah Village Circle.

Fourth, run three rents, not one. Use last year’s rent, a small step down and a large one, in the yield calculator. If the sum only works at last year’s rent, that is the finding. The trade-off runs both ways: a buyer who plans to hold for years need not change a decision over one soft quarter, while a buyer who relies on income in the first twelve months should stress the rent line hardest.

Confirm any figure with its source and your own adviser before acting. Figures belong to the dates of the sources named, which disagree in places, and the worked example is illustrative arithmetic, not a forecast or a promise of return.

This is general information, not financial or legal advice; check every figure with your adviser before you act.

Sources and method

Each total, price and rent is quoted from its source as published. The sources use different scopes, periods and statistics, so the figures are compared in the tables, not added or averaged. Cavendish Maxwell and Springfield Properties figures are as reported by Zawya and Arabian Post. We did not find a CBRE or Property Monitor Q3 2026 report on 19 October 2026. The worked example is our arithmetic, not a forecast.

1. Savills Research12 October 2026Dubai Residential Market in Minutes, Q3 2026 (PDF)
2. betterhomes15 October 2026Dubai property market report Q3 2026: secondary sales rose 16%
3. ZawyaOctober 2026 (page undated)Dubai residential sales values top AED 72.6 billion in Q3 2026: Cavendish Maxwell
4. The Arabian Post7 October 2026Dubai property deals total AED 90.62 billion (Springfield Properties)
5. ValuStratSeptember 2026Dubai VPI residential values, September 2026
6. REIDINSeptember 2026 editionUAE Residential Property Price Report, September 2026 (edition 214)
7. Gulf News18 October 2026Dubai property rental prices fall where they were once the highest (Property Finder)
8. Gulf News29 July 2026Dubai rents ease 6.2% while home prices stay above 2025 levels (CBRE)
9. Jalili Real EstateYield calculator (method of the worked example)

Written by

Jalili Real Estate

Advisory team · Dubai

Ask us to run your building through the net-yield sum at today's rents — in English or Farsi.

Maryam

Property Specialist · answers personally

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