Tracking a Dubai portfolio: what each option is built for.
Four different kinds of tool get recommended to Dubai owners, and they are built for four different jobs. Here is what each actually does, including where the free official one is the right answer.
Dubai REST is the Land Department's own app, it is free, and since 2024 the digital title deed it holds is the legally binding one, so it is the starting point for every owner. Landlord apps such as Keyper add rent collection and tenant management. Agency platforms like RIOO, ADDA and RealCube are built for firms running many buildings. Spreadsheets still do the job for a small portfolio. The gap most owners describe is knowing what a unit is worth and what evidence stands behind that figure.
In short
Dubai REST first. It is official, free, and holds the title deed that now counts legally.
Landlord apps are for letting: rent, tenants, leases.
Agency software is priced and built for firms with many buildings, not for an individual owner.
Running two tools is normal, because none of them covers the whole job.
The options
| Option | Built for | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Dubai REST (Land Department) | The official record: title deeds, Oqood, Ejari registration and renewal, service charge payment, NOC requests, and a wallet showing your properties with values, yields and service charge history | Free |
| Landlord apps, for example Keyper | Letting a unit: rent collection, tenant vetting, lease renewals, documents, plus fintech options such as receiving rent upfront | Free tier, paid for full service |
| Agency and association software, for example RIOO, ADDA, RealCube | Firms running many buildings: operations, accounting, Mollak service charge billing and reconciliation across a whole community | Commercial, quoted |
| A spreadsheet | Whatever you decide to put in it, which is its strength and also the reason the figures go stale | Free |
| Mulki (ours, pre-launch) | Valuation and holding cost: what each unit is worth, the registered sales behind that figure, and the annual cost across the portfolio | Free for owners |
Compiled from the published descriptions and feature pages of each product, read 19 September 2026. Mulki is our own product and has not launched. Capabilities change, so check the current product before choosing.
Choosing between them
Work out which question is actually bothering you.
Owners tend to say they want to track their portfolio when they mean one specific thing: chasing a late rent, understanding a service charge that jumped, or wondering whether to sell. Those point at different tools, and buying the wrong one is how people end up with software they open twice.
If you let your property, the rent workflow decides it.
Collection, reminders, renewals and tenant records are a real operational burden, and a landlord app removes most of it. If you do not let, most of what you would be paying for does not apply to you.
Agency software is a poor fit for an individual.
It is capable, and it is configured around buildings, roles and accounting integrations that assume a team. The cost and the setup both reflect that. Owners with a handful of units usually find it heavier than the problem.
Check what the tool does when the data runs out.
Any product showing a valuation is resting it on comparable sales, and in many Dubai buildings there are very few. Our count of fifteen Marina towers found 68 two-bedroom sales in a year across all of them, with five towers producing two or fewer. A tool that shows the same confident figure either way is rounding off something you would want to know.
What none of them does well
The weak spot across the category is evidence. Valuations appear as a single number, and the count of sales behind that number is almost never shown, so an owner in a building with fourteen recent same-layout sales and an owner in a building with none are handed the same kind of figure to the same number of decimal places.
The second gap is everything the official record does not hold. A warranty, a snagging report, an AC service history, the invoice for a kitchen replaced four years ago. None of that reaches the Land Department, and it is what a buyer asks about.
That is the part we are building, which is why this page carries the disclosure it does. If you want to judge the approach rather than take our word for it, the methodology page sets out where we publish a figure and where we decline to, and the Marina sales count is the evidence problem measured.
Descriptions are compiled from each product's own published material, read 19 September 2026, and are not an endorsement of any of them. Mulki is our own product and has not launched, so it is listed for disclosure rather than comparison. Products change their features and pricing. General information for property owners.
Questions
- What is the best app to track Dubai property?
- Start with Dubai REST, because it is the Land Department's own app, it is free, and since 2024 the digital title deed it holds is the legally binding one. Everything else is a supplement to it rather than a replacement. Which supplement depends on whether your problem is collecting rent, running a building, or knowing what your units are worth.
- Does Dubai REST show my whole portfolio?
- Yes. The Real Estate Wallet lists the properties registered to you with values, rental yields and service charge history, and holds your title deeds, Oqood certificates and valuation reports. For an owner who wants the official position on what they own, it is the authoritative source and costs nothing.
- Then why would I use anything else?
- Because the official record answers what you own, and owners usually have a second question about what it is worth and what it costs to hold. Rent collection, tenant vetting, maintenance history, the documents that never reach the Land Department, and the working behind a valuation all sit outside it.
- What is the difference between landlord apps and property management software?
- Who they are sold to. Landlord apps like Keyper are aimed at an individual owner letting a unit, and cover rent collection, tenant management and lease admin. Property management software such as RIOO, ADDA or RealCube is built for agencies, owners associations and developers running many buildings, and is priced and configured accordingly.
- Is a spreadsheet good enough?
- For two or three units it often is, and plenty of experienced owners use nothing else. It stops working when the figures need to be current, because a spreadsheet only knows what you last typed into it, and the numbers that matter most for a Dubai property are the ones that move: comparable sales, the Mollak rate, the rent index.
- Where does Mulki fit?
- We are building it, so treat this as disclosure rather than a recommendation. Mulki is aimed at the valuation and holding-cost side: what a unit is worth, which registered sales that figure rests on, and what the year costs across every property in your name. It is not a rent collection product and it is not agency software. It has not launched, so nothing on this page should be read as a live comparison of it.
- Can I use more than one?
- Most owners with several units end up doing exactly that, and there is nothing wrong with it. Dubai REST for the record and anything requiring the Land Department, something else for the operational side. The overlap is small enough that the duplication rarely costs anything.
Mulki shows the sales behind every figure, including when there are too few.
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