Swiss bank UBS has named Dubai one of the most affordable major cities in the world to purchase a home, according to its newly released UBS Global Real Estate Bubble Index 2026, published on Tuesday, September 22, 2026. The report found that a household earning an average income in Dubai needs just five years of that income to buy a 60-square-metre apartment near the city centre, one of the shortest spans among the 23 major cities surveyed.
That figure stands in sharp contrast to Hong Kong, ranked the world's least affordable housing market at 15 years of income, and London at 11 years. Tokyo, Paris and Seoul each require more than a decade of average earnings for a comparable purchase.
UBS also placed Dubai among the cheapest cities on a price-to-rent basis: an apartment there would need to be rented out for just 16 years to recover its purchase price, the shortest period recorded alongside Miami and Sao Paulo. By comparison, that figure reaches 46 years in Zurich and 40 years in Geneva.
Despite the relative affordability, the report flags Dubai, along with Miami, Seoul, Lisbon and Geneva, as being in "elevated" bubble-risk territory, meaning property values have been climbing rapidly even as the city remains cheap by global standards. UBS data for the second quarter of 2026 showed Dubai's real home prices rising 0.4 per cent year on year while rents fell 4 per cent. UBS analysts noted that Dubai remains one of the few markets where homeownership stays relatively attractive given the high cost of renting.