Off-plan sales software for Dubai brokerages: what to look for

What off-plan selling demands from software

Off-plan means selling a property before it is built, from the developer's plans. A launch is bursty: a developer releases a batch of units, several agents in your brokerage call their buyers the same morning, and the best units are gone within hours or days. A normal CRM tracks people and deals. It does not always track units, and units are the thing under pressure on launch day.

Here is the job list the software has to cover:

• Inventory. Which units exist, their type, size, floor, view and price, and which are available, held or sold.
• Holds. A temporary reservation, so two agents do not promise the same unit to two buyers.
• Bookings. A form that collects buyer details and the information the developer needs to process a booking.
• Developer paperwork and status. What was sent, what was returned, the sale agreement (SPA) status, and registration progress.
• Commission. What the developer owes you on each sale, when it is due, and what has been received. I cover the tracking layout in real estate commission tracker for UAE brokerages.
• Buyer payments. The instalment schedule after booking, which I cover in tracking off-plan payment milestones.

Where inventory really comes from

This is the part that surprises people. Unit availability is owned by the developer. Your software can hold a copy, but the copy goes stale the moment the developer sells a unit through another channel. Developers share availability in different ways: PDF price lists, spreadsheets, a broker portal, or a message in a WhatsApp group. Good software does not remove that problem, it makes it safer. It shows when each unit's status was last confirmed, and it makes it quick to update.

So before you pay for any tool, ask: how will the unit list get in, and who updates it? If the answer is "someone retypes a PDF", you will be paying for the same manual work.

The options, honestly

1. Your existing CRM

Many UAE brokerages already use a CRM, a system for tracking contacts, leads and deals. Check whether it can hold units as a separate list, link them to deals and mark them as held. Bitrix24, a business platform that bundles a CRM, tasks and chat, can be customised with extra fields and lists, but you will build the unit and hold logic yourself. For the wider CRM question see my real estate CRM guide.

2. A real estate CRM with an off-plan module

PropSpace is a real estate CRM built for the UAE market. On its own site it says its off-plan projects module is included on every plan and covers over a thousand UAE projects with unit-level inventory, and that it generates RERA forms (paperwork for the Real Estate Regulatory Agency, the regulator inside Dubai Land Department) and syndicates listings (publishes them) to many portals. Those are the vendor's own claims, and I have not tested them or confirmed pricing, so ask for a demo and test it with a real launch. Goyzer is another UAE real estate software provider, with products for developers, brokers and property management according to directory listings; I could not confirm its specific brokerage features, so check goyzer.com directly. If you already use PropSpace, compare PropSpace alternatives for Dubai brokerages.

3. Developer and portal tools

Developers often give brokers a portal to view availability and submit bookings. These are useful, but each developer has a different one, so your agents juggle several logins and your own records still live elsewhere. Property portals such as Property Finder and Bayut, the two largest UAE listing websites, are for advertising, and Property Finder states its APIs (the technical connections that let software talk to the portal) are for approved partners after an application and security review. They do not run your launch.

4. A spreadsheet and a WhatsApp group

This is what most small brokerages actually run on. It works for one launch with two agents. It breaks when three people edit the sheet and nobody knows which version is current.

5. A custom off-plan desk next to your CRM

A small purpose-built tool, used only for off-plan, that sits beside whatever CRM you have. It reads your unit list, lets agents place a time-limited hold, produces the booking form, and records developer commission. I build these. It is an internal tool for your own team, the sort of thing described in my page on internal tools, and it keeps your CRM for what it is good at.

What software and AI do on launch day

Plain software does the heavy lifting here, and AI plays a small supporting role. Be clear about which is which.

• Software task: holds. An agent taps "hold unit 1204 for 24 hours". The unit shows as held to everyone. If the hold expires, it releases and the agent is told. Nothing in this needs AI.
• Software task: booking form. The form pulls the unit and price in automatically, collects buyer details, and produces a clean pack to send to the developer. Fewer retyped fields means fewer rejections.
• AI task: reading price lists. Paste or upload a developer's PDF price list and have an AI tool turn it into a clean table of units. It saves hours of typing, but a person must check it against the PDF, because a single wrong digit is a wrong price.
• AI task: drafting buyer messages. A short WhatsApp or email to a buyer that describes the available units that match their budget.
• Human task: everything that is a promise. Confirming availability with the developer, quoting terms, and anything legal or regulatory. Confirm rules with the relevant authority, such as the Dubai Land Department (DLD, the government body that registers property).

