Abu Dhabi Property Transactions Reached AED 155bn in Eight Months, Past All of 2025

Abu Dhabi recorded AED 155bn of property transactions between January and August 2026, overtaking the AED 142bn logged across the whole of 2025.

Abu Dhabi's property register passed AED 155bn of transaction value between January and August 2026, according to Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre (Adrec) figures reported on 3 September. The comparison that matters is the calendar rather than the size of the number: the emirate's full-year 2025 total was AED 142bn, so eight months of this year have already produced about 9% more than twelve months of last year.

The first quarter did most of the work

Q1 2026 alone accounted for AED 66bn across 13,518 deals, against AED 25.31bn from 6,896 deals in Q1 2025. Value rose 2.6-fold on roughly double the deal count, which means the average ticket rose sharply as well as the volume. Residential sales in the first half came to AED 70.4bn, up from AED 25.3bn a year earlier, and off-plan units accounted for 89% of that residential sales value. The headline figure is therefore overwhelmingly a claim on buildings that have not been finished.

A second measure gives a smaller number

ValuStrat, publishing on 24 August, put Abu Dhabi sales at AED 86.3bn by mid-August against AED 83.2bn for the whole of 2025, and total transaction values including mortgages at AED 111bn. The two sets are not in conflict: Adrec's AED 155bn covers the full register at a later cut-off, while ValuStrat's AED 86.3bn is the narrower sales measure. Both support the same conclusion — 2025's total was beaten before the year was two-thirds through — but a single quoted figure should always carry its definition. Haider Tuaima, ValuStrat's head of real estate research, said the residential market showed "no material evidence of weakening demand".

Foreign buyers are a widening base

Foreign direct investment into Abu Dhabi property reached AED 13.8bn in the first half of 2026, above the full-2025 total on its own. Buyers came from 116 nationalities in H1, against 82 recorded for 2025 by ValuStrat's count. A broader nationality mix matters for a market this concentrated in off-plan: it spreads the completion risk across more national economies rather than a handful.

Prices are moving here, and not in Dubai

Adrec and JLL put apartment prices up 19.4% year on year and townhouses up 11.2%. Glopra's market data for Abu Dhabi shows an average of $4,826 per square metre with growth of 20.24% over twelve months, taken from REIDIN's July apartment index — close enough to the official figure to read as corroboration rather than a second opinion. Gross rental yield stands at 5.76%. Along the same coast, Dubai sits at $7,244 per square metre with prices up 0.1% over the same period. Our bubble-risk scores are near each other, 78 for Abu Dhabi and 81 for Dubai, but they describe different problems: one market is expensive and flat, the other is cheaper and running hot.

Supply is the counterweight

JLL counts roughly 409,000 residential units in Abu Dhabi at mid-2026, with 71,000 more due by 2030 and the heaviest single year being 21,800 units in 2028. Set against today's stock, that 2028 wave is a 5% addition in twelve months, arriving in a market where 89% of first-half residential sales value was off-plan. Twenty per cent annual apartment price growth and a delivery peak two years out are difficult to hold in the same forecast. Which of the two gives way first is the open question for anyone signing an off-plan contract this autumn.

Sources: Khaleej Times (Adrec and JLL data), 3 Sep 2026 https://www.khaleejtimes.com/business/abu-dhabi-property-deals-top-dh155-billion-beat-2025s-full-year-total-in-8-months; ValuStrat via AGBI, 24 Aug 2026 https://valustrat.com/pages/abu-dhabi-property-sales-exceed-2025-totals-agbi

Market data: Abu Dhabi · Ras Al Khaimah · United Arab Emirates · Dubai