Reliant Surveyors releases UAE real estate market intelligence series for first quarter
Reliant Surveyors, a regional real estate advisory firm, has released a series of reports that shed light on how the UAE’s real estate market has fared during a time of major change for the sector.
The thought leadership campaign is the largest to date for Reliant Surveyors and comes in response to a volatile period for the market. In January and February, the market was continuing its growth journey across the board. Yet the start of the conflict late February and the resulting geopolitical uncertainty turned things upside down for the real estate scene.
Building on a wide-ranging analysis of data, including transactions, listing inventories, regulatory disclosures, pricing benchmarks, industry datasets, and its own research, Reliant Surveyors compiled seven reports – five covering the Dubai real estate market, and one each for Abu Dhabi and Ras Al Khaimah. The reports cover the commercial, residential, and hospitality segments of the landscape.
“This campaign represents our most comprehensive quarterly market intelligence release to date,” said Abhinav Sharma, Senior Partner and Head of Valuation & Strategic Consultancy at Reliant Surveyors. “It aligns with our goal of providing investors, developers, and institutional occupiers with credible market intelligence to inform their decision-making.”
Three speeds across the market
A walkthrough of the seven reports shows that the UAE’s real estate market is currently not moving in sync. Sharma: “The clearest pattern across the reports is that the commercial, residential, and hospitality segments are now operating on distinct clocks.”
Commercial real estate – particularly office and industrial – is in the most pronounced repricing cycle since Reliant Surveyors started tracking the data in 2017. Dubai office rents have risen 118% over five years against a supply pipeline that narrows progressively through 2028. The industrial segment has gone further still, with cross-hub warehouse rentals advancing nearly 38% in a single year.
“The office and industrial segments converge on the same structural point: Grade A availability, not demand stimulation, will define the next two years of pricing,” said Sharma.
Residential is in a different phase. In Dubai, more than 45,000 residential transactions worth AED 137 billion were recorded in the first quarter of 2026, with off-plan properties capturing three-quarters of all value deployed. Yet after three years of rapid acceleration, Reliant Surveyors said the market is now transitioning from a speculative cycle into an absorption-led one.
In Abu Dhabi, apartment prices climbed 36% year-on-year while yields began compressing. “This is a signature of a market where capital values are now running ahead of rental adjustment.”
Hospitality, meanwhile, is described as a segment transitioning from development-led growth into yield- and value-add-driven investment, where the most actionable opportunities lie in repositioning, brand conversion, and operational uplift rather than ground-up construction.
Hotels entered the quarter on strong fundamentals. In Dubai, for instance, hotel average daily rates stood at AED 775 at the start of the year, while citywide occupancy reached 80.7%. But five months later, the situation looks very different, and it remains to be seen how many international visitors the UAE will welcome in 2026 (last year: 19.6 million).
“Across the UAE, Q1 2026 reflects three distinct cycles converging on the same conclusion: the structural underpinnings of this market have moved beyond cyclical demand,” said Sharma. “And the series suggests that the UAE’s growth story is by no means over. It argues that the easy version of it is.”
Three emirates, three tracks
An emirate-level perspective on the market’s development shows that, alongside the divergence across asset classes, the emirates themselves are now following separate trajectories.
In Dubai, the Reliant Surveyors reports paint a picture of maturation. Supply discipline, rather than demand stimulation, will define pricing through 2027 across most asset classes, with retail bifurcating between prime corridor strength and mid-market affordability pressure, and residential transitioning from speculation to end-user-led growth.
Abu Dhabi represents more of a calibration story. After an extended appreciation cycle – during which apartment values rose 36% year-on-year – the market is actively stabilising rather than reversing. The trajectory is consistent with what the report frames as end-user-led equilibrium: a quieter, more institutional phase than the speculative cycle that preceded it.
The Ras Al Khaimah report uncovers a more catalyst-driven story for the emirate. Q1 2026 is framed explicitly as the pre-Wynn opening year – the final 12 months before Wynn Al Marjan Island, a $5.1 billion integrated resort, opens in early 2027. Al Marjan Island alone accounts for more than half of all active sale listings in the emirate, with the foreign capital share on the island estimated at 62%. “The investment case is binary in a way Dubai’s and Abu Dhabi’s are not,” said Sharma.
Reflecting on the overall findings across the three emirates, Sharma said: “Dubai is repricing on supply discipline, Abu Dhabi is calibrating after an extended appreciation cycle, and Ras Al Khaimah is positioning for a defining 2027. The institutional question is no longer whether the UAE growth thesis holds – it is which emirate and which segment best match the holding period and return profile.”
