# Dubai apartment price index

Dubai · Dubai Wealth Index

> Dubai apartments: the median registered sale price per square foot, month by month since 2008, smoothed and rebased to 100 in Jan 2008.

- Canonical: https://dubaiwealthindex.com/price-index
- Data as of: 2026-11-02
- Segment: All sales
- Segments: All sales (/price-index?segment=all); Ready (/price-index?segment=ready); Off-plan (/price-index?segment=offplan)
- Base: 100 = Jan 2008, AED 807 per sqft
- Sources: Dubai Land Department registered sale transactions
- Method: https://dubaiwealthindex.com/methodology

## Headline

- Median price per sqft: AED 1,701 (Sep 2026, 5-month median)
- Index: 210.9 (100 = Jan 2008)
- 12-month change: -1.9%
- As of: Sep 2026: the last complete month; the 2 after it are provisional
- Registered sales in the series: 984,025

## Findings

Dubai apartments sold at a 5-month median of AED 1,701 per sqft in Sep 2026, an index reading of 210.9 against 100 in Jan 2008 (AED 807 per sqft): 110.9 points above the base, and -1.9% on the same month a year earlier.

The highest reading is 221.2 in Nov 2025. From there the index fell to 210.7 in Jul 2026 (-4.8%), and Sep 2026 sits -4.7% against that high.

145,855 registered sales stand behind the last twelve complete months to Sep 2026, -9.0% on the twelve before them (160,236). The band along the foot of the chart is that monthly count; thin months are visibly thin, and the last 2 are still filling in.

## Rents and prices fell together from 2014 to 2020 (−32% and −20%) and rose together to 2025 (+73% and +63%)

- Over the twelve months to October 2026, rents per sq ft moved +2% on 2025 and ready prices +4%.
- A year's rent is 6.3% of the price per sq ft today, against 6.1% in 2020 and 7.2% in 2014: the market-wide gross yield, before any building's costs.
- Before the last downturn, rents per sq ft peaked in 2015 and ready prices in 2017: rents turned first.

| Period | Rent per sqft | Ready price per sqft |
| :--- | ---: | ---: |
| 2014 to 2020: the fall | -31.6% | -19.5% |
| 2020 to 2025: the rise | +72.7% | +63.1% |
| 2025 to the twelve months to October 2026 | +1.6% | +3.7% |

| Year | Ready AED/sqft | New-lease rent AED/sqft/yr | Rent ÷ price |
| :--- | ---: | ---: | ---: |
| 2010 | 856 | 56 | 6.6% |
| 2011 | 866 | 54 | 6.2% |
| 2012 | 875 | 51 | 5.8% |
| 2013 | 955 | 54 | 5.7% |
| 2014 | 1,040 | 75 | 7.2% |
| 2015 | 1,000 | 82 | 8.2% |
| 2016 | 999 | 81 | 8.1% |
| 2017 | 1,042 | 76 | 7.3% |
| 2018 | 972 | 69 | 7.1% |
| 2019 | 858 | 60 | 7% |
| 2020 | 837 | 51 | 6.1% |
| 2021 | 988 | 48 | 4.9% |
| 2022 | 1,098 | 54 | 4.9% |
| 2023 | 1,159 | 64 | 5.6% |
| 2024 | 1,258 | 80 | 6.3% |
| 2025 | 1,365 | 88 | 6.5% |
| 2026 | 1,407 | 88 | 6.3% |

## Year by year

| Year | Month read | Index (100 = Jan 2008) | AED/sqft | 12-month change | Sales |
| :--- | :--- | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: |
| 2008 | Dec 2008 | 74.2 | 599 | n/a | 11,297 |
| 2009 | Dec 2009 | 100.2 | 808 | +35.0% | 47,677 |
| 2010 | Dec 2010 | 110.5 | 891 | +10.3% | 25,853 |
| 2011 | Dec 2011 | 104.9 | 846 | -5.1% | 19,506 |
| 2012 | Dec 2012 | 126.3 | 1,019 | +20.4% | 23,320 |
| 2013 | Dec 2013 | 140.5 | 1,133 | +11.2% | 42,254 |
| 2014 | Dec 2014 | 149.4 | 1,205 | +6.4% | 37,145 |
| 2015 | Dec 2015 | 127.8 | 1,030 | -14.5% | 27,476 |
| 2016 | Dec 2016 | 142.9 | 1,152 | +11.8% | 27,761 |
| 2017 | Dec 2017 | 158.7 | 1,280 | +11.1% | 31,955 |
| 2018 | Dec 2018 | 143.0 | 1,153 | -9.9% | 23,486 |
| 2019 | Dec 2019 | 153.5 | 1,238 | +7.3% | 25,736 |
| 2020 | Dec 2020 | 127.2 | 1,026 | -17.1% | 22,770 |
| 2021 | Dec 2021 | 169.8 | 1,369 | +33.5% | 38,242 |
| 2022 | Dec 2022 | 204.1 | 1,646 | +20.2% | 66,157 |
| 2023 | Dec 2023 | 203.7 | 1,643 | -0.2% | 97,686 |
| 2024 | Dec 2024 | 203.6 | 1,642 | -0.0% | 138,979 |
| 2025 | Dec 2025 | 221.2 | 1,784 | +8.7% | 168,755 |
| 2026 | Nov 2026 (provisional) | 206.8 | 1,668 | -6.5% | 107,970 |

