Investors aren’t loving Dubai real estate debt

Real estate bonds in the UAE are bracing for their first major war-related stress test — and distressed players are working hard to deliver messages of confidence to investors. UAE-based developers, including Binghatti, Aldar, Sobha, and Omniyat are on a PR offensive touting solid sales, strong track records, and their stellar liquidity positions.

Emaar, meanwhile, made a baller move: The company’s shareholders approved a 2025 dividend payout of AED 8.8 bn earlier this week even as the industry stares into the teeth of a slowdown.

What happened? Six USD-denominated property bonds by Binghatti Holding and Omniyat entered distressed territory earlier this week (at least one, from Omniyat, bounced back on Wednesday), where spreads blew past the 1k basis point threshold that typically signals deep investor concern about repayment risk.

Some of it had already been brewing — just exacerbated by the war. “Credit markets had already started differentiating between the top versus medium-quality developers since late 2025,” Muhammad Ahsan, senior head of treasury, global markets, investment banking, and international business at Oman’s Bank Nizwa, tells EnterpriseAM. “Stronger and more well-established property developers such as Damac were seeing tighter spreads on new issues this year, which was not the case for Binghatti and Omniyat,” he added.

Why it matters: This marks a sharp reversal from just a few months ago, when real estate players were aggressively tapping debt markets at tight spreads to bankroll new developments. A multi-year property price boom had allowed UAE developers to raise capital and cheaper and cheaper prices. Investors are now pricing in not just the war, but a possible cooling of the real estate market afterward in both Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

The pattern

Sovereign-backed players are showing more resilience than private-sector actors. Yields on bonds from Emaar and Aldar have been going up but at a slower pace — and far below the risk-free market rate.

UAE-based real estate developers are the most prolific issuers of bonds in the region, so the risk is concentrated in the Emirati market. (Still, some Saudi players have investors demand more since the start of the war, with state-backed players like Dar Al Arkan seeing some of their yield spreads go up by some 100 bps.)

It’s not just the household names: A 2030-dated bond issued by a Sobha Realty entity, for instance, saw its spread surge to around 700 bps from below 300 bps, while notes with a similar maturity from Arada Developments saw yields more than double to 707 bps, according to the data.

Blame foreign investors for the pressure? “The Dubai property market will get negatively affected [due to the war] and hence sukuks from these developers have seen [an] aggressive sell-off, mostly from international sellers who are exiting their positions,” Ahsan told us. Hedge fund short-selling has also contributed to the breadth and speed of the sell-off.

In numbers: Foreign investors pulled USD 843 mn out of the UAE last week, with the exodus almost entirely concentrated on property stocks and bonds, according to our friends at Mashreq Capital (pdf).

ZOOMING OUT- There’s been a massive drop in tradability across regional bond markets. Average liquidity for GCC sukuk is down roughly 20% this year, according to Fitch Ratings. But, the real pain is in high-yield real estate: bid-ask spreads have quadrupled to 2 points, according to Mashreq Capital, suggesting there are almost no natural buyers left, and leaving sellers trapped unless they accept a fire-sale price.

And Dubai as a whole is bearing the brunt of the regional repricing, with the cost of insuring paper against default rising to 19 bps versus just 6-7 bps in Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia, according to Mashreq Capital, reinforcing the view that Dubai’s more cyclical non-oil credit story is where investors see the most risk.

Watch for signs of stress in other industries: Hospitality, retail, tourism, logistics, and transportation players are all at risk because of the war, Ahsan said, but most of the flagship companies in these sectors are national champions such as Emirates, Emaar, Aldar, DP World, and Dubai Aerospace, he explained. “Smaller players in these sectors will definitely take a bigger hit but those are not in the public debt markets,” he noted.

We’re not talking default — yet

The war has made it much more difficult to access refinancing as a wall of maturities — roughly USD 8 bn through 2030 — begins to come into view. The good news is: These are mostly well spread out, and Omniyat and Binghatti’s maturing bonds are not due until 2027, giving them plenty of time to arrange internal liquidity through project deliveries this year or get bank financing, Ahsan said.

“Even if the primary markets are shut for them, they have strong banking relationships to get funding,” Ahsan said, adding that he doesn’t foresee any sukuk defaults.

But ratings agencies are watching this space: Fitch placed both Binghatti and Omniyat on watch for potential downgrades, citing the impact of geopolitical risk on demand and the possibility of higher construction costs, even as it acknowledged that both companies entered the current period with relatively solid balance sheets.

Moody’s, meanwhile, affirmed Binghatti’s rating last week, pointing to sufficient liquidity to cover its February 2027 maturity.