Tracking a Dubai portfolio: what each option is built for.
Dubai REST, landlord apps, agency software and the humble spreadsheet each do a different job. Here's what they're good for, and when the free official app is all you need.
Updated
Begin with Dubai REST. It's the Land Department's own app, it's free, and since 2024 the digital title deed in it is the legally binding one. If you let, a landlord app such as Keyper adds rent collection. RIOO, ADDA and RealCube are for firms with many buildings. For a small portfolio a spreadsheet still does the job. What owners tell us they're missing is a value for each unit, and the evidence behind it. That's the gap we built Mulki for. It reads every unit from your title deeds, values each from registered sales in its own building with those sales shown, and puts that next to what the unit costs you to hold.
In short
Get Dubai REST before anything else. It's official and free, and the title deed in it is now the one that counts legally.
Landlord apps are for letting. They chase the rent and keep your tenant records and renewals in order.
Agency software is made, and priced, for firms with lots of buildings. For one owner it's heavy going.
Plenty of owners run two. None of these covers everything.
If you let your units out but don't run a lettings business, Dubai REST with Mulki alongside covers the most.
The options
Dubai REST: the official record, free.
Your title deeds and Oqood live here. You can register and renew Ejari, pay service charges and ask for an NOC. There's also a wallet listing your properties, with a value and yield for each and the service charge history.
Landlord apps, for example Keyper: letting a unit.
These collect rent and vet tenants, handle lease renewals and hold the documents. Some add fintech extras, like getting the year's rent upfront. There's a free tier; the full service costs money.
Agency and association software: many buildings.
RIOO, ADDA and RealCube run a whole community: operations and accounting, plus billing and reconciling the Mollak service charges. They're commercial products, priced on quote.
A spreadsheet: whatever you put in it.
Costs nothing. It holds exactly what you choose to put in, which is why people like it, and also why the figures go stale.
Then there's Mulki, which is ours, and which looks at things the way an owner does. Your units come in from your title deeds. Each gets a valuation from registered sales in your own building, with the evidence on show, and a net yield once service charges are paid. Renewals arrive with the rent ceiling attached. On top of that you get fixed-quote maintenance and year-end reports, and owners pay nothing.
Choosing between them
Work out which question you are asking.
When owners say they want to track a portfolio they usually mean one specific thing. Maybe it's a rent that's late, or a service charge that jumped. Maybe they're wondering whether to sell. Each of those leads to a different tool, and if you pick the wrong one you'll open it twice and forget it.
If you let your property, the rent workflow decides it.
Chasing rent, sending reminders, doing renewals, keeping tenant records: it's real work, and a landlord app takes most of it off you. Don't let your place out? Then most of what you'd pay for is no use to you.
Agency software is a poor fit for an individual.
It's capable software. It's also set up around buildings, staff roles and accounting integrations, the sort of thing a team needs, and it's priced and configured that way. With a handful of units you'll usually find it's more than the problem calls for.
Check what the tool does when the data runs out.
Every valuation you see is built on comparable sales, and plenty of Dubai buildings have hardly any. If a tool shows the same confident number whether there are plenty of sales or none, it's keeping something from you that you'd want to know.
What none does well
Where all of these fall short is evidence. You get one number for a valuation, and almost nobody tells you how many sales went into it. So one owner whose building had fourteen recent sales of the same layout, and another whose building had none, are handed the same kind of figure. Same number of decimal places, too.
| Measure | Count |
|---|---|
| Towers counted | 15 |
| Two-bedroom sales across all of them | 68 |
| Towers with two sales or fewer | 5 |
From our Marina sales count: two-bedroom sales over one year in fifteen Dubai Marina towers.
We built Mulki for that gap, and for the paperwork further down. Rather judge the approach yourself than take our word? 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.
Where Mulki is better
| Dubai REST | Landlord app | Spreadsheet | Mulki | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Units added | Automatically | Typed in | Typed in | From your title deeds through UAE PASS |
| Value with its evidence | Value only | Not their focus | What you look up | Registered sales in your building, listed |
| Net yield after costs | Gross yield | Rent collected | If you build it | After service charges and voids |
| Renewals and rent ceiling | Ejari registration | Renewal admin | If you remember | Every date, with the legal bracket |
| Maintenance | Not listed | Varies | No | Fixed-quote trades, every visit logged |
| Year-end reports | Not listed | Varies | If you build it | Ready for an accountant |
| Cost to the owner | Free | Free tier, paid | Free | Free |
Compiled from the published descriptions of each product, read 27 October 2026, and Mulki's own pricing and owner pages. Capabilities change, so check the current product before choosing.
It starts complete.
With your consent, your title deeds, Oqood and Ejari contracts come across from your UAE PASS vault. Every unit you own is there from the first day, with its registered size and purchase price. You don't type anything in, so nothing gets left out.
The value comes with its working.
We value each unit from the latest registered sales in its own building, leaning on the ones most like it, and list those sales right under the figure. If a building hasn't had enough, Mulki tells you so and leaves the number out.
It answers the next question too.
How much does the unit earn after Mollak charges and empty months? When's the renewal, and how far can the rent legally go? Which contractor do you ring, at a fixed price? Those are the figures that go stale in a spreadsheet, and Mulki keeps them up to date.
It keeps what the record leaves out.
Warranties and snagging reports, invoices, each maintenance visit: all kept against the unit, in your name. By the time you sell, you can already answer whatever the buyer asks.
Keep what the record leaves out.
Think of the warranty, the snagging report, the AC service history, that invoice for the kitchen you replaced four years back. The Land Department never sees any of it. Buyers ask about all of it.
We put these descriptions together from what each product publishes about itself, read on 27 October 2026. Mulki is ours. It's free for owners and opens to the waiting list below. It won't collect rent for you, so if you want that, use it alongside a landlord app. Features and prices change, so look at the current version of any product before you choose. General information for property owners.
Questions
What is the best app to track Dubai property?
Does Dubai REST show my whole portfolio?
Then why would I use anything else?
What is the difference between landlord apps and property management software?
Is a spreadsheet good enough?
Where does Mulki fit?
Can I use more than one?
Mulki shows the sales behind every figure, including when there are too few.