The United Arab Emirate’s real estate sector has left the gloomy days of the pandemic behind and its recovery has been supported by improving economic performance fuelled by high oil prices as well as increasing relocations, Fitch Ratings says. According to Fam Properties, Dubai in the first quarters of 2022 witnessed transactions of over 43,000 properties worth AED 115 billion. The same period last year saw sales transactions worth AED 61.97 billion.

This scale of real estate investment is now boosted by a host of applications that are bringing the sale, purchase, and management of the properties, and in fact entire portfolios to the buyer’s fingertips. 

Be it residential, or commercial, properties are being treated as an asset class that need an online eco-system to support their management and hence startups such as Keyper, Huspy, PropEzy and more, have been launched in the UAE market. 

The digitalization of the real estate sector is a natural progression, as users across the world have become used to ordering everything online – from groceries to medicines, and even cars. The launch of various property technology apps (acronym PropTech) is in sync with the Dubai Land Department’s decision to facilitate electronic payment of rents, and reduce reliance on physical cheques. “Tech solutions globally tend to outpace the implementation of laws and regulations. We believe digitization is accelerating regulatory reform,” says Silvia Eldawi, Co-Founder and COO of Keyper, an app that offers complete management of real estate portfolios.

PropTech apps are offering end users a delectable combination of factors that would prompt them to become early adopters – savings on physical transactions, eliminating human errors or delays, and transparency.

The makers of Keyper say the UAE’s real estate market needs to catch up with other global heavyweights such as New York and San Francisco when it comes to the adoption of such technology especially due to the size of the property industry in the country, and the region as a whole. The Keyper app among its many features allows its users to monitor digital payments, rent renewals, occupancy rates, live portfolio valuation, cash flow and expense reports. 

"As people’s lives become busier and busier, their focus can shift from their portfolio which may result in a downturn in investments.  The Keyper app is giving landlords live visibility on their full portfolio to empower them to make quicker decisions and enhance their returns. A first of its kind in the UAE, the app allows landlords to make and receive digital rental payments, and receive notifications at key tenancy events such as lease expiry, and vacancy days count, while also maintaining a digital document library and digital ‘twinning’ of the property with a virtual tour,” explains Eldawi.

Apart from the centralization of data, and ease of access that PropTech apps offer their users, a key draw for signing on is the cost-saving aspect being touted. The apps offer cost savings on multiple fronts – first by eliminating retainer fees charged by brokers, property management firms, and other middlemen. The second front is the time and money saved by making the process of leasing, renting, and payment online. And finally, the third way that saves money is the fee charged by the apps themselves which are not linked to the value or rent accrued but rather a flat fee that the user can choose as a subscription model. 

Eldawi shares an example of the costs saved by a user who signs up with Keyper. “Financial technology and the use of digital modes of payment are helping eliminate the dependence on cheques, which results in saving on the cost of physically depositing and processing a cheque. In addition, no bounced cheque equals no bounced cheque penalty.”

The nature of the UAE’s economy means that a sizeable percentage of real estate investors and owners are foreigners which brings in the need for a high level of transparency in daily property management, and transactions. “On a micro level, the modern real estate investor is longing for visibility and ease of tracking their property portfolio performance on an app; no different to the plethora of apps available for any other investable asset class. Whilst landlord logins and dashboards are nothing new, the operational complexity of the sector is lending itself to a shift to a digital data-driven experience,” says Eldawi about the gap that Keyper aims to fill in the UAE real estate market.

Transparency, cost-saving, reducing bureaucratic hurdles, and ease of access are the top pain points for an investor looking to enter a new market and build their assets. Many of the features offered by PropTech apps are hence working towards these problem areas and bringing them together on one platform to ensure the end-user has a smooth time entering, investing, and managing their investments. The variety of apps available for a user to choose to sign on in the UAE is another notch in the country’s growth story.