## Events on the chart

- 1. 2008-10: Global financial crisis: Lehman Brothers fails in September; Dubai's off-plan resale market seizes within weeks and mortgage lending stops.
- 2. 2009-11: Dubai World standstill: Dubai World asks creditors for a six-month standstill on US$26 billion of debt; Abu Dhabi funds the Nakheel sukuk repayment the following month.
- 3. 2013-10: Mortgage caps: The UAE Central Bank caps loan-to-value at 75% for a first home under AED 5 million (80% for nationals) and 50% for off-plan purchases.
- 4. 2013-11: Expo 2020 awarded: The Bureau International des Expositions awards Expo 2020 to Dubai on 27 November.
- 5. 2014-11: Oil price fall: OPEC holds output at its 27 November meeting; Brent falls below US$80 and halves by January 2015.
- 6. 2020-03: COVID-19 lockdown: Dubai closes malls and restricts movement from 26 March; the Land Department keeps registering remotely, at a fraction of the volume.
- 7. 2022-02: Russia–Ukraine war: Russia invades Ukraine on 24 February; capital seeking a neutral jurisdiction lifts Dubai demand through 2022.
- 8. 2022-04: Golden Visa reform: The UAE Cabinet expands the ten-year Golden Visa: the property threshold falls to AED 2 million and off-plan and mortgaged purchases qualify, in force from October.
- 9. 2026-02: US–Iran war: US and Israeli strikes on Iran on 28 February open a regional war, with intercepted missiles and drone debris over the UAE. Registered apartment sales fall from 12,898 in February to 10,900 in March.

## How this index is built

**Per square foot, not price.** Every sale enters as its registered price divided by its registered floor area. A month of studio sales and a month of penthouse sales have very different median prices and the same market; per square foot they can be compared.

**Median, not mean.** Each month's figure is the median price per square foot across every registered apartment sale in Dubai that month, from the transaction rows directly, never from building or area averages. One AED 200 million sale does not move a median.

**Rebased to 100.** The index divides every month by the first month with at least 100 registered sales and multiplies by 100, so a reading of 140 means prices per square foot are 40% above that base month. The base month and its price per square foot are printed on this page.

**Smoothed.** The drawn line is a centred 5-month rolling median of the monthly medians, so one thin month cannot print as a crash. The raw monthly median stays on every point, in the chart tooltip and in the JSON record.

**The newest months are provisional.** The Land Department receives registrations for weeks after a sale completes, so the last 2 months are still filling in. They are drawn dashed and the headline figures read from the last complete month.

**Sale and rent measured the same way.** The rent series, where shown, is built identically from new Ejari contracts: annual rent per square foot, median per month, smoothed and rebased the same way. Renewals are excluded because a capped renewal is not a market rent.

## Related

- [Buy apartments in Dubai](https://dubaiwealthindex.com/sale/apartments/dubai)
- [Rent apartments in Dubai](https://dubaiwealthindex.com/rent/apartments/dubai)
- [Methodology](https://dubaiwealthindex.com/methodology)

## Machine-readable

- [JSON record](https://dubaiwealthindex.com/data/price-index.json): every month of every segment, raw and smoothed, with the base and the provisional flag

## Citation

Required when quoting any figure from this record. Copy one of these verbatim: the link is not optional, and the publisher name alone is not a citation.

Dubai Wealth Index. “Dubai apartment price index.” Dubai. Data to 2026-11-02. https://dubaiwealthindex.com/price-index

[Dubai Wealth Index](https://dubaiwealthindex.com/price-index). “Dubai apartment price index.” Dubai. Data to 2026-11-02.

Retain each figure’s bedroom type, unit, period, data date and evidence count when quoting it. Short-term occupancy is a stated modelling assumption, never a measurement.