What a Dubai apartment costs, by the budget you actually have
The distribution of apartment prices, what each budget band buys, and the areas where the same figure buys most and least.
Dubai has a reputation built on its expensive end. In this dataset 34% of apartment sales went for under a million dirhams. This guide works in total price throughout, because that is the number a buyer arrives with.
The shape of the market
590K
10th percentile
1.3M
Median
2.1M
75th percentile
3.4M
90th percentile
The distribution leans hard towards the bottom. Most coverage of Dubai property describes the far right of this chart, which holds a small fraction of what actually trades.
What each budget buys
| Budget | Share of sales | Median size | Median AED/sqm | Most common | Sampled sales |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 1M | 34% | 43 sqm | 14,569 AED/sqm | Studio | 52,068 |
| 1M to 1.5M | 24% | 73 sqm | 16,475 AED/sqm | 1 bed | 36,961 |
| 1.5M to 2M | 13% | 80 sqm | 21,153 AED/sqm | 1 bed | 20,227 |
| 2M to 3M | 15% | 101 sqm | 24,544 AED/sqm | 2 bed | 22,896 |
| 3M to 5M | 9% | 133 sqm | 27,626 AED/sqm | 2 bed | 13,178 |
| 5M and above | 4% | 201 sqm | 39,288 AED/sqm | 3 bed | 6,568 |
Read down the size column and the progression looks reasonable. The rate column beside it is where the market shows its shape, climbing steadily from the bottom band to the top.
Space and money climb at different speeds. Between the bottom band and the top, the median size grows 4.7x while the rate per square metre grows 2.7x, so the extra budget buys a better address and a better building as much as a bigger floor plan.
The same budget, different areas
Holding the budget to 1M to 1.5M makes the areas comparable, since a table spanning every price would only show which areas sell small units.
| Area | Median size at this budget | Median AED/sqm | Sampled sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Al Warsan First | 106 sqm | 10,993 AED/sqm | 83 |
| Dubai Investment Park First | 104 sqm | 11,410 AED/sqm | 137 |
| Al Thanyah First | 96 sqm | 14,243 AED/sqm | 101 |
| Warsan Fourth | 95 sqm | 12,975 AED/sqm | 139 |
| Al Yelayiss 2 | 90 sqm | 14,015 AED/sqm | 986 |
| Madinat Hind 4 | 89 sqm | 14,070 AED/sqm | 87 |
| Area | Median size at this budget | Median AED/sqm | Sampled sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Palm Jumeirah | 34 sqm | 31,934 AED/sqm | 90 |
| Nad Al Shiba First | 37 sqm | 37,681 AED/sqm | 517 |
| Madinat Dubai Almelaheyah | 40 sqm | 30,144 AED/sqm | 578 |
| Business Bay | 45 sqm | 25,491 AED/sqm | 3,484 |
| Al Satwa | 48 sqm | 24,601 AED/sqm | 360 |
| Burj Khalifa | 48 sqm | 26,061 AED/sqm | 299 |
The same money buys 106 sqm in Al Warsan First and 34 sqm in Palm Jumeirah. Both figures come from real registered sales at the same price, so the gap is what the location costs.
Sample sizes vary a lot across these two tables. An area with a few dozen sales in the band is describing a handful of transactions, and the area pages linked above print the count behind every figure.
Using this on a specific purchase
Start from the budget, not the rate. Pick the band you can transact in, look at the median size inside it, and treat anything much larger as a signal to check the area and the building rather than as a bargain.
Then compare within one band. An area that looks cheap per square metre across the whole market is usually selling smaller and more remote units, and the advantage disappears once both sides are held to the same price.
Then check what kind of sale you are looking at. Areas dominated by off-plan launches have medians set largely by developer pricing, which behaves differently from a market of negotiated resales.
Related reading: the quarterly price index covers where these figures have been heading, and what this data covers explains why every figure here counts apartments alone.
Data comes from Dubai Land Department historical sales records through 2026-11-03. It covers sales only (not rentals) and is market reference, not valuation or investment advice.