CRESCO RESEARCH
The whole Dubai luxury market above $2.72 million is about 118 sales a month. Nearly three quarters of them were bought before the building existed. Every figure here is from the Dubai Land Department register.
In August 2026, 118 Dubai homes sold at or above $2,722,941. That was 1.17 per cent of every home sold in the city and 15.5 per cent of all the money spent on Dubai homes.
If you are an American buyer looking at Dubai at this level, the first thing worth knowing is how small the pool is. This is not a deep market with thousands of options. It is roughly four sales a day across the entire emirate.
| Price band | Sales | Share of all home sales | Share of all money | Median price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $2,722,941 and above | 118 | 1.17% | 15.5% | $4,400,407 |
| $5,445,882 and above | 46 | 0.45% | 9.7% | $8,353,491 |
| $13,614,704 and above | 7 | 0.07% | 2.8% | $17,154,527 |
Those bands are AED 10 million, 20 million and 50 million converted at the dirham peg of 3.6725. The dirham has been pegged to the dollar since 1997, so these are not estimates that move with a currency view.
The largest single home sale registered in the month was $23.4 million. The whole luxury tier came to $711.2 million.
72.9 per cent of those 118 sales were off plan. The buyer signed for a home that does not yet exist, on a developer payment plan, with handover somewhere in the future.
That share is almost identical to the market as a whole. Buying at the top in Dubai does not mean buying something finished, which is the opposite of how the luxury market works in most American cities.
Every one of the 118 sales was freehold, 100 per cent, with no leasehold at all. A foreign buyer at this level owns the property outright.
| Measure | August 2026 |
|---|---|
| Median price | $4,400,407 |
| Median size | 3,624 sq ft |
| Median price per square foot | $1,296 |
| Largest single sale | $23.4 million |
| Off plan share | 72.9% |
| Freehold share | 100% |
Median size of 3,624 square feet at $1,296 per square foot. For scale, the median Dubai home across the whole market sold for $299,523.
| Area as registered | Sales at $2,722,941 or above |
|---|---|
| Business Bay | 36 |
| Downtown Dubai, Burj Khalifa | 14 |
| Palm Jebel Ali | 10 |
| Palm Jumeirah | 8 |
| Marsa Dubai, Dubai Marina | 7 |
| Al Wasl | 6 |
| Jumeirah Second | 5 |
Business Bay alone was 36 of the 118. Add Downtown and the two Palms and you have 68 of the entire month at this level in four locations. If you are looking outside those, you are looking at a handful of sales a month.
| Home type | Sales at $2,722,941 or above |
|---|---|
| Three bedroom | 38 |
| Four bedroom | 35 |
| Two bedroom | 15 |
| Five bedroom | 3 |
| Six bedroom | 3 |
Three and four bedroom homes were the bulk of it. Five and six bedroom sales were in single figures for the whole month, which tells you how thin the very top of the Dubai market is on any given month.
Source: the Dubai Land Department transaction register for August 2026, 15,955 rows. We filter to GROUP_EN = Sales and PROP_TYPE_EN = Unit, so land plots and whole buildings are excluded throughout. Dirhams convert at the peg of 3.6725. Area converts from the registered square metres at 10.7639 square feet per square metre.
Stated limits. Registered value is the declared transaction value, not an appraisal. Off plan sales register at the date of sale, not at handover. Area names are the Dubai Land Department spellings, so a single community can appear under an unfamiliar label. Twenty of the 118 sales carry no bedroom value in the register, which is why the bedroom table does not sum to 118.
In August 2026 there were 118 home sales at or above $2,722,941, which is 1.17 per cent of all Dubai home sales. Only 7 were above $13,614,704.
Yes. 72.9 per cent of sales above $2,722,941 in August 2026 were off plan, meaning the property was not yet built.
Yes. All 118 sales in this band were freehold. There is no residency requirement to buy freehold property in Dubai designated areas.
Business Bay recorded 36 of the 118 sales in the band, followed by Downtown Dubai with 14, Palm Jebel Ali with 10 and Palm Jumeirah with 8.
Cresco Real Estate is a Dubai brokerage registered with RERA under office registration number 34288, with a United States office at 1800 N Vine St Suite 346, Los Angeles CA 90028. We read the full Dubai Land Department register every month. If you want the registered sales for a specific building or community, ask us.
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