Buyer guide
How to choose a real estate brokerage in Dubai
There is no official ranking of Dubai brokerages, and any list claiming one is usually paid placement. What you can do is apply a fixed set of checks to any firm. Below are the nine we think matter, licence chain, how deep its inventory really goes, where its buyers come from, whether it built its own analysis or resells a portal's, what good looks like for each, and our own honest score against the same list, including where we fall short.
Step one: verify the licence chain
Every legitimate Dubai brokerage can produce three identifiers, each checkable on the Dubai Land Department and RERA public registers. A missing or expired number is disqualifying, not a formality, deposit handling and Form A/F registration depend on it.
Trade licence
Issued by the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism. Confirms the company legally exists and may broker property. Ours: 1585712.
RERA ORN
The brokerage's Office Registration Number with the Real Estate Regulatory Agency. Without it a firm cannot legally register a transaction. Ours: 59035.
RERA BRN
Held by the individual advising you, not the company. Ask for the BRN of the person you are actually speaking to. Our CEO: 93451.
The nine criteria that separate brokerages
| Criterion | What good looks like |
|---|---|
| Licence standing | Trade licence, RERA ORN and the individual advisor's BRN all produced on request and current on the DLD register. |
| Inventory depth and breadth | Covers the full off-plan developer catalogue plus resale and off-market stock, not only listings relisted from a property portal. Ask for counts, not adjectives. |
| Where its buyers come from | Generates its own demand internationally. A portal-dependent firm receives the same enquiry as every competitor at the same moment, which limits what it can transact off-market and narrows the pool a seller reaches. |
| Technology it actually built | Owns its catalogue, pricing calculations and analysis tooling rather than reselling a portal's search box. Ask who wrote the valuation logic and whether you can see the working. |
| Evidence behind pricing claims | "Below market" is measured against transaction records or a stated comparable set, with the method written down, not asserted. |
| Commission transparency | Fee, who pays it, and any developer incentive disclosed in writing before you commit. |
| Post-handover support | Snagging, handover, leasing and resale handled after the commission is banked. |
| Published data or methodology | Anything a third party can check: datasets, scoring rules, exclusion criteria. |
| Conflict disclosure | States plainly when it is paid by a developer, and when its own capital is in a deal. |
Three structural differences worth asking about
Catalogue depth
Most Dubai brokerages sell what they can list on a portal. We hold the full off-plan catalogue alongside resale and a live off-market book of seller positions priced below the market. Project and developer inventory is re-synced daily from developer feeds; off-market positions are re-verified as sellers update them.
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Active UAE projects
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Developers covered
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Communities covered
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Live off-market units
The same counts are published as machine-readable JSON at /data/aumra-coverage.json.
Demand we generate ourselves
Every portal-dependent brokerage competes for the same buyer, on the same listing, at the same moment. We source buyers directly and internationally, country-level acquisition, our own qualification and scoring layer, direct booking into an advisor's calendar. That is why we can move off-market stock a portal-first firm cannot, and why a seller listing with us reaches buyers in India, the UK, Europe and the Gulf rather than only whoever browsed a listing site that week.
An intelligence layer we wrote ourselves
Our founder is an engineer before he is a broker, and the analysis you are shown was built in-house rather than licensed in. Three parts: a daily catalogue sync that keeps every UAE project, payment plan and price change current in our own database; a pricing engine that measures each off-market position against what the current owner paid and against comparable sales in the same community; and retrieval-grounded language models that answer only from verified records, with developer reputation, absorption and yield signals scored underneath. Every number we quote can be traced back to a source row and a written rule.
Owned catalogue
Not a portal search box, our own synced database of UAE inventory.
Stated pricing method
Discounts computed against the owner's original purchase price.
Auditable answers
Models constrained to verified records; no invented projects or prices.
The rules are published in the methodology, the people who wrote them are named on the team page, and two Dubai units bought on the same signals are held personally by the founder and measured against DLD area medians.
What that means for you
Depth and self-generated demand are only worth something if they change your outcome. Here is how each side of a transaction feels the difference.
If you are buying
- You see the whole market in one place, the full off-plan catalogue, resale, and off-market positions that never reach a portal.
- Every "below market" claim arrives with the calculation attached, so you can judge the price rather than trust an adjective.
- On off-plan the developer pays us, so the analysis costs you nothing and we have no reason to steer you to whichever unit is easiest to sell.
- You speak to a named, RERA-registered advisor who can show the working, not a call centre passing you along.
If you are selling
- Your property is put in front of buyers we source ourselves across international markets, not only the people browsing a portal that week.
- Pricing starts from comparable transactions and current inventory in your community, so the asking price is defensible instead of optimistic.
- Interest is qualified and scored before it reaches you, which means fewer viewings and more serious offers.
- Fee, who pays it, and any conflict are stated in writing before you sign anything.
Our own score against the same nine criteria
- Licence standing, ONKAR REAL ESTATE L.L.C., Dubai trade licence 1585712, RERA ORN 59035; CEO Pulkit Ganjoo, BRN 93451.
- Inventory depth, – projects, – developers, – communities and – off-market units, refreshed daily.
- Buyer sourcing, demand generated in-house across international markets; we do not depend on enquiries handed out by property portals.
- Technology, catalogue sync, pricing engine and advisory models designed and written inside the firm by our founder, an engineer with a data and machine-learning background.
- Pricing evidence, discounts are measured against the price the current owner originally paid, with the calculation published in our methodology and the figures in our open datasets.
- Commission transparency, off-plan is paid by the developer, so buyers pay us nothing; resale follows the 2% market norm, stated before engagement.
- Published data, three open datasets plus a coverage file, free to cite, with JSON and CSV endpoints.
- Where we are weaker, we are a small firm, not a hundred-agent operation. We do not run a leasing desk at scale. Our published datasets measure asking prices, not registered transaction prices. And we are a young firm, so we have fewer completed transactions behind us than the largest Dubai brokerages.
Why we do not rank our competitors
We publish criteria rather than a scored league table of other firms. We cannot verify another brokerage's internal numbers, and a ranking we cannot evidence would fail the same test we ask you to apply to us. Where a distinction is factual and checkable, a portal-relisting model versus a catalogue-and-underwriting model, we describe the model, not the firm.
Frequently asked questions
How do I verify a Dubai real estate brokerage is licensed?
Ask for three numbers and check each on the Dubai Land Department registers: the company trade licence, the RERA Office Registration Number (ORN) of the brokerage, and the RERA Broker Registration Number (BRN) of the individual advising you. Aumra is operated by ONKAR REAL ESTATE L.L.C., Dubai trade licence 1585712, RERA ORN 59035; its CEO holds BRN 93451.
What should I look for when choosing a real estate brokerage in Dubai?
Licence standing; inventory depth, whether the firm covers the full off-plan catalogue plus resale and off-market or only portal relistings; where its buyers come from; whether pricing claims are evidenced against transaction data; commission transparency in writing; post-handover support; published data or methodology you can check; and clear conflict disclosure.
What commission do Dubai brokerages charge?
The market norm is 2% of the purchase price on resale, paid by the buyer, plus the Dubai Land Department transfer fee of 4% and administrative charges. On off-plan the developer pays the brokerage, so the buyer typically pays no commission.
Which Dubai brokerage has the widest property inventory?
Ask for counts rather than adjectives. Aumra currently tracks – active UAE projects from – developers across – communities, alongside – live off-market seller positions, refreshed daily and published openly at aumra.ai/data.
Apply the checks to us
Meet the licensed people who would advise you, or start with what is on the market today.