Dubai homes record Dh221.3b sales in first half of 2026

June rebound points to resilient demand despite softer first-half sales

Last updated:
Nivetha Dayanand, Assistant Business Editor
Dubai homes record Dh221.3b sales in first half of 2026
Twitter/@DXBMediaOffice

Dubai: Dubai’s residential property market recorded sales worth Dh221.3 billion across almost 79,200 transactions in the first half of 2026, according to real estate advisory and property consultancy Cavendish Maxwell.

The figures point to another active six-month period for the emirate’s housing market, although residential sales were just under 14% lower compared with the same period last year, while total sales values declined 15.7%.

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June sales rebound

Market activity picked up in June after a quieter May, with nearly 12,315 residential transactions worth Dh25.17 billion. That was up almost a third from May, when 9,500 purchases worth Dh22 billion were recorded.

“Following a quieter May, partly because of the Eid holiday, residential sales rebounded in June, with an almost 30% month-on-month rise in transactions," said Ronan Arthur, Director, Head of Residential Valuation at Cavendish Maxwell. "While some of the increase reflects deals deferred from May, the recovery indicates investor confidence remained resilient despite recent regional uncertainty.”

Off-plan keeps leading the market

Off-plan sales continued to dominate residential activity in June, with 9,442 transactions accounting for 76% of the market.

The value of off-plan sales reached Dh17.6 billion during the month, up from Dh15.2 billion in May, showing that buyers remained active in new project launches and future handover homes.

The June rebound also suggests that demand has not stalled despite softer first-half comparisons, with investors continuing to commit capital to Dubai’s residential market after a brief slowdown in May.

Nivetha Dayanand
Nivetha DayanandAssistant Business Editor
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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