The Supply Test: RD Dubai Co-Founder Lukas Kerrebijn on Whether Dubai’s Discipline Survives the Handover Wave

If you have more demand than supply, pricing markets is easy. The real test is when the inventory comes in.

Dubai is nearing that test. Forecasters anticipate that a record number of new units will be introduced to the market by 2026, with one estimate indicating that the citywide figure will exceed 131,000. The population, which surpassed four million residents in 2025, continues to assimilate inventory, and a significant portion of the announced supply is typically delayed or phased. However, the first quarter of 2026 was the first quarterly drop in a widely watched price index since the epidemic, with values remaining higher year-on-year. It is not a decline, it is a moderation. The question is whether the price assumptions have caught up.

Lukas Kerrebijn, Co-Founder of RD Dubai, believes many have not.
"Some investors still price as if demand is infinite," he says. "It is not."
The new norms, he believes, are not so much a threat as a filter, exposing the assumptions that a speedier market allowed investors to leapfrog.

"New supply is coming," Kerrebijn says. "People underestimate the competition it creates."
The risks he watches are not headline risks; they are the quiet ones that compound.
"Exit liquidity in non-core locations cannot be taken for granted," he says. "Service charges can eat into yields more than people expect. And relying on a developer's brand as a measure of safety, without understanding the fundamentals, is a risk."

All of these sharpen as availability increases. When buyers have more options, secondary sites see the fastest decline in liquidity. If rental growth slows, operating costs will have the greatest impact on yields. Branding is the least protective when a wave of comparable product competes for the same renter.

Kerrebijn's response is a preference for assets that earn their keep from the outset.
"If you buy the right income-producing asset, the capital gain need not be far off an off-plan project," he says. "And you earn rent from day one. That makes it more valuable from the moment you buy."

Capital is the trade-off, as completed assets require more capital upfront, which makes off-plan relevant for buyers on lesser budgets. However, in a market preparing to absorb record supply, income provides a floor that projection cannot.
A market need not be disrupted by a handover wave. It does tend to show who underwrote carefully and who extrapolated.

Dubai's previous phase rewarded speed. This one will reward the assumptions that hold up once the keys change hands.