In this article
Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →Dubai's property auctions have left a thin trail of published numbers, and most of it is old. Who holds the sales, how often, what comes up, what it fetches and how that compares with an ordinary sale are questions answered only in scattered releases and press reports. The totals among them date from 2012, 2014 and 2017, and no figure for the size of the market in 2025 or 2026 was found.
This guide gathers that published record and says how far it goes. It describes the published record as read in October 2026, not the present volume of sales, from the releases and terms published by Emirates Auction, the company most of the record concerns, and from reports in The National, Gulf News and Khaleej Times. Every figure is given with its date and with the name of whoever published it. A company's account of its own results is reported as its account, and where the record stops, the guide says so.
The National, 17 December 2014, citing Dubai Courts (all seized assets, not property alone); an article of 21 August 2025 in Emirates Auction's media centre; Emirates Auction's terms and conditions as read in October 2026.
One company behind most of the published record
The name that recurs in almost every published account of a Dubai property auction is Emirates Auction. A release dated 17 April 2017 and credited to the Emirates News Agency, carried in the company's media centre, says the company was established in 2004. Of the roughly 140 items listed there when it was read in October 2026, most concern vehicle number plates, charity auctions and cars; only a handful concern property.
Its link with the courts is the oldest part of the property story. In a release of 23 December 2012, the company described a sale it called the Dubai Real Estate Auction, run in partnership with Dubai Courts. A Dubai Courts official quoted in that release dated the partnership to an agreement signed in 2010.
Related readSingapore's second auction of forfeited luxury flats set for 28 OctoberThe Land Department came later. An article dated 15 July 2019 and credited to MENA Herald, also in the company's media centre, reports a cooperation agreement between the Dubai Land Department and Emirates Auction to organise and manage what it calls selective real estate auctions under the Department's remit. The Department's director general is quoted there saying the agreement was "part of DLD's plan and endeavors to strengthen and develop its services". In the same article, the company's chairman referred to 15 years of organising judicial real estate auctions.
The company's reach is not limited to Dubai, according to its own pages. Its media centre lists a cooperation agreement with DIFC Courts dated 19 October 2019, the opening of a branch at the Fujairah Federal Court of First Instance dated 10 August 2022, and an agreement with the Ajman Land Department to organise real estate auctions dated 30 April 2025. Its terms and conditions carry a separate line for properties sold for the Ministry of Justice courts in Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Fujairah, Dibba Al Fujairah, Khor Fakkan and Kalba.
None of this makes the company the only organiser. The published results found for this guide all concern auctions this company ran, or auctions whose organiser the report does not name.
Where the properties come from
The sources name five kinds of seller, and they do not reach the catalogue in the same way.
| Origin | What the source says | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
| Court execution | Assets seized after a final judgment and sold to repay claimants | The National, 17 December 2014 |
| Mortgaged property | Auctioned by court order at the creditor's request | Dubai Courts official in a company release, 23 December 2012 |
| Estates | Some properties in the court sale belonged to heirs | Same release |
| Minors' assets | Sold for the foundation that looks after minors' property | Emirates News Agency release, 17 April 2017 |
| Owners, banks, developers | May advertise property in the auctions under the 2019 agreement | MENA Herald article, 15 July 2019 |
The court route is the best documented. The National reported on 17 December 2014, citing Dubai Courts, that assets are seized only after a debtor has lost the case, the ruling has been upheld on appeal and in cassation, and the debtor has then failed to pay. The head of seized properties at Dubai Courts, Yacoub Mohammed Abdullah, put the last step this way in that report: "After the ruling is final, the debtor is given 15 days to come forward to repay the debt". The money raised, the newspaper said, went to the claimants.
Related readSouth Australia's auction rules: bidders, vendor bids and the Form 1Mortgaged homes are a large part of that flow, if a broker quoted by Gulf News is right. In an article last updated on 27 September 2019, the newspaper quoted the chief executive of the brokerage Realty Force as saying that most auctioned properties were mortgaged with banks. That is one broker's reading, not a count.
