Dubai property prices up 10% in a year: what Knight Frank's Q3 2025 review tells buyers

By Ansh Virmani, CEO18 November 2025Market

Knight Frank's Dubai Residential Market Review for Q3 2025 is the most useful single document a buyer can read this quarter. Not because it is bullish, but because it is precise about where the growth is and where it is not.

The headline: an unbroken run since 2020

According to Knight Frank, average residential values in Dubai rose 2.5% during the third quarter of 2025, extending an unbroken run of quarterly growth that began in late 2020 and leaving values around 10% higher than a year earlier. Aggregate residential transaction volumes for the year to date exceeded AED 310 billion, one of the highest totals ever recorded for the emirate.

That is the number the headlines will use. The more important part of the report is the phrase Knight Frank uses to describe the market: two-speed.

What "two-speed" means in practice

Knight Frank describes Dubai as an increasingly two-speed market. Prime locations posted stronger annual gains, while wider price growth is normalising. Prime and luxury property, particularly villas and waterfront developments, is expected to remain resilient. Apartment categories in secondary locations with heavy new supply may face pressure.

For a buyer, that changes the question from "is Dubai going up?" to "which Dubai am I buying?". A branded waterfront villa and a mid-market tower unit in an oversupplied district are now behaving like two different asset classes, even though both sit in the same DLD statistics.

Knight Frank's 2026 forecast

Knight Frank's residential agency team expects price rises of around 3% in the prime segment in 2026, while growth in the mainstream market is likely to average around 1% by the end of December 2026. Those are sober numbers after several years of double-digit growth, and they are consistent with a market that is maturing rather than one that is about to correct.

The supply question

The reason for the mainstream slowdown is supply. Khaleej Times asked the question directly in its piece "Will Dubai housing market see an oversupply in 2026?", and the honest answer from most consultancies is: in some segments, yes, and delivery delays will decide how much. Dubai has a long track record of scheduled handovers arriving later than announced, which has historically softened the impact of large pipelines.

The market is not one number. It is a prime market growing at one speed and a mainstream market growing at another, with supply as the dividing line.

How we read this for clients

• Buying to hold in prime: the report supports it. Scarcity in waterfront villas and established communities is real, and Knight Frank expects prime to keep outperforming.
• Buying for yield in the mainstream: still viable, but the unit and the tower matter more than the district. We underwrite service charges, comparable rents and time-to-sell in the specific building before recommending anything.
• Buying off-plan: check the developer's delivery record and the density of the surrounding pipeline. A payment plan is only a benefit if the handover date and the resale market both hold up.

If you want the Knight Frank review read against a specific budget, send us your brief and we will come back with units that fit the prime side of the two-speed market, with the numbers attached.

Three questions clients ask

Is it a bad time to buy because growth is slowing?

Slower growth in the mainstream market is not a fall. Knight Frank still expects prime prices to rise around 3% in 2026. For most briefs, unit selection and holding period matter more than trying to time a quarter.

Which segment does Knight Frank expect to outperform?

Prime, and in particular villas and waterfront developments, where scarcity is real. Mainstream apartments in districts with heavy pipelines are where growth is normalising fastest.

How do I avoid the oversupplied pockets?

Look at the pipeline within a couple of kilometres, the service charge, and the rents actually achieved in the building over the last year. We run those three checks on every unit before it reaches a shortlist.

Ansh Virmani

CEO of TVG Realtors and The Virmani Group. Boston University mathematics and economics graduate, licensed Dubai broker and Country Director of BRICS CCI UAE. He publishes weekly at virmaniviews.com.

TVG Realtors is an independent brokerage. Market figures are quoted from the named third-party sources as published on the dates cited and may have been revised since. Nothing here is investment, legal or tax advice.