Dubai Off-Plan Sales Hit Record AED 38bn In April As Saudi Buyers Lead Demand

Dubai's off-plan residential market hit a fresh monthly record in April, with total transaction value reaching AED 38 billion across the emirate's developer pipeline — a 32% year-on-year jump and a meaningful step beyond the previous record set in November 2025. The headline number masks an even more significant compositional shift: Saudi nationals are now the single largest non-resident buyer cohort by value, displacing the Indian and Russian segments that had defined the previous cycle.

Land Department data, released through the weekend and corroborated by the major brokerage houses, shows Saudi-passport buyers accounted for roughly 22% of off-plan transaction value in the month — up from 9% twelve months earlier. The shift is driven by a combination of Saudi nationals diversifying property holdings beyond the kingdom, the relaxation of UAE long-term visa rules tied to property ownership, and a growing premium-to-Riyadh dynamic where Dubai inventory at the AED 6 million-and-above tier still represents perceived value relative to the comparable Riyadh stock.

The supply-side picture is keeping pace. Emaar's Creek Beach phase 5 launch sold 90% of inventory within four hours of release; Sobha's Hartland II tower hit AED 4 billion of pre-sales in two days; the Damac Riverside expansion has run a near-continuous launch cadence since February with no measurable absorption fatigue. The notable feature of this cycle is that the new product is being placed at higher price points than the equivalent product would have commanded twelve months ago — and the market is still clearing.

The mortgage market remains a relatively small factor. Roughly 65% of off-plan transactions in April closed in cash, a ratio that has held remarkably stable across the cycle and that materially differentiates the Dubai market from the structural property cycles in London, Singapore, or Sydney. The cash-buyer dominance gives the sector a different sensitivity to interest-rate moves than property markets where credit drives the cycle.

The forward question is whether the absorption pace can hold through the summer — historically the slower season — and through the eventual delivery of the inventory now being sold off-plan. Several of the senior brokerage executives Reuters and Bloomberg have spoken to in recent weeks have flagged the 2027-28 delivery window as the cyclical inflection point to watch. For now, the data through April shows a market still in the firm-grip phase of an unusually durable cycle, with developer pipelines that show no near-term sign of compression.