Dubai and Abu Dhabi Apartment Prices Both Fell 3% in the Second Quarter

Dubai and Abu Dhabi apartment prices both fell 3% quarter on quarter in Q2 2026 as 11,650 Dubai homes completed and 56,600 more remain due this year.

Apartment and villa sale prices in Dubai fell 3% quarter on quarter in the second quarter of 2026, and Abu Dhabi apartments matched that decline, on Colliers' quarterly UAE report as covered by Khaleej Times on 27 August. Rents moved with them: Dubai apartment rents fell 4% on the quarter and villa rents 2%. After four years in which almost every UAE residential series pointed upward, both halves of the return equation are now easing at once.

The delivery schedule explains most of it

Dubai took handover of 11,650 homes in the second quarter alone — 9,200 apartments and 2,450 villas — and a further 56,600 units are scheduled for delivery across the remainder of 2026. That is the number to watch. Completions of that scale landing inside a single half-year mechanically loosen the rental market first and the sales market shortly after, which is precisely the sequence the quarterly figures show.

Rents falling faster than prices in Dubai (4% against 3% for apartments) is the classic early signature of a supply-led adjustment rather than a demand shock. Landlords absorb the first hit through the income line.

Abu Dhabi: a quarterly dip inside an annual boom

The capital's numbers require both timeframes to make sense. Abu Dhabi apartment prices fell 3% on the quarter but remain 19% above a year earlier; villas eased 1% on the quarter and are 10% up year on year. Rents show the same shape: apartments down 2% on the quarter and up 7% annually, villas down 3% and up 5%.

Transaction volumes came in around 7,200 deals, 8% below the first quarter but 83% above the same quarter of 2025 — and roughly 84% of them were off-plan. That off-plan concentration is the structural risk in Abu Dhabi's cycle: it front-loads sales into a pipeline that has to be delivered and then absorbed. Only 2,200 homes were handed over in Q2, with about 3,200 more due this year, so the capital's supply overhang is smaller than Dubai's but its forward commitments are proportionally larger.

The northern emirates cooled too

Sharjah apartment rents fell around 4% and sale prices 3%; Ras Al Khaimah apartment prices declined 2%. Roughly 7,450 completions are expected across the northern emirates in 2026 — 5,450 in Sharjah, 1,400 in Ras Al Khaimah and 600 in Ajman.

Against Glopra's own market file

We carry Dubai at $7,244 per square metre with a gross rental yield of 5.53%, and Abu Dhabi at $4,826 on 5.76%. Our stored annual price change for Dubai is 0.1% — the sharp deceleration our July data round captured — while Abu Dhabi still shows 20.24%, consistent with the divergence in the Colliers figures above.

Bubble Risk stands at 81 for Dubai, in our high band, and 78 for Abu Dhabi, elevated. Both scores were set before this quarter's declines and reflect valuation levels rather than direction of travel.

The UAE's structural advantages are unchanged and substantial: no tax on rental income in our standardised case, and total transaction costs near 6.5%, among the lowest of any market we track. What has changed is that the market is now delivering the supply it sold. Buyers who underwrote Dubai on continued double-digit appreciation are being asked to underwrite it on a 5.5% gross yield instead — a defensible number, but a different investment.

Sources: Khaleej Times, reporting the Colliers Q2 2026 UAE report, 27 Aug 2026 https://www.khaleejtimes.com/business/uae-property-market-cools-in-q2-as-dubai-abu-dhabi-home-prices-and-rents-ease

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