Abu Dhabi real estate hits Dh142 billion in 2025 deals, with transactions surging 52%

Transactions surge 52% while foreign investment and mortgages show strong growth

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Stock Abu Dhabi skyline
Abu Dhabi property deals hit Dh142b in 2025 as transactions surge.
AFP

Dubai: Abu Dhabi’s real estate market recorded its strongest performance on record last year, with total transactions reaching Dh142 billion across more than 42,800 deals, reflecting sustained investor demand and rising market confidence.

Data released by the Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre shows that transaction value increased by 44% compared with 2024, while transaction volumes surged by 52%, signalling broad-based growth across both end users and institutional investors.

Balanced growth across sales and mortgages

Sales and purchase transactions accounted for Dh99.4 billion across more than 25,600 deals, while mortgage activity contributed Dh42.7 billion from over 17,200 transactions, indicating continued support from financial institutions and steady access to financing.

The balanced growth across ownership transfers and lending activity reflects a maturing property ecosystem supported by regulatory clarity and improving market transparency.

Foreign investment continues to expand

Foreign direct investment into Abu Dhabi’s property market reached Dh8.2 billion during 2025, marking a 13% increase compared with the previous year and reflecting sustained global interest.

Investors from more than 100 nationalities participated in the market, with strong inflows from Russia, China, the UK, the US, France and Kazakhstan.

Investment zones attracted a large share of international capital, accounting for 72% of total real estate investment and rising sharply to Dh54.13 billion, a 65% increase from the previous year.

“The outcomes recorded in 2025 are not accidental they reflect a real estate market that has been deliberately shaped around trust, clarity, and long-term confidence," said Engineer Rashed Al Omaira, Director General of the Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre. "ADREC’s role has been to move the sector beyond activity and into maturity by establishing clear governance, reliable data, and a regulatory environment that protects investors while enabling sustainable growth.”

He added that sustained investor participation reflects confidence in the market’s stability.

“The scale and diversity of transactions seen this year demonstrate that Abu Dhabi has evolved into a market where capital is not only attracted, but retained through confidence in the system.”

The market’s momentum was further reflected in the registration of 56 new development projects during the year, alongside a sharp rise in professional licensing, with more than 3,500 real estate professionals authorised to operate in the sector.

Nivetha Dayanand is Assistant Business Editor at Gulf News, covering aviation, financial markets and commodities. A business and financial journalist with a strong interest in multimedia storytelling, she regularly takes complex financial and economic subjects beyond the written word, producing explainer videos that make them easier for a wider audience to understand. Nivetha has interviewed senior policymakers, business leaders and global financial figures both on and off camera. Her past guests include UAE Minister of Economy and Tourism Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri, Khaled bin Alwaleed Al Saud, a member of the House of Saud and the founder and CEO of KBW Ventures, Jihad Azour, Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund and Indian ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and N. Chandrababu Naidu. She has also hosted and moderated panels, conferences and awards shows, bringing her newsroom experience to live conversations on business, finance and the economy. An Erasmus Mundus journalism alum, Nivetha is drawn to stories that affect people directly and to reporting that gives a platform to voices that might otherwise go unheard. She was among the first journalists to speak to Petrofac employees in the UAE about unpaid salaries, broke the news of the planned demolition of Dubai’s well-known “Toyota Building”, and helped set the record straight on widely circulated claims that a giant replica of the Moon was coming to Dubai. More recently, her exclusive interview with EDGE Group CEO Hamad Al Marar revealed how the UAE-based defence group deployed its systems along the country’s shore border and established a geofence around the UAE within 48 hours of the February 28 escalation. Prior to joining Gulf News, Nivetha worked at ITP Media, where she helped launch Finance Middle East, a new publication covering the region’s financial sector. Her role spanned reporting and editing, video production, interviews and events. Across print, digital, and video, she focuses on finding the people behind business stories and explaining why those stories matter to the audience reading or watching them.

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