The minors' route is smaller and works differently. The release of 17 April 2017 says the Awqaf and Minors Affairs Foundation and Emirates Auction had worked together since 2014, that the company valued the assets before sale, and that these lots were exempt from the company's selling fees, with the proceeds going to the minors who owned them.
The last row is the least documented. The 2019 article says individuals, institutions, banks and real estate developers would be able to advertise their properties in the auctions, and calls the agreement the first of its kind for covering individuals, enterprises and courts together. No published result of a sale brought by a bank in its own name, or by a developer, was found for this guide.
From a packed hall to a phone
The form of the sale has changed more than the sellers have. The 2012 auction was an event. The company's release of 23 December 2012 says more than 500 people attended and 350 bidders took part, after a marketing campaign inside and outside the United Arab Emirates.
Ten months later the hall was optional. Khaleej Times reported on 10 October 2013 that a plot of land put up by the Execution Department of Dubai Courts had been sold in an online auction in which only smart applications were used for bidding. An Emirates 24|7 article of the same date, republished in the company's media centre, reported the company as saying that auctions on its applications ran continuously, unaffected by weekends or holidays, and that the summer halt of earlier years no longer applied.
Related readTexas property tax sales: bidding, deeds and the right to redeemBy the time of the 2019 agreement with the Land Department, both forms were on the table: the article describing it speaks of online public auctions or sales through auction houses. The two most recent results in the record were both timed online sales. Gulf News reported, in an article last updated on 21 May 2024, that a Dubai hotel had been put up for auction with bidders given a five-day window. The article of 21 August 2025 on the sale of a shopping centre says it was sold on Emirates Auction's online platform on Wednesday 20 August 2025.
The company's terms and conditions, as read in October 2026, describe how a timed sale behaves near its end. The auction time can be extended when a bid arrives at the last minute, and may also be extended during prayer times; the company may extend or postpone an auction at its discretion. A bidder can set an automatic bidder with a maximum limit. Electronic bids are binding and irrevocable. The terms as read state no bid increment and no opening or closing hours.
How often the sales are held
No calendar of Dubai property auctions was found on the pages read for this guide, and no organiser's statement of how many sales it holds in a year. The only published statement of frequency is second-hand and seven years old. In the Gulf News article last updated on 27 September 2019, the chief executive of Realty Force said Emirates Auction held an auction every week, and that the Land Department with its regulatory agency held one every 60 days.
Related readHow a US foreclosure auction works, from the 120-day rule to the saleThat statement fits the company's own description, reported in 2013, of sales running continuously on its applications. It is not evidence of the rhythm in 2026.
The totals that have been published
Three published totals exist, each for a different thing, and none of them is recent.
The first is a single session. The company's release of 23 December 2012 says the first Dubai Real Estate Auction offered 23 properties and sold all of them, for more than AED 92 million. As a worked figure, AED 92 million across 23 lots is an average of AED 4 million a lot. The lots were vacant plots, residential units, and private and investment villas, and the winning bidders came from more than 10 nationalities, the release says.
The second is the only annual figure found, and it is not for property alone. The National reported on 17 December 2014 that Dubai Courts had raised AED 365,575,450 from electronic auctions of cars, properties and other seized items between January and the end of November 2014, all conducted by Emirates Auction. The report gave no separate total for property and no count of properties sold. It did give a direction: what it called the profit on properties was up 28 per cent on the previous year, and the figure for cars was up 82 per cent.
The third concerns one seller. The release of 17 April 2017 says that in less than two years 230 assets owned by minors had been sold for AED 58.5 million in all, of which properties accounted for more than AED 50 million, distinguished number plates for AED 4 million, vehicles for an estimated AED 2 million and other assets for AED 710,148. On those figures property was more than 85 per cent of the total by value.
Related readUS: Freddie Mac auctions 1,968 delinquent loans, Fannie Mae opens bidsNo recent yearly total for Dubai property auctions was found
The totals in this section date from 2012, 2014 and 2017. No figure from the organisers, the courts or the Land Department for the number or value of properties auctioned in 2025 or 2026 was found on the pages read. The older totals show what was sold then; they are not a measure of the market today.
Results that made the news
Individual results are better documented than totals, because a large sale is news.
