Surviving your first ninety days

What to do while you prepare

Until you are registered, you are preparing, not brokering. The Dubai Land Department's service terms for the practice card state that no person has the right to practise the activity registered in the licence except after registering and obtaining the card designated for that activity. The card is one requirement. Ask your firm which others apply to you, and what you may do in the meantime.

In this guide, live enquiries, client contact and advertising come after your firm confirms you can start. Until then, ask for firm-approved training materials or demonstrations of the CRM, the portal upload and the permit process, so you learn the systems without touching live business. Read the RERA forms and the permit rules before a client is waiting on either, and find out who at the firm applies for advertising permits and who processes a listing when you bring one in.

Then choose your patch. Not a strategy document: two communities, written down, that you intend to know better than the portals do. Opportunity can come from anywhere, but it is easier to act on when you can speak credibly about somewhere specific, and breadth tends to come across as vagueness on a call.

1. 01

   Registration confirmed, not assumed

   Confirm it with the firm, and keep your own copy of the card once it is issued. The Department links the card's validity to the validity of the firm's trade licence.

2. 02

   Systems learned in training

   Learn the CRM, portal upload and permit process through firm-approved training materials or demonstrations, not on live business.

3. 03

   Two communities, chosen

   Written down and committed to, so that your reading and walking has a purpose.

How to learn a community properly

The portals already show the buildings and the asking prices. Repeating that back to a buyer adds little.

What adds more is the set of things not in a listing. Which towers have a service charge that surprises people. Which buildings look identical from the road and are not. Where the handover has slipped and where it has not. Which side of a development gets the noise, the sun or the view that the photographs imply everywhere gets. Which stack in a tower is worth the premium and which is priced as though it were.

That comes from walking the community rather than driving through it, shadowing a registered colleague where the firm allows it, and asking the people who work in the buildings. It takes weeks, and it is what lets an agent anticipate questions rather than only answer them.

It is also knowledge that goes with you. Leads can run out, allocation rules can change and people change firms. What you know about two communities does not depend on any of that.

What changes once you are cleared to work

Before starting brokerage activity, confirm with your firm that your registration, broker card and other applicable work requirements are in place. Once that is confirmed, the rules that matter most in the first weeks are the ones about advertising and about contacting people.

Property adverts need a permit first. The Department's Practice Guide says brokerages must obtain a permit for any real estate advertisement or marketing material through the Trakheesi system, and that the permit number must be displayed on the ad. For the permit types its service terms list, a broker applicant must supply a copy of the marketing contract with the property owner. For a ready property for sale in Dubai, the steps in the Trakheesi user manual have the number of the marketing contract A (Form A) between owner and broker entered to obtain the permit. For that workflow, the signed agreement comes first, then the permit, then the advert.

The same care applies to reaching owners. The Practice Guide describes a green list of registered owners, available to brokers in the Dubai REST app, and says brokers are not allowed to contact owners who are not on it. Marketing calls are also covered by Cabinet Resolution No. 56 of 2024 on telemarketing. The guide on getting hired with no experience sets out several of its rules, and your firm's compliance function should tell you how its calling meets them.

When a listing is ready to advertise, ask to sit with whoever applies for its permit, check the issued permit against the advert, and note each step. The full permit rules have their own piece in this guide.

Responding to enquiries and following up

Respond promptly with a useful answer. Track time to first meaningful response alongside whether the enquiry is relevant, what the person needs and the next action agreed.

Speed matters because someone who sends an enquiry may have sent others and may be comparing replies. A quick reply that does not answer the question, or that pushes for a viewing before you know what the person needs, gives the conversation little to build on. A reply that answers, checks what they are looking for and agrees the next step gives it somewhere to go.

Once you are handling enquiries, record for two weeks when each one arrived, when you gave a meaningful first reply, whether the enquiry was relevant to what you can help with, what the person needs and the next action agreed. The record shows where the time goes and which enquiries lead to conversations.

The second habit is what happens after. An enquiry that does not progress on first contact is not necessarily finished: the person may not be ready yet, or may need something you can send later. Keep a follow-up record from the start, with a date and an agreed next action for each person, and contact people only in line with the rules above. How to structure it has its own piece in the training section.

Where to be careful with your time

Three things can absorb a lot of early energy for little return.

Comparing yourself with the top producer. A long-serving agent's results can reflect relationships built over years, so the comparison gives you urgency without direction and can push you towards chasing every enquiry across the city instead of building something specific.

Personal brand content. Build content from what you are learning and can verify. Agree a manageable schedule with your firm so filming and posting fit alongside training, client work and follow-up. Content that promotes a property is an advert, so the permit requirements above apply to it.

Waiting is the third. Waiting for the allocation to improve, for the market to turn, for the manager to notice. Ninety days is long enough to build a patch and short enough to pass quickly, so ask what support and enquiries are available rather than waiting to see.

How to check progress at thirty, sixty and ninety days

A first quarter may not include a completed transaction, and the timing depends on the firm, the segment, the market and your own circumstances. So review what comes before a deal as well as the outcome. The checkpoints below are this guide's editorial suggestion, not a standard set by the Dubai Land Department, by House Of Orange or by any other firm. Agree the real review dates and measures with your manager, in writing if you can.

Each review can look at the same four things: preparation and skills; the enquiries you have received and whether they suit what you and the firm can help with; meaningful conversations and the next actions agreed; and viewings and completed transactions, where they apply to your role yet.

Look at lead quality, outcomes and support together with your manager, not activity alone. More activity is not by itself a reason to carry on unchanged, and fewer results is not by itself a verdict on you. If the picture is unclear, ask what could explain it, whether the supply and suitability of enquiries, how they are allocated, the support available or your own conversion, and what would change it.

Write down the numbers and the next actions at each check, so that a decision at ninety days rests on a record and not on a feeling at week six.

1. 01

   Around day 30: preparation and skills

   Training your firm has set, completed or scheduled. Systems understood. Registration and other work requirements confirmed, or a date for them known. Two communities chosen and being walked. Live measures start only once you are cleared to work, so there may be none to record yet.

2. 02

   Around day 60: enquiries and conversations

   The enquiries you have received and how many suited what you can help with. Meaningful conversations and the next action agreed in each. Your time to a first meaningful reply across several weeks. For any listing advertised, a permit issued against the right contract. Something specific and true to say about buildings in your patch without looking it up.

3. 03

   Around day 90: outcomes and support

   Viewings and completed transactions where applicable, set against the enquiries and conversations behind them, and your follow-up record. Review with your manager the quality of the enquiries you received, the outcomes and the support you had, and agree the plan for the next quarter.