Dubai property prices over the last 10 years, from the transaction record
A decade of Dubai sales volume and prices, area by area, and why the citywide average misleads.
Below are transaction volumes and average prices year by year, all from Dubai Land Department registrations.
The complete-year comparison runs from 2016 to 2025. 2026 is shown separately as a partial year, through 2026-10-06. The figures are a historical record, not an estimate of today's price for a particular property.
Year by year
| Year | Sales | Average price per sale | Total value |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 42,690 | AED 2.6M | AED 109B |
| 2017 | 46,218 | AED 2.5M | AED 116B |
| 2018 | 32,189 | AED 2.3M | AED 74.6B |
| 2019 | 36,919 | AED 2.1M | AED 76.1B |
| 2020 | 33,264 | AED 2.1M | AED 69.3B |
| 2021 | 59,493 | AED 2.5M | AED 148B |
| 2022 | 95,699 | AED 2.7M | AED 263B |
| 2023 | 132,151 | AED 3.1M | AED 408B |
| 2024 | 179,592 | AED 2.9M | AED 520B |
| 2025 | 214,860 | AED 3.2M | AED 682B |
| 2026 * | 109,055 | AED 3.2M | AED 347B |
Where volume peaked and bottomed
32,189
Trough, 2018
lowest annual sales in the decade
214,860
Peak, 2025
highest annual sales in the decade
6.7x
Peak over trough
spread across the ten years
Between 2016 and 2025, transaction volume changed by +403% and the average price per sale by +24%. Reading the two together across the whole table, the shape is not a straight line in either direction. It is a run of decelerating growth, a trough, then years of recovery.
What individual areas did
The area comparison sorts the available monthly median AED/sqm values in each endpoint year and takes the middle value (the upper middle value for an even number of months). It is not the median of all individual sales for that year, and it is not a repeat-sales price index. Only areas with at least 200 registrations in each endpoint year are included. The largest increases:
| Area | 2016 monthly-median middle value | 2025 monthly-median middle value | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dubai Investment Park Second | 3,427 AED/sqm | 16,031 AED/sqm | +368% |
| Hadaeq Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid | 10,013 AED/sqm | 25,999 AED/sqm | +160% |
| Saih Shuaib 1 | 1,346 AED/sqm | 3,381 AED/sqm | +151% |
| Al Yelayiss 1 | 6,817 AED/sqm | 16,811 AED/sqm | +147% |
| Al Wasl | 14,888 AED/sqm | 33,481 AED/sqm | +125% |
And the smallest:
| Area | 2016 monthly-median middle value | 2025 monthly-median middle value | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Madinat Hind 4 | 13,763 AED/sqm | 12,028 AED/sqm | -13% |
| Al Warsan First | 7,667 AED/sqm | 7,273 AED/sqm | -5% |
| Al Jadaf | 16,123 AED/sqm | 19,722 AED/sqm | +22% |
The spread between areas is far wider than any citywide average conveys. Applying a citywide percentage to a specific area can be wrong by a multiple.
Reading these numbers
Across ten years, registration rules, project handover schedules, and foreign ownership regulations all changed, and each affects how many registrations appear in a given year. The registry does not distinguish a shift in demand from a shift in what gets registered.
Registration records between 2026-05-21 and 2026-06-20 are also largely absent from the source data, which pulls the 2026 figure below what actually happened. That is worked through in the H1 2026 slowdown analysis, linked below.
Data comes from Dubai Land Department historical sales records through 2026-10-06. Sales only, not rentals. Market reference, not valuation or investment advice.
From the decade trend to a specific property
Use the long-term series to frame your research, then narrow the evidence to the relevant area, building, property type and sale date. A citywide percentage cannot establish the value of an individual home.