Seven in Ten Dubai Sales Are Off-Plan. Half the Money Is Not.

Of the 169,578 property sales Dubai registered in the twelve months to 26 August 2026:

• 118,535 were off-plan - 70% of all transactions
• 51,043 were ready resale - 30% of all transactions

Now the same year measured in money:

• Off-plan: AED 259.7 billion - 50.4% of the total
• Ready resale: AED 255.4 billion - 49.6% of the total

Seventy percent of the deals. Half the money. Those two sentences describe the same market, and the distance between them is worth understanding before you buy anything.

The average ticket, and why it differs

• Off-plan - transactions: 118,535, total value: AED 259.7B, average price: AED 2.19M
• Ready resale - transactions: 51,043, total value: AED 255.4B, average price: AED 5.00M

The average ready-resale purchase costs more than twice the average off-plan one.

This is not a discount. It is a different product mix. Off-plan volume in this period is concentrated in Dubai South, Dubailand and Jumeirah Village Circle, where the typical launch unit is a studio or a one-bedroom. Resale carries the villas and the established prime apartments, which are larger and older and priced accordingly.

Read the AED 2.19M as "what the market is currently launching", not as "what the same home costs cheaper off-plan". They are not the same home.

What this changes for a buyer

If you are buying off-plan, you are in the crowded half of the market. 118,535 transactions a year means a great deal of product is being sold, and a meaningful part of it will complete in the same window as everything else launched alongside it. The question that matters is not what your unit costs today. It is what your building looks like at handover, when your neighbours who bought to flip all reach the resale market in the same quarter.

Ask about the handover quarter before you ask about the payment plan.

If you are buying ready, you are in the half of the market where the money is. Thirty percent of transactions carry half the value, which means resale is where the larger, more established assets change hands. You will see fewer comparable sales per building, and you will need to read them more carefully because each one carries more weight.

What this changes for a seller

If you own a completed unit, your competition is not only the other resale listings in your building. It is also every off-plan unit in the same community that is about to hand over, priced by a developer with an inventory to clear and a payment plan you cannot match.

That is survivable, and it is specific: your unit exists, it can be viewed today, and it does not carry completion risk. But it needs to be priced against what is actually arriving nearby, not against what your building achieved two years ago.

We can tell you what is completing near you and when. That is a more useful conversation than a valuation on its own.

How we measured this

Dubai Land Department registered transactions, twelve months ending 26 August 2026. Off-plan is DLD's own `OFF_PLAN_SALE` registration type; ready resale is `SALE`. Sample: 169,578 transactions, AED 515.1 billion.

Registered prices, not asking prices.

One thing we have deliberately not told you: the price per square foot for each half. We hold both figures and they are not comparable, because a villa's rate is struck on plot area and an apartment's on built-up area, and the two property types are mixed differently across off-plan and resale. Quoting the gap would look like a price difference when part of it is just a difference in what kind of property sits in each bucket. If you want a per-foot number, ask for it on one building or one community, where the comparison is real.

DLD files 25,486 transactions (15%) without a community, so they sit in the totals here and in none of the community references.

Palma Vista Real Estate Brokers LLC. Trade License 1345617, RERA ORN 42293. Ask us for the handover pipeline in the community you are considering before you commit to a payment plan.