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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →Dubai recorded more than AED 72.6 billion of residential sales across about 34,000 transactions in the third quarter of 2026, according to a report by the real estate consultancy Cavendish Maxwell carried by Gulf Business on 6 October. Against the third quarter of 2025, the value of those sales was down 47% and the number of transactions down 38%.
The National reported the same findings on 7 October, giving the quarterly total as AED 72.6 billion, or US$19.7 billion, for July to September. Both outlets relay one set of figures, the consultancy's, and both carry its own reading of them: part of the fall reflects buyers holding back, and part reflects the way sales reach the register.
The quarter is the second full one since the Iran war began in late February 2026, an event The National gives as the background to the slowdown. Brokerage reports for the same three months show slightly different totals, for reasons set out below.
What the consultancy counted
The Cavendish Maxwell figures cover residential sales only: homes, whether finished or still to be built. Offices, shops and commercial land are outside its count.
Two comparisons with the same quarter of 2025 stand out. Value fell by 47% and volume by 38%. The two percentages allow a rough reconstruction of last year's quarter, which the reports themselves do not print: AED 72.6 billion is 53% of about AED 137 billion, and 34,000 transactions are 62% of about 55,000. Those two derived numbers are approximations, since the quarterly totals are rounded.
Related readHow to read Singapore's official home price indices and supply dataValue fell further than volume. When the money drops faster than the number of deals, the average deal is smaller than it was a year before. A simple division of the consultancy's quarterly figures gives about AED 2.1 million per transaction. That is an average over every kind of home sold, from a studio to a villa, so it describes the mix of what changed hands as much as the price of any one property.
Off-plan homes, meaning those sold before they are completed, remained the larger part of the market. Cavendish Maxwell puts them at 65% of residential sales value and 72% of transactions in the quarter, as reported by Gulf Business. The remainder, 35% of value and 28% of transactions, is the market for homes that already exist. Off-plan homes therefore took a larger share of the deals than of the money.
September and the nine months so far
The report also isolates the last month of the quarter and the year to date. In September 2026 alone, Gulf Business reports nearly AED 23.2 billion of residential sales across about 10,300 transactions. Over the first nine months of 2026 the totals are AED 292 billion and 112,580 transactions, with value down 27% and volume down 23% on the same nine months of 2025.
| Period | Sales value | Transactions | Change on a year earlier |
|---|---|---|---|
| September | Nearly AED 23.2bn | About 10,300 | Not given |
| Third quarter | More than AED 72.6bn | About 34,000 | Value -47%, volume -38% |
| First nine months | AED 292bn | 112,580 | Value -27%, volume -23% |
Source: Cavendish Maxwell third-quarter 2026 report, as carried by Gulf Business on 6 October 2026. Residential sales only.
Read together, the three lines say that the third quarter was weaker than the year as a whole. A nine-month fall of 27% in value that includes a quarter down 47% means the first half held up better than the summer did. Subtracting the quarter from the nine-month totals leaves roughly AED 219 billion and about 78,600 transactions for January to June, again an approximation because the quarterly figures are rounded.
Related readUS condo values up 1% in four years as houses gain 6%, Inman findsSeptember was close to an average month for the quarter rather than a turning point in either direction. A third of the quarterly total would be about 11,300 transactions and AED 24.2 billion; September came in a little under both, at about 10,300 and nearly AED 23.2 billion. The reports give no year-on-year comparison for the month on its own.
Why the registration lag matters
Cavendish Maxwell does not present the fall as a pure measure of how many people decided to buy between July and September. According to Gulf Business, the consultancy attributes part of the decline to the gap between a purchase and its formal registration. The National quotes the report's wording, which links the declines to reduced activity showing up as the lag in sales registrations begins to clear.
In plain terms, the consultancy's account is that a sale can be registered some time after the buyer committed, so that a quarter's registrations blend decisions taken in that quarter with decisions taken before it. Ronan Arthur, director and head of residential valuation at Cavendish Maxwell, put it this way to Gulf Business:
"The Q3 2026 data captures a mix of recent and earlier buying activity," he said.
Mr Arthur also described purchasing as having become more measured, with buyers more cautious, according to the same outlet. The two explanations work together. On the report's wording, as the lag in registrations clears, the register starts to show the reduced activity behind it.
For anyone comparing quarters, the practical consequence is that the 47% and 38% falls cannot be divided neatly into a share caused by caution and a share caused by timing. The consultancy says both are present and does not put a number on either.
Related readHow to read the weekly US mortgage rate: Freddie Mac's survey and APRThe monthly pace since February
A second source published in the same week gives a longer view of the slowdown. S&P Global Ratings, citing Dubai Land Department data and reported by The National, says sale transactions averaged 12,644 a month from March to September 2026, compared with 17,198 a month in January and February. The rating agency describes that as a fall of 26%.
Source: S&P Global Ratings, citing Dubai Land Department data, as reported by The National on 7 October 2026.