Land in Dubai, October 2013. Khaleej Times reported on 10 October 2013 that a plot valued at nearly AED 94 million was won by a group of Emirati investors with a bid of more than AED 94 million, and that Dubai Courts was entered in the Guinness World Records for the most expensive property sold through an electronic auction conducted on smart applications.
A villa in Emirates Hills, September 2019. Gulf News, in the article last updated on 27 September 2019, reported that a six-bedroom villa with 15,000 square feet of built-up area had sold at auction the week before for AED 17.74 million after 170 bids.
A hotel, May 2024. Gulf News reported that the Palazzo Versace Dubai, a hotel in Al Jaddaf, was put up for auction at a base price of AED 1.34 billion, and that the sale was suspended by a court order a little over 24 hours before bidding was due to close, with no bid received by then. The article does not name the organiser, the party behind the sale or the court's reason.
A shopping centre, August 2025. An article dated 21 August 2025 in Emirates Auction's media centre, translated from the newspaper Al Emarat Al Youm, says Lamsi Plaza in Oud Metha was sold on the company's online platform for AED 188.7 million against a start price of AED 185 million, with 37 bidders. The lot was two plots zoned for commercial, office and residential use, 88,250 square feet of land together, with a built-up area of 390,111.82 square feet. The centre had been closed since a fire in March 2017, the article says. Bidding was restricted to nationals of the Gulf Cooperation Council states, and movable assets and the trade licence were excluded from the sale. The article names neither the seller nor the buyer.
Related readHow the US Treasury and Marshals sell forfeited real estateAuction prices against market prices
Whether an auction is cheaper than the open market is the question buyers ask first, and the published sources answer it in two different ways, depending on what the auction price is compared with.
Compared with the opening price, auction results have run higher, sometimes far higher. The company's 2012 release sets out the base price and the sale price of most of the 23 lots. In freehold areas, it says, sale prices were 24 to 84 per cent above base; in areas where buyers from outside the Gulf Cooperation Council states could not own, the increase was 0.5 to 24 per cent.
Emirates Auction release of 23 December 2012, percentages as the release gives them. Six of the 23 lots; the Mirdif villa was open to Gulf Cooperation Council nationals only.
The extremes in that release are instructive. The largest rise was a villa in Emirates Hills that went from a base of AED 1.5 million to AED 2.76 million. The highest price of the day, AED 9.5 million for a villa on Palm Jumeirah, was a rise of about a quarter on its base of AED 7.5 million. At the other end, four vacant plots in Al Jaddaf, each with a base of AED 7.707 million, sold for between AED 7.72 million and AED 7.74 million.
The 2014 figures point the same way against valuation. The head of seized properties at Dubai Courts told The National that "The items were valued at Dh283m before the auction was carried out"; they sold for AED 365,575,450. As a worked figure, that is AED 82,575,450 more than the valuation, or about 29 per cent, across cars, properties and other items together. The Lamsi Plaza result of August 2025 is the opposite case: AED 188.7 million against a start of AED 185 million is a rise of AED 3.7 million, or 2 per cent, in a sale limited to Gulf nationals.
Related readBidding on a home in Western Australia: no conditions, no cooling-offA base price or a court valuation is not a market price, however, and none of these sources says how the opening figures were set against recent open-market sales. The one source that compares auctions with the open market directly is Gulf News in September 2019, and it points the other way. The newspaper wrote that auctions generally allowed buyers to purchase below the prices of similar properties in the same location, and quoted the Realty Force chief executive as saying that prices at auction in Emirates Hills, Jumeirah Golf Estates and Burj Khalifa were much lower than in the wider market. It gave no percentage. It also reported that a home in Emirates Hills bought at auction in late 2017 had been resold within four months at a 15 per cent profit.
The two readings are compatible: a lot can start low, climb under competition and still close under the price of a comparable home sold privately. The Gulf News report dates from a falling market, in which the same article recorded price declines of 15 to 19 per cent over twelve months in three Dubai communities. No source found for this guide makes the comparison for 2025 or 2026.
