Dubai property in Q3 2025: the summer off-plan took over

Dubai summers are supposed to be slow. Families travel and offices thin out. July to September 2025 didn't follow the pattern.

We count 71,897 apartment and villa sales, 18.3% more than in the spring and the most in any quarter in our records up to then. September alone had 25,298 sales, the busiest single month of 2025.

What people bought changed even more. Off-plan homes made up 74.1% of sales, the highest share in our records up to then, and villas fell to 6%. Most of the summer's buyers took a new apartment off a plan, often in a district that had been much quieter a year earlier.

The numbers

Sales were worth AED 154.5bn, up 15.5% on a year earlier. The count grew 17%, a little faster, so the average deal got smaller.

August dipped to 22,734 sales. September came back with 25,298 sales worth AED 55.1bn.

The median price per sq ft rose 2.9% to AED 1,712 and was 11.1% higher than a year before. That's the first double-digit annual rise in our median since the first half of 2024.

How we worked it out

Everything here is residential: apartments and villas sold and registered with DLD. Land plots, whole buildings and commercial units are excluded. Totals that include every property type won't line up with ours. Counting land, buildings and commercial units too, the quarter had 78,423 sales worth AED 225bn.

AED 154.5bn across 71,897 sales is about AED 2.15m a deal on average. The median deal, the middle one when you rank every sale by price, was about AED 1.36m. A few large sales pull an average up but leave a median alone, which is why we lead with the median. Both fell this quarter, and the median deal was the lowest of 2025.

So the median deal fell while the median price per sq ft rose. The explanation is size. When more of the homes sold are studios and one-beds, each sale is cheaper even if every square foot costs more. One-bedroom flats were 46.9% of apartment sales, the highest share in our records, and villas, the biggest homes, dropped to 6%.

The rise in price per sq ft is plain arithmetic: AED 1,665 to AED 1,712 is up 2.9%. "YoY" (year on year) compares this quarter with July to September 2024, so a summer is measured against a summer.

What sold, and where

Off-plan was 74.1% of sales and 71.8% of value. Deals between AED 1m and AED 2m took 41% of all sales, the highest share for that band in our records. The middle of the market got crowded.

The gap between new and ready homes widened sharply. Off-plan sold at a median of AED 1,849 per sq ft, up from AED 1,800, while ready homes fell 3.1% to AED 1,362. Off-plan now cost about 36% more per foot than ready, against about 28% in the spring.

Three-bedroom flats fell to 5% of apartment sales, their lowest share in our records from 2023 to 2025.

Jumeirah Village Circle (JVC) led again with 7,231 sales. Business Bay surprised us. Its sales rose 75.1% to 5,777, and its off-plan share jumped to 77.7% from 61.4% the quarter before, at a median of AED 2,611 per sq ft.

Three DLD districts in the table sold almost entirely off-plan. Dubai Investment Park Second grew 350.4% and was 98.1% off-plan. Al Barshaa South Second was 96.2% off-plan, and every one of Bukadra's 2,199 sales was off-plan. Wadi Al Safa 3 more than doubled, up 112.8%. In places like these there's barely any resale market yet to compare prices against.

What we noticed

Villa sales fell hard, and almost all of the fall was off-plan. We count 4,346, 47.6% fewer than a year earlier. Off-plan villa sales dropped from about 5,400 to about 1,700, while ready villa sales barely moved. Prices didn't follow volumes down, though. Set each district's median against its own figure a year earlier and villas were up 14.7%, apartments 23.6%.

Ready homes cooled. Our ready median fell 3.1% on the quarter. We count 18,630 ready sales, 9.4% fewer than in the spring and 6% fewer than a year earlier, and the average ready deal fell 5.5% on the quarter to about AED 2.34m. Our reading is that buyers' attention moved to launches. One quarter of figures can't tell us whether ready prices are actually falling.

First-time buyers got their own scheme. On 2 July, DLD and Dubai's Department of Economy and Tourism launched the First-Time Home Buyer Programme. Residents who don't own a Dubai freehold home get priority access to launches and preferential prices on homes up to AED 5m.

Rates turned. The Central Bank cut its base rate from 4.40% to 4.15% from 18 September, its first cut of 2025. That was the last fortnight of the quarter, too late to explain the summer's sales.

The city kept growing. Dubai's population passed 4 million on 8 September, according to the Dubai Statistics Centre's population clock. Rents still rose, but more slowly. The median annual rent across Ejari contracts was AED 72,600, up 5.2% on the year, against 7.7% in the spring and 11% in the first quarter. Renewals slipped to 53.4% of contracts.

For developers

• The middle band is crowded. With 41% of sales between AED 1m and AED 2m, a launch there competes with plenty of others for the same buyer. Unit size and the payment plan are where you can stand apart.
• Watch the gap to ready homes. Off-plan cost about 36% more per sq ft than ready homes. Buyers comparing the two will notice, especially in districts with an established resale market.
• In a new district, your neighbours' launch prices are the only evidence. Pricing well above them leaves no recorded sales to justify the gap.
• Handovers will test absorption. Project records show 29 projects with 5,801 homes completed in the quarter. Plan for the point when your buyers become sellers or landlords alongside everyone else's.

For investors

• Check what a ready home costs next door. With off-plan at a 36% premium per sq ft, it has to give you something ready stock can't, such as a newer building or a payment plan you need.
• Rent growth was slowing. A median rent up 5.2% is still growth, but it's less than half the first quarter's pace. Don't build a yield on the earlier rate.
• Plan the exit before you buy. In a district that is 98% off-plan, you'll be selling at handover alongside many owners of similar units.
• Count service charges and empty months. They come straight off the gross yield, and they start the day the building is handed over.
• One-beds have the most buyers and the most competition. Nearly half of apartment sales were one-bedroom flats. That helps at resale, and it also means plenty of identical units chasing the same tenants.

The year ended with a bigger quarter still: read Q4 2025, go back to Q2 2025, or see /analytics for current figures.