Dubai has begun opening up its real estate market to small investors globally by allowing properties to be bought and sold in fractional digital shares through a blockchain-based platform.
This model, known as real estate tokenization, allows a completed home to be divided into hundreds of units, each representing a percentage of ownership. Some of those units sold for as little as $545, significantly reducing the cost of entry into a market where apartments and villas are often sold outright for millions of dirhams.
Dubai has already started testing this model, with several residential units sold through PRYPCO MINT, a tokenized real estate platform developed in partnership with Dubai Land Department (DLD).
“Dubai wants to maintain its global leadership by making real estate more accessible to a wider group of investors,” said Kashif Ansari, co-founder and group CEO of Juwai IQI.
According to Ansari, the success of this model depends on increasing the supply of fragmented assets, opening up participation to more foreign investors, and creating an always-open secondary market where investors can trade stocks.
The move towards fractional ownership comes even as Dubai’s luxury housing market continues to grow rapidly. In 2025, 500 homes priced over $10 million were traded for a total of $9.05 billion, according to Knight Frank. This highlights both the strength of top-end demand and the opportunity to expand investor access.
Real estate advisors say tokenization could change the way real estate transactions are done by introducing a secondary market alongside traditional transactions.
“Tokenization will create a secondary market parallel to traditional markets, with significantly lower barriers to entry, instant settlement times, increased transparency, and real-time price discovery,” said Cathal Kenny, director of valuation advisory at CBRE MENA.
Stephen Flanagan, regional partner and head of valuation and advisory at Knight Frank MENA, added: “From a liquidity perspective, blockchain-based platforms can support secondary trading of tokens, providing investors with a clearer exit route compared to traditional real estate transactions, which are typically time-consuming and more capital-intensive.”
Fadi Musari, executive director of capital markets trading GCC at JLL, said continued trading of real estate interests on digital platforms could significantly increase liquidity.
“The cumulative effect should be a more efficient market where pricing reflects real-time supply and demand dynamics rather than historical comparisons,” he said.
Musari pointed out that tokenization could also address long-standing inefficiencies in the real estate market by enabling continuous price discovery, rather than relying on regular transactions every few months.
Hassan Aladin, associate director of strategy and consulting at Cavendish Maxwell, pointed out that tokenization opens up Dubai’s real estate market to a wider range of participants by allowing investors to buy fractional stakes rather than whole assets.
“From a liquidity perspective, tokenization significantly lowers the barrier to entry,” he emphasized.
Pricing and valuation changes
Increased trading volumes and data availability could make price discovery more efficient, especially for income-producing residential assets, said Knight Frank’s Flanagan.
However, CBRE MENA’s Kenny warns that fractional ownership through tokenization introduces new valuation dynamics.
“We are essentially moving from appraisal-based valuations to market-based valuations,” Kenney said, adding that while this could improve liquidity, it could also increase price volatility.
Cavendish Maxwell’s Aladdin similarly said that higher trading frequency can amplify short-term movements.
“From a valuation perspective, fractional ownership introduces new risks, particularly increased volatility and speculative trading, which are less common in traditional real estate markets,” he said. “Individual participation encourages equity-style trading behavior, which is essentially a long-term, income-producing asset, and therefore also risks causing severe price volatility.”
Still, he noted that regulated secondary trading platforms could ultimately make real estate transactions more efficient by reducing holding periods and allowing faster entry and exit.
While Mr Musali acknowledged that fractional ownership results in more frequent price discovery and short-term volatility, he said this does not necessarily undermine the long-term investment characteristics of real estate.
“This increased transparency in pricing should ultimately lead to more accurate valuations that better reflect underlying property fundamentals and market conditions,” he explained.
Ansari said he expects tokenization to increase overall inflows into Dubai real estate, even as some capital moves from direct ownership to digital assets.
“At any level of supply, that will probably mean higher prices,” he said, adding that it was still too early to fully quantify the impact.
Expanding the investor base
Industry experts say the main impact of tokenization is to expand the investor base rather than replacing traditional buyers.
Ansari used China as an example, noting that while only a small segment of the population has the ability to purchase overseas real estate outright, a much larger segment may be able to purchase low-value tokenized shares. “This could increase the number of potential Chinese investors in Dubai by 15 times to around 210 million.”
Flanagan said tokenization is likely to complement institutional capital rather than compete with it.
“Fractional ownership platforms primarily open access to smaller investors who are not competing with institutional investors for overall assets,” he said.
Over time, Aladdin said the model could attract increasing overseas demand, particularly from China, Russia, Europe and India.
Musari added that fractional models are likely to attract a new class of investors rather than a speculative trend.
“The ability to invest a small amount while gaining exposure to prime real estate in Dubai should be particularly attractive to emerging HNWIs in India and China, where adoption of digital payments is already very advanced,” he said.
role of government
Experts say DLD’s involvement is crucial in building trust in tokenized real estate in Dubai.
Ansari said platform trust remains the biggest hurdle, but regulatory support has significantly strengthened the case for tokenization as a reliable alternative to direct ownership.
He added that token holders are unlikely to resemble crypto traders.
“We expect the majority of tokenized real estate investors to behave like long-term yield holders,” he said. “Tokenized real estate is fundamentally different from cryptocurrencies, as prices are determined by rents, vacancy rates, and cap rates.”
Mr. Flanagan emphasized the importance of DLD’s direct involvement in establishing the trust of global investors. “Regulatory support will ensure that tokenized assets are fully aligned with existing asset ownership frameworks and legal protections.”
Mr Kenny said DLD would act as a “trust anchor” by digitizing the actual property deeds, ensuring digital tokens are legally recognized in Dubai courts and eliminating the risk of “digital-only” assets lacking real-world status.
“DLD also controls both the physical land registry and the blockchain pilot, so it is impossible for properties to be ‘double-sold’,” Kenny added.
Although still in its early stages, tokenization could become a meaningful addition to Dubai’s real estate market as the platform scales and regulations evolve, the advisors said.
(Reporting by SA Kader; Editing by Anoop Menon)
(anoop.menon@lseg.com)
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