What the register actually shows, month by month
Each figure below is the median of every recorded off-plan sale in that month, pooled. Medians are not additive — the median of a set of project medians is not the market median — so nothing here is averaged up from smaller numbers. The pool is taken once, per month.
January: 11,296 sales, median AED 1,845,399, AED 1,872 per square foot, median size 878 sqft.
April: 10,409 sales, median AED 1,666,888, AED 1,934 per square foot, 832 sqft.
June: 10,164 sales, median AED 1,095,535, AED 1,725 per square foot, 689 sqft.
July: 9,883 sales, median AED 1,059,059, AED 1,740 per square foot, 678 sqft.
August: 7,957 sales, median AED 1,127,950, AED 1,736 per square foot, 703 sqft.
The headline number and the per-square-foot number disagree by a factor of five. April is the clearest single month: the median price had already fallen from January, while the price per square foot was at its high for the year. Buyers were paying more per foot for less house.
Median price fell 38.9%. Median price per square foot fell 7.3%. Same rows, same months.
Reconciling the three numbers in circulation this week
Three figures are being quoted at once and they appear to contradict each other. They do not, and the difference between them is the useful part.
The first is the headline: average residential sales prices of AED 1,636 per square foot in August 2026, down 1.7% year-on-year, reported this week as Dubai's first annual decline in five and a half years. That is an index across ALL residential property — completed homes and off-plan together, every segment blended into one figure.
The second is ours: AED 1,736 per square foot in August for off-plan specifically, down 7.3% since January. Different segment, different period, and measured from recorded transactions rather than an index. Off-plan is falling roughly four times faster within this year than the blended annual figure suggests — which matters, because off-plan is what most buyers reading a falling-price headline are actually considering.
The third is a forecast. Mohamed Alabbar, Emaar's founder, said this week that prices could adjust 5 to 10% as new supply arrives by 2027. Set against our measurement, the striking thing is that off-plan has already moved through the middle of that range this year. His forecast is not a warning about a future event so much as a description of one already under way in the segment we track.
None of these three cancels the others out. A blended index falling 1.7% annually, off-plan falling 7.3% per square foot within 2026, and a 5-10% adjustment forecast for 2027 are consistent with the same market. They are simply answers to three different questions, and the one most buyers are asking is the middle one.
The reported -1.7% is all residential. Off-plan alone is down 7.3% per square foot since January.
The composition changed in June
Through the first five months of the year the most commonly bought off-plan home in Dubai was a one-bedroom apartment, taking between 33% and 40% of recorded sales each month. In June that flipped: studios became the single largest category at 41%, then 42% in July and 39% in August.
The median home shrank alongside it, from 878 square feet in January to 678 in July — a fall of 22.8% at the low point. A market where the typical purchase loses a fifth of its floor area will report a falling median price even if not one developer drops a price.
This is what economists call a mix shift, and it is not a subtle statistical footnote. It is the difference between 'homes are getting cheaper' and 'buyers are buying less home', and only the second of those is clearly supported by the register.
In June the most-bought home in Dubai became a studio, for the first time this year.
What we cannot tell you, and why
The reported claim is year-on-year, and we cannot test it. The Land Department's open transaction gateway returns no rows at all for 2025 or any earlier year — we queried August 2025 directly on 7 September 2026 and it returned HTTP 200 with zero records. So nothing here confirms or refutes a comparison against 2025. Anyone claiming to have done so from this source has not.
What we can do is measure within 2026, across every month, from the complete set of rows. That is what this is.
Three further limits worth stating plainly. This covers off-plan sales only, not ready homes, so it is a segment of the market rather than the whole of it. September is excluded from every comparison above because it is seven days old and holds 1,853 sales against a monthly norm near 10,000 — a partial month is not a data point. And a mix shift does not rule out genuine price softening underneath it: the 7.3% per-square-foot fall is real, it is simply five times smaller than the headline.
The gateway returns zero rows for 2025. No year-on-year comparison is possible from this source.
What this means if you are buying
If you are reading a falling-price headline as a discount on the home you already wanted, the register does not support that. Per square foot, an off-plan home in Dubai costs about 7% less than it did in January. That is a softening, not a correction, and it is well within the range these figures have moved before.
What has genuinely changed is what is being sold. Studio and small one-bedroom stock has taken over the transaction count, which usually means launches are concentrated at the affordable end and that is where the inventory is. If you want a larger unit, you are shopping in the part of the market that has moved least on price.
The practical step is to stop comparing headline medians entirely and compare price per square foot for your own unit size, in your own area. A median across every home in a city answers no question you actually have. Every project page here carries the median actually paid and the price per square foot recorded for that specific building.
Compare price per square foot for your unit size. A city-wide median answers no question you have.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Dubai property market crashing?