Do it yourself with Claude: Claude is an AI assistant you can chat with in a browser. Paste the text of a developer price list and ask: "Turn this into a table with unit number, type, size, floor, view and price. List any rows where you were not sure." Then spot check ten rows against the original. The point is speed on the first draft, not trust.

Developer software or brokerage software: know which one you are shopping for

Search results for this topic mix two different buyers. Much of what ranks is software for developers: inventory grids, contracts, escrow tracking, buyer portals and broker commission rules. One Dubai web studio (Kolonell) lists seven modules for a developer and puts a custom build in the hundreds of thousands of US dollars. That is a vendor's own estimate for a developer with hundreds of units, not a guide to what a brokerage needs. A brokerage is on the receiving end of a developer's inventory. Your needs are narrower: a trustworthy copy of the units you sell, holds between your own agents, a clean booking pack, and a ledger of commission owed to you.

Vendors in this space, according to their own sites and press, include PropSpace (a UAE real estate CRM whose developer product describes an agent portal that lets chosen agencies check availability and submit booking requests), Asas and Covercy Prime (platforms aimed at developers), and Invespy (a network connecting developers with brokers). I have not tested any of them. The PropSpace post I read is dated 2019, so ask for a current demo, and ask each vendor whether its tool serves the developer, the broker or both.

A launch-day checklist you can use with any tool

1. Before launch: receive the price list, load it, and mark the load time. Have a second person check ten rows against the original.
2. Agree the hold length. One guide suggests holds of 48 to 72 hours that release automatically. I would pick the shortest the developer's own process allows, because long holds block good units.
3. Decide who may place a hold and who may release one, and whether a hold needs a deposit proof.
4. During launch: one person is the single contact with the developer for availability. Agents never confirm a unit to a buyer from their own list.
5. After a booking: record the SPA status and Oqood (DLD's register for off-plan sales) status per unit, so nothing sits unregistered unnoticed. See Oqood registration.
6. Commission: log the rate agreed with the developer, the trigger for payment and the date you invoiced.

What goes wrong, and how to spot it

• Two agents promise the same unit. Spot it: two bookings for one number. Fix: holds with expiry, and one status source.
• A stale price list. Spot it: the developer's version date differs from yours. Fix: store the list date next to every unit.
• Commission rules differ per developer (rate, trigger, tiers). One vendor argues standard tools struggle with these. Spot it: you chase payments by memory. Fix: a rule per developer in one table.
• Buyer data in too many places. Passport copies in personal WhatsApp chats are a privacy risk. Keep documents in the system and check the UAE data protection rules with a qualified adviser.

Questions to ask in any vendor demo

• Can I load a real developer PDF price list today, and how long does it take?
• Show me a hold expiring and a second agent trying to book the same unit.
• Can agents work from a phone on launch day?
• How is commission set up when each developer has different terms?
• What happens to my data if I leave?

An owner should weigh the double-booking and commission questions most. An agent will judge the tool on speed and phone use. Both matter, but a tool agents dislike will simply be skipped on launch day.

How to decide

1. Count your launches a year and the agents involved. One or two launches with a small team can stay on sheets.
2. Write down your last launch's mistakes: a double-sold unit, a stale price, a lost booking form. That list is your requirements.
3. Test your CRM's ability to do holds and unit lists before assuming it cannot.
4. If you want a vendor, run its demo on a real price list from a real developer, not its sample data.
5. If no tool fits how you actually work, consider a custom off-plan desk.

How I would approach this

Do not buy software to fix a process nobody has written down. Write the launch-day steps on one page first: who receives the price list, who loads it, who can hold, who sends the booking, who chases the developer. Then see how much of that your CRM covers. If the gap is units and holds, that is a small build, not a new system. I would start there.