Dubai offers new service linking property owners with brokers

Green List project is aimed at facilitating contact and reducing complaints about unwanted communication

Overcast weather to clear over the next few days in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Chris Whiteoak / The National

The Dubai Land Department introduced a new service that links real estate owners with brokers to help them sell or rent their property, with the aim of improving communication, reducing complaints and boosting transactions.

The department rolled out the Green List project on its real estate app Dubai Rest, it said in a statement on Saturday. The service aims to facilitate "healthy communication" between real estate brokers and owners while reducing the number of complaints about some brokers contacting owners without their content.

"Since the Green List helps to directly link the owners to the real estate brokers, it also provides a flexible and transparent communication channel to enhance relations between both parties and achieve mutually beneficial results in a cost effective manner," Ali Abdulla Al Ali, director of the real estate licensing department at the Real Estate Regulatory Agency, said.

"We hope that this project will help stimulate real estate transactions and enable the investor and the owner to make real estate transactions decisions through an integrated set of digital procedures," he said.

Property owners are required to register and be available for communication with the brokers, according to the DLD. The owners can choose to deactivate their accounts anytime.

The new service will help "minimise unwanted communications" and ensure that owners are contacted by genuine brokers only, the DLD said.

The project also seeks to reduce violations related to direct marketing of real estate, as it opens additional marketing channels for property companies.

The initiative is part of Rera's goals to establish a professional real estate sector and create a highly advanced real estate regulatory platform, the government body said.

The DLD in August also introduced a fractional title deed programme to boost the emirate's hospitality industry and offer affordable options to property investors.

An investor will be able to buy up to half or a quarter of a hotel or serviced apartment under the new initiative.

The concept is expected to encourage crowdfunding in Dubai's property market and help reduce the 4 per cent transfer fee paid for a sales transaction, according to industry experts.