Who can bid, and who buys
The sources describe an open room with specific exceptions. Emirates Auction's terms, as read in October 2026, limit registration to individuals over 21. For court-ordered sales they bar the debtor, the debtor's close relatives and the officials and lawyers involved in the case.
Ownership rules appear in the results. The 2012 release separates freehold areas from areas where buyers from outside the Gulf Cooperation Council states could not purchase, and its own figures show the difference: the Al Jaddaf plots, which those buyers could not own, barely moved above base. The Lamsi Plaza sale of 2025 was restricted to Gulf nationals as well.
Related readAustralia final auction clearance rate falls to 45.4%, Melbourne week aheadOn who buys, the record is thin. The 2012 release counts winning bidders of more than 10 nationalities from Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas. The 2013 land sale went to a group of Emirati investors, according to Khaleej Times.
The deposit and fees, worked on a published result
The clauses of Emirates Auction's terms are applied here to a result its media centre has published, the Lamsi Plaza sale, to show their scale. This is a worked example: it assumes the general real estate terms as read in October 2026 applied to that lot unchanged, which the article on the sale does not say, and that the deposit is counted towards the price.
| Line | How it is computed | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Security deposit | 20% of the start price of AED 185,000,000 | AED 37,000,000 |
| Fees and charges | 3% of AED 188,700,000, plus AED 15,000 | AED 5,676,000 |
| Remaining price | AED 188,700,000 less the deposit | AED 151,700,000 |
| Lowest later offer, court sale | Award plus one-tenth, AED 18,870,000 | AED 207,570,000 |
Illustrative figures computed from Emirates Auction's terms and conditions and the published start and sale prices. Not the actual costs of that sale.
The terms describe the 3 per cent and the AED 15,000 as covering the ownership transfer fees and the company's commission. They add value added tax at 5 per cent "where relevant" to the final price and the fees, and make the seller responsible for applying it to the price. An unsuccessful bidder asks for the deposit back through the account's deposit dashboard; the terms as read give no time limit for that refund.
The last row of the table applies only where a court ordered the sale. In that case the terms allow any eligible person, within 10 days of the award, to offer at least one-tenth more.
Cash, ten days and the cost of failing
The feature of this market that most separates it from an ordinary purchase is the speed of payment. The company's terms give a successful bidder a maximum of 10 days to pay the remaining amount, and for court-ordered sales require the full price and the expenses within 10 days of the sale session. The Dubai Courts official quoted in the 2012 release said the official transfer began 10 days after a sale, and that auctions had cut the time needed to sell such properties from several years to a few months.
Gulf News drew the practical conclusion in 2019. Winning bidders, it reported, had to pay the full amount up front, with no provision to wait for a bank loan. "It has to be a cash purchase," the Realty Force chief executive told the newspaper.
The terms also price a failure. Under the general terms, a bidder who does not pay loses the sale and the full security deposit and faces a fine of 30 per cent of the sale amount, with an administration fee of AED 105 for each day of late payment. The real estate terms add that the bidder bears the difference between the two prices, meaning the shortfall if the property is sold again for less. How the two combine in a given case is not spelled out.
What the bidder buys is defined narrowly. The terms say court-ordered property is sold "as is", without the movable items, the business name or the commercial licence. The Lamsi Plaza article shows the same exclusions in a real lot.
What the published record leaves out
Read together, the sources describe one documented organiser, one set of bidder's terms and a short list of large results, most of them years old. They leave four gaps.
- Current volume. The most recent total of any kind dates from 2017, and the only annual figure, from 2014, mixes property with cars and other assets.
- The rhythm of sales. The statements that one organiser sells weekly and the Land Department every 60 days come from a broker quoted in 2019, not from the organisers.
- Sales by banks and developers. The 2019 agreement provides for them; no published result of one was found.
- The gap to the open market today. The comparisons available are with base prices and valuations, or date from the falling market of 2019.
Dubai Courts' and the Land Department's own releases on auction results could not be read for this guide, and may fill part of this. Until they do, each published figure belongs to its date and to the organisation that gave it.
In Dubai one organiser's terms are published and the results only in part. What a lot fetched is news when it is large, and unrecorded when it is not.
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.
