CRESCO RESEARCH
It sold for $980,380 across 454 registered sales and measured 1,835.2 square feet. The median American listing measured 1,833. The Dubai rate per square foot is 2.35 times the American one.
The median three bedroom apartment in Dubai sold for $980,380 in August 2026. It measured 1,835.2 square feet. The median home listed for sale in the United States that same month measured 1,833 square feet.
Those two numbers are 2.2 square feet apart. The same amount of space. The Dubai apartment cost $526.10 per square foot and the American listing $224. That is 2.35 times the rate for the same floor area.
This page is for American buyers who keep seeing Dubai described as cheap. At the family end of the market it is not cheap per square foot. It is roughly two and a third times the American rate. What it buys you is a new building, no property tax and no capital gains tax, which is a different argument.
| Measure, August 2026 | Dubai three bedroom | United States |
|---|---|---|
| Median size | 1,835.2 sq ft | 1,833 sq ft |
| Median price per square foot | $526.10 | $224 |
| Median price | $980,380 | $429,100 |
| Sample | 454 registered sales | 3.98 million, annual rate |
| Price basis | Sold, Dubai Land Department | Sold, National Association of Realtors |
| Size and rate basis | Sold, Dubai Land Department | Listed, FRED housing inventory |
Read the last two rows before you quote this table. The Dubai column is entirely sold data. The American median price of $429,100 is sold data from the National Association of Realtors. The American size and the $224 per square foot are listing data from the FRED housing inventory series. Sold and listed are not the same thing and we are not going to pretend they are. We use the listing series because no monthly sold series publishes a national median size.
On price alone the Dubai three bedroom is 128.5 per cent more than the American median existing home. Against the American median condominium, which sold at $371,600 in the same month, it is 163.8 per cent more.
| Point in the market | Price |
|---|---|
| Cheapest sale | $234,173 |
| 10th percentile | $544,588 |
| 25th percentile | $711,540 |
| Median | $980,380 |
| 75th percentile | $1,453,483 |
| 90th percentile | $2,269,027 |
| Most expensive sale | $12,488,223 |
The middle half of buyers paid between $711,540 and $1,453,483. 38 of the 454 sales cleared $2,722,941, which is AED 10 million. A single national average for a Dubai three bedroom hides a range of more than fifty times.
| Type | Sales | Median price | Median price per square foot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Off plan | 265 | $1,035,232 | $559.16 |
| Ready | 189 | $871,341 | $486.96 |
Off plan was 265 of the 454 sales. Ready units were larger at the median. An American buyer paying the off plan premium is buying a newer building, not more space, and is accepting a payment plan against a handover date rather than a deed today.
| Type | Registered sales | Median price | Median size | Median price per square foot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | 3,602 | $176,991 | 380.5 sq ft | $475.05 |
| One bedroom | 3,561 | $326,753 | 756.5 sq ft | $435.67 |
| Two bedroom | 1,876 | $557,434 | 1,238.2 sq ft | $449.53 |
| Three bedroom | 454 | $980,380 | 1,835.2 sq ft | $526.10 |
The rate per square foot falls from the studio to the one bedroom and then climbs again. The three bedroom is the dearest per foot of the four at $526.10. Family sized space in Dubai is priced at a premium, not at a discount for bulk.
Every Dubai figure on this page is recomputed from the register for this page. Source is the Dubai Land Department sales register for August 2026, file dated 2 September 2026.
Basis. Sales group, Residential usage, Unit property type, priced at or above AED 500 per square foot, with the register's room field recorded as 3 B/R. The wider screen holds 9,956 homes for the month and it is the standard used across both our sites. Square feet are converted at 10.7639 to the square metre. Dollars are converted at the pegged rate of 3.6725 dirhams, which has not moved since 1997.
What was removed. The register holds 458 three bedroom residential Unit sales in August 2026. We screened out 4 rows priced below AED 500 per square foot as non market. Three of those four recorded prices under AED 125,000 for units of about 150 square metres, which is not a market sale.
United States sources. The $429,100 median existing home price and the $371,600 median condominium price are National Association of Realtors August 2026 figures, released 10 September 2026, and are sold prices. The 1,833 square foot median size and the $224 per square foot are the FRED housing inventory series for August 2026 and are listing prices, not sold prices. Mixing sold and listed is the weakest joint in this comparison and we would rather flag it than hide it.
Limits. One month of data on the Dubai side. 454 sales supports a median and quartiles. The register records bedroom counts as the developer filed them and does not separate a three bedroom plus maid from a plain three bedroom. Villas and townhouses register as Building rather than Unit, so they are not in this count. The American figures are national and Dubai is one city, so the comparison is a city against a country. Sold prices are not asking prices, and neither register publishes service charges, agency fees or payment plan terms.
The median three bedroom sold for $980,380 in August 2026 across 454 registered sales. The middle half of buyers paid between $711,540 and $1,453,483.
No. At $980,380 it cost 128.5 per cent more than the $429,100 American median existing home, and 134.9 per cent more per square foot than the national listing rate.
The median measured 1,835.2 square feet, which is 2.2 square feet larger than the 1,833 square foot median American listing in the same month.
Dubai charges no annual property tax and no capital gains tax on a sale. A 4 per cent transfer fee applies at purchase. United States citizens remain liable to the IRS on worldwide income and should take their own tax advice.
38 of the 454 screened sales, or 8.4 per cent, which is about $2,722,941.
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Price is only part of what you need in the bank. We worked out the full cash requirement, including the Land Department transfer fee, the service partner fee and the Central Bank deposit caps, in how much money you need to buy property in Dubai.