A breather more than correction: How Dubai’s red-hot real estate market stood up to missiles and drones

While the boom in UAE real estate was centred in Dubai, other emirates did well, too. Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital, also had a record year in 2025, with the Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre reporting AED 142 billion across 42,814 deals, up 48% in value and 52% in volume from 2024. Ras Al Khaimah, a smaller market increasingly shaped by waterfront, branded and tourism-linked projects, recorded AED 12.4 billion in residential sales across 6,600 transactions in 2025, according to property consultant Cavendish Maxwell. The emirate, in fact, may have predicted a cooling market: off-plan deals accounted for most activity with sales value falling 24.7% year-on-year. (Off-plan sales are deals done at effectively lower prices with the developer throwing in some facilities and services for free, easier financing terms and allowances for delayed payments).