Dubai ranks among world’s top 3 luxury housing markets amid global cooling
Asian cities dominated the top of the rankings

Hammad Qureshi
Senior Producer / Correspondent
A business journalist with 18 years of experience, holding an MS in Finance from KU and a Google-certified Data Analyst. Expert in producing insightful business news content, combining financial knowledge with data-driven analysis.

A picture of luxury houses at The Palm Jumeirah
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Dubai’s prime residential market was the third-strongest in the world in the second quarter of 2025, with annual price growth of 15.8%, according to a global report from real estate consultancy Knight Frank.
The emirate’s performance defied a broader cooling trend in the luxury housing sector.
The firm’s Prime Global Cities Index, which tracks premium residential prices across 46 cities, found that average annual price growth slowed to 2.3% in the year to June, down from 3.5% the previous quarter. The deceleration is attributed to delays in interest rate cuts by major central banks, which have kept borrowing costs high and dampened buyer affordability and sentiment globally.
“Prime markets are taking a collective breath,” said Liam Bailey, Knight Frank’s global head of research. “The recovery we have seen over recent quarters was aided by the expectation of lower borrowing costs, and with that timeline now pushed out, a cooling in price growth is inevitable.”
Despite the global slowdown, 75% of the cities in the index still saw prices rise over the past 12 months.
Asian cities dominated the top of the rankings, with Seoul, South Korea (25.2%) and Tokyo (16.3%) taking the first and second spots, respectively.
Dubai’s market also showed strong momentum over a longer period. Over the past five years, the city’s prime prices have surged 107%, making it the world’s second-strongest market since mid-2020, behind only Tokyo.
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