CRESCO INSIGHTS · CRESCO RESEARCH
Registered Dubai Land Department sale prices across sixteen communities, converted at the dirham peg. Not asking prices. Rebuilt monthly. This edition is the August 2026 register.
Most Dubai price data you will find online is advertised asking prices scraped from portals. This is not that.
These are prices buyers actually registered with the Dubai Land Department, converted to US dollars at the dirham peg of 3.6725. We pulled every residential apartment sale registered in August 2026, removed mortgages and gift transfers because they are not arms length sales, and took the median per community. That leaves 4,399 sales across the sixteen communities below. The DLD area name column shows exactly which register value each row counts, so any figure here can be reproduced from the same public file.
| Community | DLD area name | Registered sales | USD per sq ft | AED per sq ft |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dubai South | Dubai South | 82 | $336 | 1,233 |
| Dubai Sports City | Dubai Sports City | 149 | $348 | 1,279 |
| Al Furjan | Al Furjan | 142 | $368 | 1,351 |
| Jumeirah Village Circle | Jumeirah Village Circle | 691 | $389 | 1,428 |
| Arjan | Arjan | 194 | $401 | 1,472 |
| Jumeirah Lakes Towers | Jumeirah Lakes Towers | 117 | $438 | 1,607 |
| Jumeirah Village Triangle | Jumeirah Village Triangle | 147 | $449 | 1,650 |
| Dubai South, airport district | Madinat Al Mataar | 1,727 | $479 | 1,759 |
| Sobha Hartland | Sobha Heartland | 68 | $524 | 1,923 |
| Business Bay | Business Bay | 407 | $570 | 2,095 |
| Dubai Hills Estate | Dubai Hills | 84 | $596 | 2,188 |
| Dubai Marina | Dubai Marina | 177 | $612 | 2,248 |
| Dubai Creek Harbour | Dubai Creek Harbour | 82 | $614 | 2,254 |
| Dubai Islands | Palm Deira | 125 | $682 | 2,504 |
| Downtown Dubai | Burj Khalifa | 151 | $737 | 2,705 |
| Palm Jumeirah | Palm Jumeirah | 56 | $740 | 2,717 |
The market splits into three tiers and the gap between them is larger than most buyers expect.
Under $450 per square foot. Dubai South, Dubai Sports City, Al Furjan, Jumeirah Village Circle, Arjan, Jumeirah Lakes Towers and Jumeirah Village Triangle. These are the volume communities. Madinat Al Mataar alone registered 1,727 apartment sales in August, more than Downtown, Dubai Marina, Palm Jumeirah, Dubai Hills Estate and Business Bay combined, which came to 875.
$450 to $650. Madinat Al Mataar, Sobha Hartland, Business Bay, Dubai Hills Estate, Dubai Marina and Dubai Creek Harbour. This is where most international money lands.
Above $650. Dubai Islands, Downtown Dubai and Palm Jumeirah. Prime, thin, and far more expensive per square foot than the mid market. Palm Jumeirah at $740 is 2.2 times Dubai South at $336.
Look at the sales column, not the price column.
Palm Jumeirah registered 56 apartment sales in August. Jumeirah Village Circle registered 691, and Madinat Al Mataar registered 1,727. That is not a statement about quality. It is a statement about how quickly you can sell.
Liquidity is the thing overseas buyers underweight. A community with twelve times the transaction volume has twelve times the buyer pool when you want out. In a thin market your exit price is whatever the one interested buyer that month decides it is.
These medians mix off plan and ready. On the August register, off plan sold at a median 33% above ready per square foot in like for like comparisons matched on community and bedroom count, across 66 comparable cells.
So a community with heavy off plan activity reads higher here than its resale market actually is. Madinat Al Mataar and Dubai Islands are both 100% off plan in this period. Dubai South is 63%. Read those three as launch pricing rather than market pricing.
Source is the Dubai Land Department open data portal. We excluded mortgage registrations and gift transfers, kept residential units, and removed records with a value under AED 100,000, a size under 150 square feet or an implied price per square foot outside AED 200 to AED 20,000, which are data entry artefacts rather than real sales. That left 4,399 apartment sales across the sixteen communities published here.
Sizes convert from square metres at 10.7639 square feet per square metre. Dirhams convert at the fixed peg of 3.6725, unchanged since 1997. All figures are medians, because averages get dragged around by a handful of very large sales in Downtown and on the Palm.
It depends heavily on the community. Registered Dubai Land Department apartment sales in August 2026 ranged from a median of $336 per square foot in Dubai South to $740 on Palm Jumeirah. Mid market communities such as Business Bay and Dubai Marina registered at $570 and $612.
Of the sixteen communities with enough registered sales to measure, Dubai South was cheapest at a median $336 per square foot, followed by Dubai Sports City at $348 and Al Furjan at $368.
Palm Jumeirah at a median $740 per square foot, followed by Downtown Dubai at $737 and Dubai Islands at $682.
Actual registered sale prices from the Dubai Land Department. They are not asking prices advertised on property portals, which are typically higher and are what most published Dubai price data uses.
Monthly. Each update uses a fresh Dubai Land Department transaction file and republishes every figure with its new date range.
Transaction volume reflects both community size and how much new supply is launching. Jumeirah Village Circle and Dubai South carry very high volumes because of active off plan launches. High volume also means deeper liquidity when you sell.
Source. Dubai Land Department open data portal, registered transactions 1 to 31 August 2026, 4,399 qualifying apartment sales after cleaning across the sixteen communities published. Mortgages and gift transfers excluded. Medians, not averages. Converted at the fixed peg of AED 3.6725 to USD 1. Analysis by Cresco Real Estate LLC, RERA ORN 34288. Registered transaction prices, not advertised asking prices. Market research, not personal investment advice.
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