Dubai registered 335 home sales at or above $10 million, about Dh36.7 million, between January and the end of August 2026, according to fäm Properties' analysis of Dubai Land Department data published on 27 September. Between them they were worth Dh20.37 billion, roughly $5.55 billion: 206 villas accounting for Dh11.7 billion and 129 apartments for Dh8.67 billion.
The rest of the city kept moving the other way. In the first half, Cavendish Maxwell put Dubai's wider residential market at Dh221.3 billion across roughly 79,200 transactions, 14% fewer deals than a year earlier and 15.7% less value, while Knight Frank described mainstream prices easing by between 5% and 20% depending on location. Two markets, one city, still diverging.
Dubai's $10 Million Homes, Eight Months In
Residential sales at or above $10 million (about Dh36.7 million), January to August 2026
January to August 2026
fäm Properties analysis of Dubai Land Department data
One registry, two counts
The same first half of 2026, as counted by two firms from the same Land Department records
Top villa districts by value
Top apartment districts by value
Sources: fäm Properties analysis of Dubai Land Department data, published 27 September 2026; Knight Frank and Engel and Völkers first half 2026 reports. Counts from different firms use different methods and should not be subtracted from one another. Largest sales of the period: a Dh422 million apartment at Aman Residences, Jumeirah Second, and a Dh350 million villa at La Mer, Jumeirah First.
Why the Summer Cannot Be Measured Yet
The tempting arithmetic is to take Knight Frank's first half count of 296 sales above $10 million, subtract it from fäm's 335, and conclude that only 39 trophy homes sold in July and August. That subtraction does not hold, and the reason is worth understanding before reading any Dubai luxury headline.
Every firm is counting the same registry, and none of them gets the same answer. Knight Frank counted 296 sales above $10 million in the first half, worth $5.1 billion. Engel and Völkers, working from the same Land Department records for the same six months, counted 320 worth $6.0 billion and reported growth of 23% on a year earlier. The gap between those two half year figures, 24 sales, is larger than the effect anyone would be trying to measure over the summer. Thresholds, currency conversion dates, the treatment of plots and off plan registrations, and whether a transaction is dated at contract or at registration all move the total.
The honest reading is narrower. Within Knight Frank's own series, the first quarter produced 165 sales above $10 million and the second 131, so momentum was already easing before summer. Whether July and August continued that trend will be settled by Knight Frank's third quarter count, due in October, measured against its own 131. For scale on that same methodology, the firm counted 500 such sales across the whole of 2025, worth $9.05 billion.
Where the Money Landed
fäm's district breakdown shows the top end spreading beyond the established addresses.
Among villas, the leader by both count and value was Hadaeq Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid, the Land Department's name for the area that takes in Dubai Hills Estate, with 48 sales worth Dh2.77 billion at an average of Dh57.8 million. Second was Palm Jebel Ali, with 43 sales and Dh2.04 billion. Palm Jumeirah, the address most buyers would name first, came third with 28 villa sales and Dh1.85 billion, followed by Emirates Living with 15 and Wadi Al Safa 3 with 15.
Palm Jebel Ali is the figure to watch. Its average villa sale, about Dh47.5 million, is the lowest of the top three, and the island is still substantially under construction. Buyers are paying eight figures for delivery positions, not finished houses. In Knight Frank's fourth quarter 2025 ranking it already sat second, with 22 sales behind Palm Jumeirah's 28. In fäm's eight month data it now outsells Palm Jumeirah in villas, 43 sales to 28.
Apartments tell a different story. Jumeirah Second led by value with 31 sales worth Dh2.77 billion, an average of Dh89.6 million, the highest of any district on fäm's lists. Palm Jumeirah took the most apartment deals, 35 worth Dh2.18 billion, ahead of Jumeirah First, Downtown Dubai and Business Bay.
The Biggest Prints, and a Correction
The most expensive apartment of the eight months remains the six bedroom unit at Aman Residences in Jumeirah Second, sold for Dh422 million across 31,201 square feet, about Dh13,500 per square foot. The most expensive villa was a seven bedroom house at La Mer in Jumeirah First, which fetched Dh350 million for 44,903 square feet.
September opened with another. Gulf News reported on 1 September that a completed six bedroom villa in the Ayumi project on Palm Jumeirah sold for Dh260 million, 26,550 square feet at about Dh9,792 per square foot, with a second villa in the same project mortgaged for Dh130 million the same day.
An earlier version of this article stated that Dubai's all time apartment record belonged to the Dh500 million penthouse at Como Residences on Palm Jumeirah. That record had already been overtaken. In December 2025 a penthouse at Bugatti Residences by Binghatti in Business Bay sold for Dh550 million, about $149.7 million, for roughly 47,200 square feet, a rate of about Dh11,650 per square foot. Measured per square foot, the Aman sale in 2026 was priced higher still.
The Same Pattern Aviation Already Knows
Fewer units, more money, concentrated at the top: the superyacht market printed the same shape this year. As AVNET reported on the first half of 2026, buyers took 326 preowned superyachts off the market, eight percent fewer than a year earlier, and paid $3.51 billion for them, fifteen percent more.
The buyer is also the same person. Dubai's prime residential market and its private aviation infrastructure are two purchases by one cohort, and the second makes the first practical. The emirate's build out of Al Maktoum International as its dedicated private aviation hub, which AVNET covered in its report on the move to DWC, is part of the same offer as the tax position and the residency programme.
What to Watch
The wider market has slowed without stalling. On Dubai Land Department figures reported by Emirates 24|7 on 1 October, the emirate recorded 165,018 real estate transactions worth Dh574.12 billion in the first nine months of 2026, the second highest nine month value on record, with September alone contributing Dh50.78 billion. For comparison, 2025 as a whole produced Dh919 billion.
The decisive number now is Knight Frank's third quarter count. If it comes in below the second quarter's 131 while the mainstream keeps softening, the cooling has reached the top. If it holds or rises, Dubai's trophy segment has done what mature prime markets eventually do: stopped tracking the city it sits in and started tracking global wealth.