Today's Edition
SADEQ ALKHOORI (ABU DHABI)
On February 11, 2019, His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the UAE, and Chairman of The Executive Council of Dubai, framed cities as central to the future, describing them as engines of economic development, ideas and value creation.
The UAE’s latest first-quarter property figures suggest that idea is being expressed across a wider urban map, with investor activity showing up not only in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, but also in Sharjah and Ajman.
The numbers are strong across the board. Dubai recorded Dh252 billion in real estate transactions in the first quarter, up 31% in value, while the number of investments reached 57,744 and the investor base expanded to 48,448, including 29,312 new investors.
Abu Dhabi posted its highest quarterly performance on record, with transactions surging 160.7% year-on-year to Dh66 billion. Sharjah reported Dh18.5 billion in trading value, up 40.7%, while Ajman recorded Dh6.22 billion in total real estate transactions, up 12%.
Taken together, those figures point to a national market that is becoming broader in reach and more layered in opportunity. Investors are reading the UAE not only through one or two locations, but increasingly through a network of cities offering different forms of value, from scale and liquidity to affordability, space, and long-term practicality.
Rohit Bachani, Co-Founder of Merlin Real Estate, said the latest quarter points to a wider shift in how investors are approaching the country. “Investors are no longer looking at the UAE as a single-city opportunity; they’re looking at it as a multi-emirate ecosystem,” he told Aletihad.
He said Sharjah now offers a more mature proposition through better infrastructure, clearer regulation, and a more diverse investor base, while Ajman is drawing attention through lower entry prices, off-plan activity, and growing foreign participation.
For Bachani, affordability matters, but it is not the full explanation. “Affordability gets investors through the door. Returns keep them interested. But what converts intent into actual transactions is trust,” he said, pointing to confidence in the UAE’s regulatory environment, governance, and long-term direction. He described the trend as a “structural broadening” rather than a temporary spike, with capital becoming “smarter within the UAE”.
That widening activity is also supported by official signals from outside the two largest markets. In Sharjah, investor participation now spans 113 nationalities, while the emirate has expanded approved projects open to ownership by non-UAE and GCC nationals under its post-2022 market framework. That suggests the wider market is being supported by expanding access and growing institutional maturity, alongside price.
Abhishek Jalan, CEO of Grovy Developers, said the latest figures show stronger movement across the UAE’s wider property landscape, with Sharjah and Ajman benefiting above all from affordability, larger unit sizes, and lower overall entry costs, particularly for investors seeking value within the UAE. “Affordability is the primary factor influencing this trend, although overall confidence in the UAE is also helping drive demand,” he told Aletihad.
That reading places the current trend within a broader market pattern. As prices rise in higher-cost areas, demand begins to flow more visibly into adjacent markets that offer more space and lower entry points. In that sense, the latest quarter reflects not a break in the UAE property story, but a widening of it
Suad Abu Mhanna, a real estate consultant, said investor appetite is increasingly spread across emirates, with buyer decisions often shaped by budget, unit size, and total cost. “We are finding significant appetite from investors who are interested in properties across emirates,” she told Aletihad.
She said Sharjah and Ajman have become especially attractive to more price-sensitive investors because they offer larger spaces at more competitive prices, alongside lower registration and service fees.
That practical shift gives the national market a more layered shape.
Some investors continue to prioritise depth, liquidity, and established demand. Others are looking for value, family space, lower costs, and broader yield potential. What links those decisions is not a move away from the UAE’s core cities, but a growing willingness to look across the country’s wider property landscape.
That may be the real significance of the quarter. The UAE’s real estate momentum is no longer visible only in its biggest urban centres. It is increasingly visible across a broader system of cities, where more locations are beginning to absorb capital, demand, and long-term investor attention.
