Dubai property in Q3 2024: record volume, flatter prices

Summer is meant to be slow in Dubai. In 2024 it wasn't. July registered 19,904 home sales, August 19,790 and September 21,775. That made 61,469 for the quarter, 44% more than a year earlier and the most in our records at the time.

Prices didn't follow. The median per sq ft slipped 0.6% to AED 1,542, its first quarterly dip since early 2023. Record sales and a falling median sound like a contradiction until you look at where the sales happened: further out, in districts where a square foot costs less.

The numbers

Value rose 37.1% on a year earlier to AED 133.8bn. The median deal went up, from AED 1.40m in the second quarter to AED 1.50m, while the median per sq ft went down. Year on year it was still 6.3% higher, but that annual rate had dropped from 15.1% in the first quarter and 11.5% in the second.

A single flat quarter doesn't mean much. This one came with 19% more deals than the spring, which is why we looked harder at it.

How we worked it out

We count residential sales of apartments and villas registered with the Dubai Land Department, and leave out land, commercial units and whole buildings.

AED 133.8bn over 61,469 sales is an average of about AED 2.18m. The median deal, the middle one when all are ranked by price, was AED 1.50m. The 1.3% of sales above AED 10m pull the average up and leave the median alone, so we use medians.

The price change is subtraction and division. The median was AED 1,551 per sq ft last quarter and AED 1,542 this one, a fall of 0.6%. A year earlier it was AED 1,450, so year on year (the same quarter, twelve months apart) it rose 6.3%.

The typical deal got bigger while the typical price per sq ft got smaller, because buyers bought more floor space. Villas rose from 10.7% of sales to 13.5%. A villa's median was AED 1,331 per sq ft, against AED 1,617 for an apartment. More villas means a bigger median ticket and a lower median rate, even if no single home got cheaper. A median describes what sold. It can't tell you what any one home would fetch.

What sold, and where

Off-plan was 67.7% of deals and 67% of value. The off-plan median fell from AED 1,731 per sq ft to AED 1,691, while ready homes held at AED 1,232. Developers weren't cutting prices; Dubai off-plan sells from published price lists. The median most likely moved because more launches were in cheaper districts.

Deals between AED 3m and AED 5m rose to 14.4% of the total, from 11.9% in the spring. That fits the move towards villas.

Among apartments, one-beds were 44.2% and two-beds 27.6%, the highest two-bed share of the year. Studios eased to 20.6%.

Four of the top ten had a median under AED 1,400 per sq ft: Jumeirah Village Circle (JVC) at AED 1,344, Dubai South at AED 1,318, Wadi Al Safa 5 at AED 1,330 and Jabal Ali First at AED 1,213. Between them they took 23.7% of all sales. Dubai South more than tripled on a year earlier, up 215.3% to 3,437 sales. Jabal Ali First rose 122.5%.

At the dearer end, Bukadra arrived with 2,680 sales, all off-plan, at AED 2,415 per sq ft. Dubai Creek Harbour recorded 2,391 at AED 2,570. Dubai Hills Estate grew 131.7% to 3,084, almost nine in ten of them off-plan. Business Bay slipped 6.4% on a year earlier and Dubai Marina 11.1%.

Jumeirah Lake Towers' median jumped from AED 1,359 per sq ft to AED 1,887 in one quarter. We wouldn't read that as a 39% repricing in three months. A jump that size usually means different buildings traded.

What we noticed

The market moved outward. JVC, Dubai South, Wadi Al Safa 5 and Jabal Ali First took almost a quarter of all sales at medians well below the city's AED 1,542. When the busiest districts sit below the average, the citywide median can fall even while prices in most places rise.

Dubai South is where the airport news showed up. Five months after the AED 128bn Al Maktoum International terminal was approved, it was second in our table by sales count and third by value, at AED 8.2bn, just behind Dubai Marina and Dubai Hills Estate. 83% of its sales were off-plan, so buyers were paying for a plan more than a finished neighbourhood.

Split by type, the picture was stronger for villas. The villa median was 29.1% higher than a year earlier, and apartments 5.8%. Two in five ready sales (41.6%) were under AED 1m. The overall median rose only 6.3% because it follows the mix of what sold, and the mix moved to cheaper places.

The first rate cut came in the quarter's last fortnight. On 19 September the Central Bank cut its base rate by half a point, from 5.40% to 4.90%. That was too late to explain September's 21,775 sales. Mortgages linked to EIBOR got cheaper from the fourth quarter.

Tenants moved more. Ejari registered 190,132 contracts, and only 54% were renewals, the lowest share of 2024. The median annual rent reached AED 69,000, up 11.3%. Apartments and villas rose at almost the same pace: the median apartment rent was AED 58,000, up 10.5%, and the median villa rent about AED 165,600, up 10.4%.

For developers

• Price for the district you're in. Outer districts took the volume this quarter at AED 1,200 to 1,350 per sq ft. Buyers there compare you with the launch next door, not with Downtown.
• Plan for crowding. The official project register added 44 projects with 13,915 homes this quarter. Projects that launch together in one district tend to hand over together, and then compete for the same tenants and resale buyers.
• Don't ignore the villa buyer. Villas rose to 13.5% of sales and pushed AED 3m to 5m deals to 14.4%, in a market where one-beds still led.
• Be careful how you use the rate cut in sales material. It helps buyers who need a mortgage, but it came late in the quarter, and banks lend at most 50% on off-plan.

For investors

• A lower price per sq ft doesn't make a home cheap. Compare a unit with recorded sales in its own district. Jabal Ali First at AED 1,213 and Bukadra at AED 2,415 are different products.
• Check the resale record before buying in a new district. Dubai South was 83% off-plan this quarter. Until homes hand over and trade second-hand, there's little evidence of what they resell for.
• Mortgage costs follow EIBOR plus the bank's margin, not the base rate directly. Ask your lender for the actual rate you'd pay.
• Treat apartment and villa rents separately. The median villa rent was nearly three times the apartment median, so each needs its own rent evidence.

The year ended with a record month and a shrinking gap between off-plan and ready prices: read Q4 2024, or go back to Q2 2024. For current numbers, see /analytics.