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While Dubai's residential market cools, one address is moving the other way. Dubai Islands recorded roughly Dh18.8 billion — about $5.12 billion — in residential sales across 5,035 transactions in the 12 months to 28 September, according to Dubai Land Department data analysed by Dubai Real Estate Data. The median transaction price on the islands reached around Dh30,571 per square metre, or about Dh2,840 per square foot, in 2026 to date, 17.7 per cent above the 2025 full-year median. The two figures cover different windows — sales over a trailing year, prices year-to-date through July — but both point the same way.
How that compares with the rest of the city
The contrast is the story. Across Dubai, the Land Department registered 175,153 residential sales worth Dh473.9 billion over the trailing 12 months, down 13 per cent by count and 15.7 per cent by value against the previous year. Cavendish Maxwell put the third quarter's residential sales value 47 per cent below the same quarter of 2025, with volumes down 38 per cent. The citywide median sits near Dh1,735 per square foot. Dubai Islands is trading at roughly 60 per cent above that level and gaining, in a market where the average home price recently posted its first annual decline since early 2021.
What is being built there
The masterplan explains some of the pull. Dubai Islands spans five islands and 18.6 square kilometres off the Deira coastline, planned for more than 230,000 residents across roughly 62,000 homes, alongside over 11,000 hotel keys and more than 4,000 branded residences. Nakheel opened the newest chapter in early October with Bay Estate, the first residential community on Island E — the lowest-density of the five — launching with about 360 three- and four-bedroom homes plus beachfront plots, and planned to house more than 12,000 residents at full build-out.
What the numbers do not say
Two caveats are worth holding onto. First, the periods behind the headline figures differ, so the sales total and the price rise are not strictly like-for-like. Second, Dubai Islands is a young address: the overwhelming majority of activity there is off-plan, which means the median largely reflects what developers are asking at launch rather than what completed homes resell for. A district without a deep resale history offers less evidence of where values settle once keys are handed over and the first wave of owners decides whether to hold or sell.
None of which cancels the signal. Capital is visibly rotating towards waterfront locations with a defined masterplan and a delivery schedule, at a moment when buyers across the rest of the city are negotiating harder and waiting longer. For anyone weighing Dubai Islands, the questions worth asking are the ordinary ones that matter more in a correcting market: which infrastructure is contracted rather than announced, what the handover dates actually are, and how much completed stock will compete with yours when it is time to rent or resell.
