Lynnette Abad, Director, Research & Data, Property Finder

At Property Finder, their direct clients are professional and licensed real estate brokers, who advertise their property listings on the portal, and in turn, they receive a great and rewarding ROI, for their advertising spend. What makes Property Finder an influential company is the fact that they have been able to develop and maintain such strong relations with these professionals. They understand their client’s business, needs, and build and tailor their services accordingly.

Property Finder also has partnerships with the government, of course, one of the latest ones was a product launched in partnership with Dubai Land Department, Mo’asher, which is Dubai’s first official sales and rental price index. The launch of Mo’asher has boosted the city’s position in the Global Real Estate Transparency Index. According to JLL’s Global Real Estate Transparency Index 2020, Dubai, which was ranked 36th, further strengthened its position as the Middle East & North Africa (MENA)’s most transparent real estate market, climbing three places up the global ranking. This is a huge achievement for Property Finder, whose tool is helping the UAE’s real estate market make its mark on a global scale.

Lynnette Abad, Director, Research & Data, Property Finder, elaborates on the initiatives, key highlights, and the vision for the company in the coming year. 

Initiatives taken to combat COVID-19 

When I joined the company, we were following a corporate mentality, and my first goal was to transform this into a startup mentality– everyone is approachable, all doors are open, and we are keen to hear all ideas. Each employee is valuable, and all of their views will be heard. Once we were on track progression, operations started flowing smoother than ever before- a simple example is the introduction of live-viewings on our platform. 

Earlier this year, we implemented “Ninja,” a month-long sprint to develop new products and tech. This resulted in the launch of live-viewings within two mere weeks during the lockdown from the conceptualization of the idea– a timeline like this would be unimaginable at a global corporate.

The biggest highlight of 2020

We have been at the forefront of tech innovation, and in 2020, the company welcomed a fresh leadership team to accelerate its journey to becoming the region’s first-ever independent unicorn company. 

Each of the five key appointments (President, Chief HR Officer, Chief of Strategy and Transformation, Chief Commercial Officer, and Chief Financial Officer) come from leading international companies, and bring with them a wealth of knowledge and decades of experience across varying industries and departments. 

Success stories of each brand inspired others to follow and today we stand at the highest level of technological advancement that the region has ever seen. The pandemic certainly proved to be a moment of opportunity, inspiration, and advancement for brands to put their head down, dig deep into research, and develop innovative technologies and solutions to offer their end-customers a seamless online journey. Between June and August, our organic traffic was breaking records, and we witnessed the highest secondary villa/townhouse sales ever recorded within a month in the UAE, despite the uncertain times. Though the reduction of prices did significantly contribute to this statistic, the technical advancement of the portal has certainly played a huge role in achieving these heights.

Lastly, all of the user metrics are at an all-time high which includes overall traffic, number of listings we provide, number of interest we generate by users to properties, etc.

Vision 2021

Stick to the basics and make them the most efficient. One example is the consumer search experience. At the end of the day, a consumer wants to come onto Property Finder to find an available property that suits all of their needs. This should be a very simple and seamless experience.