Choosing a brokerage in Dubai
Compare Dubai brokerages on payment terms, leads, support and exit arrangements. These guides explain what to ask, what to get in writing and which details to verify independently.
In this episode
In this 26 minute episode, House Of Orange covers what the job in Dubai demands: knowing the map and your area, knowing prices and rents, building a pipeline and replying to leads fast. It then covers licensing and visas, the 30 day trial period, and how to tell a good brokerage by its training, mentorship and marketing.
The short answer
Judge a Dubai brokerage on five things beyond the split: how commission is paid, including the trigger and deductions; how leads are sourced and allocated; who sponsors your visa and what happens to your broker registration if you leave; who pays for portals and marketing; and what happens to your deals when you go. Ask for the answers in writing.
Questions about this
The ones that come up most often, answered without a pitch.
Before signing with a Dubai brokerage, ask five things: how commission is paid, including the trigger and deductions; how leads are sourced and allocated; who sponsors your visa and what happens to your broker registration if you leave; who pays for portals and marketing; and what happens to your deals when you go. Ask for the answers in writing.
Ask for the firm's Office Registration Number and look it up yourself on the Dubai Land Department's list of licensed brokers, on its website or in the Dubai REST app, rather than taking the number from a website.
Not as a freelancer. A Brokers Registration Number is issued to an individual but must sit under a brokerage holding an Office Registration Number, so going independent means establishing your own licensed firm, with the premises, registration and compliance obligations that carries.
That depends on your own situation. The Dubai Land Department's frequently asked questions list residency on the same licence among the things needed to add a broker to a brokerage, and give one example of a different position: the wife of a non-citizen under her husband's sponsorship may apply for a broker's licence if MOHRE approves. That is an example, not a full list of cases. Confirm how joining or leaving the firm affects your work permission, residence status and broker registration in your particular case.
By rota, by performance, by specialism, or by no rule at all. Ask which model the firm uses, what a new joiner receives before there is performance to measure, and what share of last year's business came from firm leads rather than agents' own networks.
Refusal to put commission terms in writing, no clear answer on how leads are allocated, vagueness about your visa arrangements and what happens to your broker registration when you leave, and pressure to sign at the first meeting.
Written by House Of Orange, a licensed Dubai brokerage that also recruits agents
House Of Orange Real Estate is a licensed Dubai brokerage, ORN 49865. We publish this because we recruit, and we would rather you put the questions on these pages to us than take our word for anything. If a firm cannot answer them, that is the answer.