Not on this evidence. Across 79,459 recorded off-plan sales in 2026, the median price per square foot fell 7.3% between January and August — from AED 1,872 to AED 1,736. A 7% softening over eight months is a correction in pace, not a crash. The widely quoted 39% fall in median transaction price is mostly composition: the median home shrank from 878 square feet to 703 as buyers moved to studios.
Is Dubai property a bubble about to burst?
The register does not show the pattern a bursting bubble produces. In a burst, price per square foot falls sharply across segments at once. What the 2026 data shows instead is a mild 7.3% per-square-foot decline alongside a large shift in what people buy, with transaction volumes still running near 10,000 a month. That is a market repricing at the affordable end, not one unwinding.
Will Dubai property prices go down further?
We do not forecast, and nobody who does has better data than the register. What is on record: Mohamed Alabbar, Emaar's founder, said in September 2026 that prices could adjust 5 to 10% as new supply arrives by 2027. Off-plan price per square foot has already fallen 7.3% this year, which sits inside that range before the 2027 supply he describes has landed.
Is the Dubai property market slowing down or recovering?
Slowing on price per square foot, and shifting rather than recovering on volume. Monthly recorded off-plan sales ran 11,296 in January and 7,957 in August, with months above 10,000 in between — lower than the January peak but not collapsing. The clearer change is what sells: studios overtook one-bedroom apartments as the most-bought home in June 2026 for the first time this year.
Are Dubai property prices falling because of the war?
We cannot answer that, and we are not going to guess. The Land Department register records transactions — price, size, date, project — and no reason for any of them. It can show that off-plan price per square foot fell 7.3% between January and August 2026; it cannot say why, and neither can anyone else working from this source. Attributing a cause would be a story, not a finding.
When was the last Dubai property crash?
2008-09, when Dubai prices fell by roughly half after the global financial crisis. The current data does not resemble it: that episode combined a sharp per-square-foot collapse with transaction volumes drying up, while 2026 shows a 7.3% per-square-foot decline with volumes still near 10,000 recorded off-plan sales a month.
Are Dubai property prices falling in 2026?
Per square foot, mildly. The median price per square foot for recorded off-plan sales fell 7.3% between January and August 2026, from AED 1,872 to AED 1,736. The median transaction price fell far more — 38.9% — but most of that is because buyers moved to smaller homes rather than because homes became cheaper.
Dubai prices fell 1.7% but you say 7.3% — which is right?
Both, because they measure different things. The reported 1.7% is a year-on-year change in an index covering all residential property, completed and off-plan together, at AED 1,636 per square foot in August 2026. Our 7.3% is the fall in the median price per square foot for off-plan sales specifically, measured from recorded transactions between January and August 2026. Off-plan is falling faster within this year than the blended annual figure shows.
Emaar's founder says prices could adjust 5-10% by 2027. Has that already happened?
In off-plan, largely yes. Mohamed Alabbar said this week that prices could adjust 5 to 10% as new supply arrives by 2027. Off-plan price per square foot is already down 7.3% since January 2026 on our measurement of the transaction register — within the middle of that range, and before the 2027 supply he is describing has arrived.
Why is the median price down 39% but the price per square foot only down 7%?
Because the median home shrank. In January the median recorded off-plan purchase was 878 square feet; by July it was 678, and in June studios overtook one-bedroom apartments as the most commonly bought home for the first time this year. When the typical purchase loses a fifth of its floor area, the median price falls even if no developer changes a price. This is a mix shift, not a price cut.
Does this disprove the reports of a year-on-year fall?
No, and we are not claiming it does. We cannot test a year-on-year comparison from this source at all: the Dubai Land Department's open transaction gateway returns zero rows for 2025 and earlier, which we verified directly on 7 September 2026. Our analysis is within 2026 only. It shows that the widely quoted drop in median price is mostly composition, which is worth knowing whichever way the annual figure lands.
How many transactions is this based on?
79,459 recorded off-plan sales with a price, from 1 January to 7 September 2026 — the complete set from the Land Department register for that window, not a sample. Each monthly median is taken once over all rows in that month, because medians are not additive and cannot be averaged from smaller groups.
Does this cover ready homes as well as off-plan?
No. This is off-plan only. Ready-home resale is a separate market with its own dynamics, and a headline covering all homes is not directly comparable to these figures.
Why is September left out of the comparisons?
Because it is incomplete. At the time of reading, September held 1,853 recorded sales against a monthly norm near 10,000. A partial month is not a data point, and comparing it to a full one would manufacture a trend that is not there.
What should I actually compare instead?
Price per square foot for your own unit size, in your own area. A city-wide median across every home answers no question a buyer actually has. Every project page on this site shows the median price actually paid and the price per square foot recorded for that specific building.
Where does this data come from?
The Dubai Land Department's open transaction register, off-plan residential sales, queried month by month and read on 7 September 2026. Full figures and method are on our Dubai off-plan statistics page.