This series is not the consultancy's. It comes from a different organisation, covers different months and is quoted as an average, so it should not be set beside the 34,000 quarterly figure as if the two were one dataset. What it adds is the shape of the year: two stronger months, then seven at a lower level.
On prices, S&P is reported by The National as saying that industry reports show falls of 5% to 15% between the end of 2025 and September 2026. The agency expects the correction to be gradual rather than sudden, with more activity in the secondary market and with apartment prices falling faster than villa prices. Zawya, reporting the same S&P assessment on 8 October, says prices have fallen only moderately in the seven months since the war began.
The National also recalls a developer's estimate. Mohamed Alabbar, founder of Emaar Properties, speaking at the AIM Congress in Dubai in September 2026, indicated an adjustment of 5% to 10% in the emirate's wider real estate sector. That is one executive's view of the whole sector, given a month before the quarterly figures appeared, and it sits inside the wider range S&P cites.
Related readUS home prices slipped 0.1% in August as annual growth edged upWhat brokerages reported for the same quarter
Two Dubai brokerages published their own third-quarter numbers in the same days. They are useful context, and they do not replace the consultancy's count.
Springfield Properties, in a press release dated 5 October and carried unedited by Zawya, counts AED 72.58 billion of residential sales across 33,949 transactions, inside a wider total of AED 90.62 billion across 36,738 residential and commercial deals. Its residential figure is close to Cavendish Maxwell's rounded one. The release gives no comparison with 2025. It compares with the second quarter of 2026 instead, and on that basis says secondary residential sales rose 24.22% in value and 22.52% in volume, to AED 30.83 billion across 10,442 transactions. It puts off-plan residential sales at AED 41.58 billion across 23,457 transactions.
The same release describes where the deals sat. According to Springfield, 84.28% of transactions were below AED 3 million, up from 82.45% in the second quarter, and the band from AED 1 million to AED 3 million was the largest at 44.04%. It names Dubai South as the most active location with 5,165 transactions, ahead of Jumeirah Village Circle with 2,312 and Downtown Jebel Ali with 1,890.
fam Properties, in a press release dated 6 October, counts 37,429 sales of all kinds worth AED 92.9 billion in the quarter. It splits them into 25,441 primary sales worth AED 52.6 billion and 11,988 resales worth AED 40.3 billion, and says just over 67% of secondary sales were paid in cash.
Three reports on one quarter do not count the same thing
The consultancy's figures are residential only. Springfield's headline total adds commercial deals, and fam Properties counts all sales and splits them into primary and resale. Each set is consistent within itself; a share or a change taken from one cannot be applied to another.
One point of agreement can still be drawn without mixing the sets. Each report, by its own definitions, finds that homes bought from developers account for more deals than homes resold, and Springfield's quarter-on-quarter rise in secondary sales points the same way as S&P's expectation of a busier secondary market.
Related readHow to read US house price measures: FHFA index and Census mediansThe trade behind the numbers
Fewer registered sales means fewer transactions for the people who arrange them. The scale of that trade is known from official figures for last year. The Government of Dubai Media Office said on 9 March 2026 that brokerage commissions in the emirate reached AED 13.59 billion in 2025, up 31%, on 96,440 broker-executed transactions, up 54%. It counted 32,294 registered brokers and 9,785 brokerage offices.
That is the base on which a nine-month fall of 23% in residential transaction volume lands. The two measures are not the same: the Media Office figure covers deals executed through brokers, while the consultancy counts all residential sales. No official commission figure for the third quarter of 2026 appears in the reports published this week, so the effect on brokers' income cannot be stated from them.
What the sources do show is a market with many participants and a smaller flow of deals than a year ago, in which the off-plan segment still supplies 72% of transactions by the consultancy's count.
What comes next
Mr Arthur's outlook, as reported by Gulf Business, is that underlying demand remains intact. He ties near-term activity to three things: new project launches, regional uncertainty, and buyer activity returning to a normal pattern. None of the three has a date attached.
S&P looks further ahead. Khaleej Times reported on 7 October that the agency expects the stock of residential units in Dubai, apartments above all, to rise by 20% over the next two years. Zawya reports its view that deliveries due in 2027 and 2028 could speed up the price correction, especially in apartment segments driven by investors. Sapna Jagtiani, a credit analyst at S&P Global Ratings, set out the agency's working assumption in the Zawya report:
"Our base case is that the Middle East disruptions will continue into 2027," she said.
Two elements in the same coverage point the other way. Khaleej Times notes that the developers S&P rates, which it lists as Damac, Emaar, Omniyat and Sobha Realty, have large revenue backlogs and limited payment delinquencies. It also notes that the off-plan mortgages introduced earlier in 2026 allow a maximum loan-to-value of 50%, which means a buyer puts in at least half of the price.
Kooky, from Shaka
Kooky edits Agents Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for real estate professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.
