68% of Active Dubai Buyers Plan to Purchase Within Six Months

Property Finder's Market Pulse survey, run from March to April 2026 among 4 735 active platform users, produced a number that sits awkwardly next to talk of a paralysed market: about 68% of respondents plan to buy property within the next six months.

What matters here — and what doesn't

An important caveat on the data first: this wasn't a survey of the population, but of people who were actively searching for property on the platform at the time. It's not a cross-section of demand in the economy — it's a cross-section of sentiment among people already in the process. Expecting a low share of intending buyers here would have been odd.

The value of the number lies elsewhere — in how it sits next to sentiment. The same buyers, in the same period, voiced concerns about a possible price decline. Expecting a correction and intending to buy coexist in the same head, and the first doesn't cancel the second.

Why

• Most Dubai purchases aren't speculative. Someone relocating buys for their own life, not for an index forecast.
• Expecting a correction works as a trigger, not a brake. A buyer waiting for a discount comes to the market to negotiate, not to leave it.
• The alternative to buying is renting, which also costs money in Dubai, and over a long enough time horizon the arithmetic tilts toward buying.

Practical takeaway

For a seller, it means there is a buyer in the market — but one who showed up with a calculator and an expectation of a discount. For a buyer, it means competition for good properties hasn't gone anywhere, and counting on an empty market of desperate sellers isn't realistic.

Based on the Property Finder Market Pulse survey, March–April 2026.