Nine Months In: Dubai's Ready Homes Out-Earn Off-Plan, Even as Off-Plan Wins on Volume

The first official scorecard for the third quarter is in, and it complicates the usual story. Off-plan sales still dominate the headlines and the deal count. But in the first nine months of 2026, the larger pool of money went into property that already exists.

The headline numbers

According to figures published by the Dubai Land Department on 1 October, the market recorded AED 574.12 billion across 165,018 transactions between January and September. That is 62.47% of the AED 919 billion recorded across the whole of 2025, with a quarter still to run. Sales accounted for AED 379.4 billion across 123,416 transactions, which the DLD describes as the second-highest sales value in the history of the Dubai market.

Within sales, the split between ready and off-plan is more balanced by value than by count:

• Ready-built property: AED 196.08 billion across 39,320 transactions
• Off-plan property: AED 183.32 billion across 84,090 transactions

Off-plan therefore accounts for roughly two in three sales by number, yet ready property leads by value. Dividing value by count, which is our own arithmetic and not a DLD statistic, gives an average of about AED 5.0 million per ready-property transaction against about AED 2.2 million per off-plan transaction. These figures include land and whole buildings as well as residential units, so they should not be read as typical apartment prices.

What the gap tells us

Two different kinds of buyer sit behind those numbers. Off-plan is the entry point: smaller tickets, staged payment plans, and a large number of first-time and investor purchasers each committing a modest amount. Ready property, by contrast, includes the large single-asset transactions: prime villas, whole buildings and land plots, which are bought with cash or substantial equity and carry a much higher average value.

This matters for how the market should be read. A weekly count of deals tends to flatter off-plan, because it is the high-frequency segment. A tally of money flowing into the market gives more weight to ready and high-value assets. Both are true at once, and an investor who watches only one will misjudge the cycle.

September: financing returns

The September figures point the same way as the pattern we saw through the month. Total September activity was AED 50.78 billion across 16,490 transactions, with sales of AED 29.66 billion across 11,430 deals. Mortgages registered AED 16.79 billion across 4,266 transactions, which is roughly one-third of the month's total value on our calculation. Over the nine months, mortgages came to AED 151.13 billion, or about 26% of total value.

A higher mortgage share in September than across the year as a whole fits the seasonal return of buyers after summer. It also matters because borrowers are exposed to financing costs, and 3-month EIBOR was reported by brokers at roughly 4.3% at the end of September, up from 4.00% at the start of the month. Those readings have not yet been confirmed directly against Central Bank data, so we treat them with caution.

Where the money is going

By sales value over the nine months, the DLD named Business Bay first (above AED 20 billion), followed by Airport City (about AED 17.7 billion), Al Yalayis 1 (AED 16.1 billion), Palm Deira (AED 13.0 billion) and Palm Jumeirah (AED 11.6 billion). The list is a mix of established centres and large-scale land and master-plan areas, which is consistent with the picture of big-ticket ready and land transactions.

A separate Q3 summary from Springfield Properties, which uses its own methodology and should be treated as a secondary source, reported that secondary-market value rose 24.22% over Q2 and that Dubai South led residential transaction counts with 5,165 deals. That points the same way as the resale recovery we discussed last week, though the two datasets are not directly comparable.

What it means for AGH clients

For buyers, the practical reading is that "off-plan versus ready" is less a contest than a choice about purpose. Off-plan suits those who want a lower ticket, a payment plan and a long horizon. Ready property suits those who want immediate income or occupation, and who can underwrite pricing from recent registered comparables rather than launch brochures.

For sellers of ready stock, a market in which ready assets attract the larger share of value is a constructive backdrop, provided pricing is anchored to real transactions. For investors, the useful discipline is to compare like with like: average ticket, yield and handover timing, not the headline count of deals.

A G H Properties tracks Dubai Land Department registrations at community and project level, which is where these national figures become decisions. If you are weighing off-plan against ready property, or considering selling, contact our team for a private, data-driven consultation.