The property consultancy Knight Frank counted 86 Dubai home sales of US$10 million or more in the third quarter of 2026. Together they were worth AED 5.77 billion, which Knight Frank gives as US$1.57 billion. The count is 34% below the 131 such sales of the second quarter and below the 103 of the third quarter of 2025.

The more telling line in the release concerns price rather than volume. Faisal Durrani, Knight Frank's head of research for the Middle East and North Africa, says prices across the city's 10 prime neighbourhoods fell 5% between the second and third quarters, the first decline since 2020. He also says total prime transaction volumes are 29.4% lower than a year earlier, and he names the regional conflict as the main drag on activity. This sits beside the Savills figures reported here on 13 October, where prime price medians per square foot were still higher than a year before. The two firms measure different slices of the market in different ways, so the readings are not a contradiction, but they do mean the top of Dubai is no longer moving in one direction.

Palm Jumeirah remained the busiest address at this level. Knight Frank counts 27 sales there worth AED 2.01 billion, about 31% of the quarter's deals and 35% of their value, including the largest single sale of the quarter at AED 260 million. Louis Harding, Knight Frank's head of UAE residential, says prices on the island have eased 9.1% over 12 months to AED 4,083 per square foot and that overall sales volumes there are 37% lower than last summer. He describes the island as increasingly good value. A lower price per square foot is a lower entry cost, not a forecast of what an owner will earn, and the release offers no evidence on returns.

Behind Palm Jumeirah came Jumeirah Second with 10 sales worth AED 594.9 million, Emirates Hills with seven worth AED 542.5 million, and Dubai Hills Estate and Jumeirah Golf Estates with six each, worth AED 574.9 million and AED 330.1 million respectively. Villas made up 55 of the 86 sales, about 64%, Knight Frank says.

The very top of the market held its weight even as the number of deals thinned. Thirteen sales exceeded US$25 million and together reached AED 1.84 billion, about 15% of the quarter's deals but nearly 32% of their value. Palm Jumeirah accounted for five of the 13, and Dubai Hills Estate and Emirates Hills for two each. Month by month, deal numbers fell from 36 in July to 32 in August and 18 in September, while the value of sales above US$25 million rose from AED 376.1 million in July to AED 609.8 million in August and AED 849.5 million in September, about 52% of that month's total.

For the first nine months of 2026, Knight Frank reports 412 sales of US$10 million or more, against 357 in the same period of 2025, worth about US$6.67 billion. Its first-half release in July counted 165 such sales in the first quarter and 131 in the second, 296 in all, so adding the 86 from the third quarter gives 382 rather than 412. Knight Frank's releases do not explain the difference of 30 sales.

These are a brokerage's own counts and quotes, not an official statistic. Knight Frank sells and advises on homes in Dubai, so the view that the island now offers good value comes from a firm with an interest in the market. Harding adds that a summer dip from the second quarter is something the firm historically expects.

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Sources

Sources read 22 October 2026.