Q1 2026 closed at AED 252 billion (about $68.6 billion) in real estate transactions, up 31% over Q1 2025. To anchor that: January alone recorded the highest monthly value in Dubai's entire history, AED 72.4 billion (about $19.7 billion), +63% year-on-year. These are numbers that look engineered for a Dubai Land Department press release, and in fact they are. The real question is: what do they actually tell us?
Let me give you my read, from where I sit in Dubai.
The market is big and getting bigger. 48,448 active investors in the quarter, of which 29,312 are new, one in three was absent from the market in 2025. Foreign investment is up 26% (AED 148 billion, about $40 billion), the luxury segment also up 26%. These numbers confirm what anyone living here already knows: the flow of foreign capital into Dubai is not slowing. Italians, Indians, Russians, Brits, new profiles from Central Asia, wealthy South Americans who have discovered the Emirates in the last 18 months. The market is fed by real demand, nothing about it resembles a speculative bubble.
Q2 will be quieter. But not the way you think.
The Q2 numbers, the ones that will start coming out in the next few weeks, will probably be less spectacular than Q1. Rental growth has cooled (still +10.2% year-on-year, but only +0.8% quarter-on-quarter, the lowest since 2022); new launches are down 57%; and transaction registration has a structural 60-90 day lag that combines with the regional geopolitical uncertainty of recent months.
Read poorly, this looks like a market slowing down. Read properly, it's the opposite: it's a market taking a breath while something significant is happening underneath the surface.
What I see, and what the official data doesn't show
Regional tensions are pushing construction material costs upward. Steel, cement, glass, maritime logistics, construction-site insurance, everything is moving. These cost increases don't get absorbed by developers; they get baked into the prices of upcoming off-plan launches. Properties already on the market today, those launched in the last 6-12 months, are still priced under the "old" conditions. Launches coming between late 2026 and 2027 will be, on average, more expensive.
Translated: those entering now are buying at peacetime prices; those entering twelve months from now are buying at the prices of uncertainty. The gap won't be explosive, we're not talking +30%, but a 5-10% upward correction on new launches is realistic, and in some specific segments even more.
There's also a longer-term factor: the 2027-2028 delivery pipeline is enormous, over 266,000 units. For the next 18-24 months we'll have enough supply to keep secondary market prices from running away, but the math for new launches will be different. For someone aiming at a good off-plan, with a strong developer, in a quality neighbourhood, the window for "normal" pricing is closing.
What this means in practice
It means that the phrase "I'll wait and see how the market settles", which I hear often from clients considering their first move, is becoming an expensive position. Not expensive in the sense that the market will crash if you don't buy today (it won't), but in the sense that anyone waiting twelve months may end up buying similar units at 5-10% more, with a less generous selection of launches.
For those who have already done their thinking and know what they want, these months are a window. Not an anxious urgency window, I'm not here to tell you "buy now or miss the train", which is the language of salespeople I don't respect. But a real window, readable in the numbers, in which buying well is objectively cheaper than it will be a year from now.
The Q1 numbers say the party continues. The numbers behind the numbers say the party has become more selective, and that those entering now pay less than those entering later.
If you have a concrete case in mind, a defined budget, a time horizon, a neighbourhood or property type preference, and want an honest read on what makes sense now and what is better deferred, leave me your details here. I respond personally within 24 hours.
Antonio Giannetti