Every Monday
The Monday Market Signal
The week's transaction data, in the same shape every week, so the weeks are actually comparable. Compared year-on-year — never month-on-month, because this market is seasonal and a month is noise.
Week ending 22 August 2026
AED 10.68 billion across 4,092 transactions — and off-plan is still doing the heavy lifting
Where it landed
| Segment | Value | Volume |
|---|---|---|
| Off-plan sales | AED 3.94B | 2,150 deals |
| Ready sales | AED 3.17B | 948 deals |
| Residential units | — | 2,708 units |
| Land | — | 211 plots |
| Buildings | — | 179 deals |
| Gifts | AED 806M | 149 deals |
The comparison that matters
- Prior week (ending 15 Aug 2026)AED 9.58B across 3,841 deals
- Q1 2026 vs Q1 2025 (DLD)AED 252B, up 31% year on year
DLD does not publish a like-for-like weekly figure for the same week in 2025 and 2024, so the annual comparison here is the Q1 2026 figure DLD did publish. Where a true week-on-week-a-year-ago number is not available I will say so rather than estimate one.
My read on the data this week
- Off-plan took 2,150 of the 3,098 sales — about seven in ten deals by count — but only AED 3.94B of AED 7.11B by value. Off-plan is where the volume is; ready stock is where the money per ticket is. That gap is the single most useful number in this table.
- Mortgages at AED 2.77B across 845 deals means an average ticket well above the sales average. Leveraged buyers are transacting at the top of the market, not the bottom, which is not what a market under stress looks like.
- 211 land transactions in a single week is a lot, and land is the leading indicator: developers buying plots today are the supply you will compete with in 2029. Worth watching over the next few weeks rather than reading into one print.
- Week on week the value rose from AED 9.58B to AED 10.68B, but I would not trade on that. One week is noise. The number that matters is DLD’s Q1 figure — AED 252B, up 31% on Q1 2025 — and whether the quarterly trend holds through a heavier handover year.
Sources
- Voice of Emirates: Dubai real estate transactions exceed AED 10.68 billion in one week (22 Aug 2026)
- Voice of Emirates: 3,841 deals — Dubai real estate transactions exceed AED 9.58 billion (15 Aug 2026)
- Dubai Land Department: Q1 2026 transactions surge 31% to AED 252 billion
Why year-on-year, not month-on-month
Property transaction volume in this market is strongly seasonal. Summer is quiet, the autumn launch season is loud, Ramadan moves every year, and a single week can swing on one large plot sale. Comparing this month to last month therefore tells you almost nothing about direction — it mostly tells you what month it is.
So every edition compares the same week against the same week a year earlier, and where the data allows, two years earlier. When a genuine like-for-like comparison is not published, I say so in the edition rather than estimating one and presenting it as fact.
Transaction figures are compiled from Dubai Land Department releases and the outlets cited in each edition, and are subject to revision. Commentary is Sonal Kukreja's interpretation, not financial advice, and past transaction activity says nothing about future prices.