Abhishek Lodha, chief executive of Mumbai-listed Lodha Developers, put it plainly on a recent quarterly earnings call: buyer sentiment among Middle East-based non-resident Indians is “subdued.” His firm runs a sales office in Dubai and draws 4 to 5 percent of its sales from that expatriate pool. The numbers behind that subdued mood are substantial. Lodha estimated that roughly INR350 billion, or $3.7 billion, flowed from India into Dubai real estate in the previous year. “A material part of that will now stay in India,” he said.
Geopolitical uncertainty over Iran is reshaping where that capital lands. NRIs across the UAE are redirecting money toward home-country real estate even as they keep their primary bases in the Gulf, and the reallocation is beginning to register in transaction data and developer earnings on both sides.
The scale of the Indian presence in the UAE gives the shift real weight. About 5 million Indians have established themselves in the emirate, some through long-term residency programs such as the Golden Visa. That deep integration historically made the UAE a natural destination for capital deployment. The Iran conflict is now prompting a reassessment of whether that logic still holds.
The shift is not uniform. Aayush Puri, chief executive for residential in the Middle East at property consultancy Anarock, identified first-time homebuyers and middle-income professionals as the most likely to redirect investment toward India rather than Dubai. High-net-worth individuals are more inclined to delay purchases, reduce project sizes, or diversify holdings rather than exit the UAE market entirely. Mitil Chokshi, senior partner at tax advisory Chokshi and Chokshi India, which maintains a Dubai office, called the trend “precautionary buying rather than an immediate relocation trend,” with senior professionals nearing retirement and employees concerned about job security driving most of the movement.
S Irudaya Rajan, chair of the International Institute of Migration and Development, observed that some expatriate families are implementing a split-household strategy, wives and children returning to India while the primary earner stays in the UAE to protect employment and income.
Meanwhile, Dubai’s property market itself has cooled after five years of expansion. The Dubai Land Department reported more than 38,000 homes changed hands in the second quarter of 2026, a decline of nearly one-third from the previous year’s record. Indian nationals account for a significant share of that activity. Binghatti, a UAE developer, reported that Indians based in the UAE represented approximately 11 percent of its buyers in the first half of 2026, with Indians residing elsewhere contributing an additional 3 percent, making them the developer’s second-largest buyer cohort after Emiratis.
Caution is showing up in how deals get done, not just in whether they happen. Chokshi noted that some buyers are negotiating more aggressively, moving away from off-plan projects toward completed or nearly completed properties, and scrutinizing escrow arrangements, construction timelines and remedies for delays with greater intensity. “The evidence currently points to risk repricing rather than a structural abandonment of Dubai,” he said.
Developers operating across both markets have reported increased interest from Gulf-based Indians in Indian property. Luthfullah K, director at Casagrand Dubai, and Naresh Perwani, founder and chairman of Neoterra Developments, both noted that buyers continue to invest in Dubai while simultaneously securing long-term assets back home. “Owning a home in India provides an added sense of stability, while the UAE continues to remain their primary base for work, business and investment,” Perwani said.
Amit Maheshwari, managing partner and international tax lead at New Delhi-based AKM Global, offered a longer-term frame: a lasting reallocation of Indian capital becomes more probable only if prolonged conflict materially disrupts travel, job creation, population growth or access to financing in the UAE. Whether those conditions materialize will determine whether the current caution hardens into something more permanent.