At the start of 2026, the UAE’s commercial real estate market has reached a new level of institutional maturity, characterised by a more diverse investor base and higher-quality assets.
The emergence of significant partnerships between global private equity and regional UAE developers signals thriving interest in the region from the institutional investment community. Whilst the investment market for built assets continues to be relatively fragmented with a handful of large-scale transactions, despite some examples of needle-moving investment trades which have changed the complexion of the market landscape in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Investor confidence in the UAE continues to build both from local or regional groups actively investing raised capital and global institutions fully focussed on establishing vehicles for capital deployment. Such business confidence is driven primarily by the macroeconomic and geopolitical stability prevalent in the UAE, underpinned by efficient and business-friendly government policies supporting commercial real estate. Transparent regulatory frameworks and consistent government support for foreign direct investment have led to global capital sources, including SWFs, pension funds and private equity groups seeking to establish various means to deploy capital into the region.
2025: A Year of Game-Changing Transactions
In the office sector, there were several large transactions in 2025 including the sale of Aurora Tower (AED 250 million) between AREIT and Sweid & Sweid, advised on by the Cushman & Wakefield Core Capital Markets team. However, the largest office transaction in the last two years remains the Project Alia transaction (AED 2.3 billion) in 2024, another Cushman & Wakefield Core transaction by David Abood and Eric Mannaerts. In terms of institutional acquisitions, one major capital play in Abu Dhabi included the Aldar-Mubadala ADGM Expansion in December 2025, which represents a 60:40 partnership of a value north of AED 60 billion, bringing approximately 500,000 sqm of existing office space on Al Reem Island into the legal realm of ADGM.
2025 also saw a great number of individual office floors (strata units) transacted across the key business hubs such as DIFC, Business Bay and Downtown Dubai. Owners of office properties in Dubai particularly continued to review options for sale ahead of DIFC 2.0’s arrival (DIFC 2.0 will contribute 4.32 million sqft of new supply between 2026-2030) amid concerns surrounding potential impact on rental levels going forward which could be affected by significant additional supply.
In 2025, the logistics sector established its position as a top priority target for institutional investors, driven by an attractive yield spread of 250+ basis points between prime logistics stabilised assets and the UAE government bond yield, coupled with Y-o-Y rental growth average of approximately 20%+ across numerous submarkets. Investors are increasingly willing to underwrite prime logistics opportunities at yields closer than ever to 7% in cases where tenure, security of income, creditworthiness of tenant, location and size of opportunity are attractive. This was highlighted by Aldar’s AED 570 million+ acquisition of the Noon-Emtelle industrial assets in KEZAD Abu Dhabi in November 2025.
During 2025, the Cushman & Wakefield Core Capital Markets team advised on an equity injection of approximately US$150 million from a global private equity group into a prominent UAE developer. “Institutional capital has both very strong sector and geographic conviction for the UAE logistics market,” says Ben Rose from Cushman & Wakefield Capital Markets, who led on the advisory side for the capital raise. “As a team, we are regularly presenting to investment committees in instances where equity sums of US$100 million+ are being committed to JVs and funds for both investment and development. For groups looking to build large-sized portfolios, partnering with credible developers represents an efficient route to scale”.
According to Rose, this is a symptom of the evolving market dynamics and positioning of the UAE: “The days of the UAE solely representing a hub from which capital is exported to the U.S., UK or continental Europe are over. The UAE is now firmly established as a core destination for global capital,” he says. “The stabilised yields for commercial and residential assets are extremely attractive, the rental growth prospects are exceptional across the sectors and behind this we have an ambitious and commercial government setting policies to incentivise investment. We expect the market momentum to continue strongly throughout 2026 and beyond.”
Continued Institutionalisation: Global Giants Entering the Market
In 2025, the market witnessed various clear signals that global capital is prioritising the UAE across both commercial and residential sectors. Private equity giants Blackstone and Permira invested US$525 million in Property Finder, the Dubai property portal, whilst Ares Credit Funds committed a further US$250 million in debt financing to the platform.
The logistics sector also saw enormous volumes of global and institutional committed capital in 2025 with examples including Blackstone-Lunate’s US$5 billion joint-venture as well as CapitaLand’s formation of the GRID fund aimed at building a US$500 million portfolio. Furthermore, Arcapita launched Lintara Properties as a consolidated vehicle for industrial and logistics focusing on the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. In the opening days of 2026, a recent strategic JV partnership was announced between GFH Partners and Gaw Capital, designed to establish a UAE-focused industrial and logistics development platform.
“In 2025, our team worked with a wide range of investors targeting the UAE commercial sectors and sought to provide high quality investment advice to inform strategic decision making,” says Ben Rose. “Our deep relationships with major investment players, as well as landowners and prominent developers, enable our clients to unlock and underwrite transactions both on and off market.”
Growing Momentum in 2026
As 2026 begins, Dubai and Abu Dhabi are positioned for momentous growth in all major commercial and residential sectors. The outlook for 2026 is bolstered by a growing pipeline of UAE infrastructure, which supports development activity. The continued influx of new residents (250,000+) and new businesses registered (88,000+) in 2025 highlights the increasing pull of the UAE for migration of skilled workers.
According to Rose, the Cushman & Wakefield Capital Markets team expects 2026 to be a year of continued significant institutional investment. The Dubai Economic Agenda D33 (a 10-year roadmap designed to double the size of Dubai’s GDP by 2033) and Abu Dhabi’s Vision 2030 (an economic pivot away from reliance on oil contribution to GDP) will only enhance the booming prospects for commercial real estate investment in the UAE.
Rose summarised: “In 2026, we will continue to advise investors ranging from regional and global private equity groups, sovereign wealth funds, REITs and UAE family offices seeking to acquire and develop assets across the UAE. Our team tracks capital movements at a local, regional and global level and we are targeting further asset-level and equity-level transactions of size and scale in 2026.”
