Dubai property price index, July 2026 (ValuStrat): villas flat on the year, apartments down 4.2%

Transaction totals tell you how busy the market is. They do not tell you whether prices are moving, because a month with more villas and fewer studios looks "more expensive" even if nothing was repriced. The ValuStrat Price Index (VPI) avoids that problem by revaluing the same basket of homes every month. For an international buyer it is the cleanest single read on where Dubai prices actually are.

July 2026 in numbers

The citywide index was 219.2 points in July 2026, against a base of 100 in January 2021. That is down 0.3% on June and 1.6% on July 2025. Prices have more than doubled in five years, and the market is now on a plateau with a slight downward tilt.

Segment	AED per sq ft	Month	Year
Villas	2,039	−0.4%	0%
Apartments	1,397	−0.2%	−4.2%
All homes	—	−0.3%	−1.6%

Villas remain the clear winners of this cycle. Their sub-index is close to three times its January 2021 level, and it has not given any of that back over the past year. Apartments are absorbing the wave of new completions, and their annual decline is nearly three times the market average.

Winners and losers

The spread by district is wider than the averages suggest. Among apartments, Dubai Silicon Oasis (+6%), Dubai Sports City (+5.4%) and Al Quoz (+5%) rose over the year. These are affordable districts where price per foot is still catching up with the centre. The steepest declines were in the Burj Khalifa district (−19%), JBR (−15.1%) and Town Square (−8.4%). Among villas, Jumeirah Islands (+15%) and Emirates Hills (+9.1%) led. In both, supply is physically fixed, because no new homes can be built.

Who is selling

Ready transactions rose 11.4% month on month in July, but off-plan still made up about 73% of sales. By volume, off-plan was led by Dubai South (mainly Azizi Venice), Downtown Jebel Ali, JVC, Business Bay and Arjan. On the ready side, JVC was first. Among developers, Azizi led off-plan sales, followed by DAMAC, Emaar, Binghatti and Ellington. At the very top, 22 ready homes above AED 30m changed hands in the month, six of them above AED 50m.

What to do with it

• End users buying an apartment benefit from the plateau. Negotiation is possible again on resale, especially in buildings with many identical units listed at once.
• Off-plan investors should note that mid-market ready prices did not rise over the year. "Buy at launch, sell at handover" only works where your building is not completed alongside a wave of similar supply.
• Villa buyers should not expect discounts. A flat year on constrained supply is a pause, not a decline.

Worried about buying at the top? We can pull the index history for your specific district, from JVC to Emirates Hills, and set it against what is actually listed today.