Monthly, from the Dubai Land Department register

Dubai house price index

The Dubai Diligence Index measures what a square foot costs in the same communities over time, so a month where more expensive districts happened to sell does not read as a price rise. It is computed from registered Dubai Land Department sales, it is free, and the whole series is below for anyone to download and check.

Why the index and the median disagree

The dashed line above is the ordinary median price per square foot, the figure almost every market report quotes, rebased onto the same 2023 base so the two can be read against each other. In September 2026 it sits at 117.0 where the index sits at 126.4.

The gap is the mix. More of what sells now sells in cheaper communities than did in 2023, so the raw median is pulled down by where homes are changing hands rather than by what they cost. Quote it and you report +17% since 2023. Hold the mix fixed, and the same registrations say +26.4%. The unadjusted figure has been understating like-for-like price growth, not overstating it.

On the shorter run the two agree, which is worth saying plainly rather than only quoting the number that flatters. Since April 2026 the index is -8.3%, and what that period shows is moderation after a strong run, measured like for like on 101,838 base-period sales across 80 communities.

How it is calculated

1. Take every registered home sale. Homes exclude land, whole buildings, offices, shops and hotel inventory. Sales exclude mortgage and gift registrations, which are loan sizes and nominal figures rather than prices.
2. For each community, in each month, take the median price per square foot. A community needs at least ten sales that month to count, so one unusual transaction cannot move it.
3. Compare each community with its own 2023 average, giving a ratio rather than a price. This is what makes the series like for like.
4. Combine those ratios using fixed 2023 sales weights, so the published number answers what happened to prices and not what happened to the mix. The base period is a full calendar year, so no single month’s seasonality sets the reference.

The current month is never shown, because a part month is not a data point. Price per square foot below 50 or above 20,000 dirhams is treated as a recording error and excluded. Figures are as registered and are not an assessment by Dubai Diligence.

The monthly series

The longer run: prices are up, cheques are not

Three things are true at once over the past decade, and most coverage of this market picks one. A square foot in Dubai costs 74.8% more than it did in 2015. The price people actually pay has barely moved since 2021. And the median home sold is 33.1% smaller than it was then.

Since 2021, the median registered price per square foot for a Dubai home has gone from 1,018 to 1,713 dirhams, +68.3%. Over the same years the median price actually paid went from 1,350,000 to 1,323,000, -2%.

Both are measured the same way on the same population, so the gap between them is not a method artefact. It is the third line: the median home sold went from 1,201 square feet to 804. Buyers are spending about the same and getting materially less space for it.

It is not just off-plan

The obvious explanation is the mix: off-plan went from 45.8% of registered home sales in 2021 to 74.1% now, and off-plan skews towards smaller units. That is real and it amplifies the headline. It is not the whole story, because the same thing happens inside every segment on its own.

Ready homes, with off-plan excluded entirely, shrank at least as much as the market as a whole while the price paid for them stayed flat. Flats shrank on their own. Villas shrank on their own. Whatever is happening is happening inside each segment, not only between them.

So is the Dubai market falling?

Over the decade, no: price per square foot, the like-for-like comparison, has risen every year since 2021. What stopped rising is the typical cheque, and that is a different fact about a different thing. Anybody calling a crash on the strength of a flat median price is comparing a 1,201 square foot home to a 804 square foot one. The index at the top of this page is the shorter-run answer, and it is the one to watch month to month.

None of which tells you what one specific property is worth, which is the only number that matters when you are buying one. That is a question about its building, and the register answers it per building.

Year by year

Source: Dubai Land Department registered transactions, homes only, sales only. Homes exclude land, whole buildings, offices, shops and hotel inventory, because those are a different market; sales exclude mortgage and gift registrations, which are not prices. The register publishes with a few days of lag, so the current month and the current year are never shown as complete. Figures are as registered and are not an assessment by Dubai Diligence. Our methodology sets out every definition.