Dubai is well-known for its world-class skyscrapers. Its epic growth in the last two decades has drawn the attention of the biggest global investors and made it the most preferred destination to buy a home or start a business. A city which was known for its iconic deserts till the 90s is today known for its spectacular skyscrapers. Without a shadow of a doubt, Dubai has emerged as an epitome for global city planners to look forward to.
According to an article titled – ‘The 5 Tallest Cities in the World’ by The World Atlas, Dubai is at the 2nd spot in the list of global cities with the highest number of skyscrapers with 107 skyscrapers over 200 m tall. In terms of the total number of skyscrapers, Dubai has surpassed New York, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and London to emerge as one of the fastest-growing cities in the world.
A vast amount of credit for this success of Dubai goes to Dubai Land Department (DLD) and its one-of-its-kind and revolutionary leader – His Excellency (HE) Sultan Butti bin Mejren – Director General of Dubai Land Department. Under his visionary & outstanding leadership, the Dubai land department has launched several initiatives like – DubaiRest, Electronic No Objection Certificate (e-NOC) system, the Center for Sustainable Cities, Well-being Certificate, publishing transactional data, digitizing the rent collection process, and the Green List to name a few which has propelled the growth of the real estate sector. These initiatives launched by the Dubai land department have turned Dubai’s real estate sector into the most attractive destination for global investors in terms of quality, cost, and ROI/rental yield.
Fostering Transparency in Real estate Operations to Drive Investments
The article titled – ‘6 Challenges of Real Estate Investment Overseas’ by Nomad Capitalist some of the key challenges faced by real estate investors across the globe includes – legal challenges, govt. regulations, and technological challenges. Dubai Land Department has always been a frontrunner in overcoming these above challenges by introducing favourable policies to build a conducive environment for real estate investors.
Dubai Land Department, through its regulatory arm Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA), has an advanced e-system called Mollak, which means Owners in Arabic. Mollak regulates jointly-owned properties, and service charges and monitors the payment of service charges in jointly-owned properties in Dubai. It is an online service system that ensures transparency for joint property ownership in real estate. Mollak facilitates Unit owners to pay service charges directly into this portal to avoid any chances of impending conflicts or inconvenience. The primary aim of Mollak is to create transparency in owners’ associations, enable registration of maintenance companies and maintain track of their escrow accounts and service charges.
Dubai Land Department has played an instrumental role in enhancing the real estate investment environment through supportive regulations, developing a digital ecosystem, consolidating various sources of data through partnerships, and raising the capabilities of human resources. One such initiative is Strategic Plan 2026.
Strategic Plan 2026 by Dubai Land department
In January 2023, DLD launched Strategic Plan 2026 – a new strategic plan and vision which outlines the roadmap for establishing Dubai as one of the world’s best real estate markets through effective governance, innovation, and technology. According to DLD, the key vision is to strengthen global leadership in real estate investments and become a world leader in real estate investments. This great vision will be accomplished by enabling the real estate sector with seamless real estate services, effective legislation, and integrated data through partnerships, leading digital infrastructure, and empowered human capital.
Strategic Plan 2026 has five main pillars according to DLD’s Press release which are as follows –
- The first is a pioneering real estate model, by enhancing the sector’s readiness and sustainability, and ensuring effective governance of the real estate sector.
- The second pillar is being a real estate innovation incubator by fostering a globally attractive real estate sector and harnessing technology to enable real estate solutions development.
- The third pillar is a data-driven sector, maximizing the added value of sector data and raising awareness, trust, and transparency in the real estate sector.
- The fourth pillar is Agile DLD, to cultivate a flourishing digital ecosystem, enhance DLD’s operations and improve corporate governance efficiency, and foster partnerships with public and private sectors.
- The fifth pillar is Exceptional Journeys 2.0, through which the focus is on shifting to an employee-first culture, refreshing DLD’s identity and enhancing its position, and moving to a proactive and ‘human’-focused approach.
Initiatives & KPIs
DLD has identified and classified the strategic initiatives based on the ease of application and priority matrix to enable team members in working towards the implementation in the best possible way, in cooperation with various partners and customers, which constitutes an incentive and support for the transformation and transition of DLD from the current situation to the future situation.
The initiatives are distributed in line with the five pillars to support the strategic plan and provide sustainable and forward-looking solutions to effectively address the opportunities and challenges that these pillars include.
How DLD will Implement the Strategic Plan 2026?
Strategic Plan 2026 will be implemented in three stages. These are as follows –
- Quick-gain initiatives: launching quick-gain initiatives to ensure that DLD adapts to the proposed changes
- Transformation: empowering the real estate sector by providing all necessary support to implement smooth transformation
- Sustainable Impact: achieving sustainable impact by expanding the scope of influence to reach a global real estate system
Impact of Strategic Plan 2026 on the Real estate Sector
Strategic Plan 2026 emphasizes implementing the latest technologies to develop new real estate solutions and create a data-driven sector to drive investments. It aims to make to improve the readiness, governance, sustainability, and innovation of the real estate sector to make it more competitive on a global scale.
Strategic Plan 2026 is designed based on 4 fundamental principles –
1.) Sustainable Impact by directing DLD’s efforts towards achieving evolution and sustainable development in the real estate sector.
2.) Local adaptation by adopting global practices and adapting them to the unique features and needs of the real estate market in Dubai
3.) Global leadership by developing a plan to position Dubai as a role model in the real estate sector
4.) Co-operation & harmonisation by adopting a participatory approach that includes all stakeholders and those concerned with DLD’s plan
Strategic Plan 2026 strives to develop a digital ecosystem to make real estate operations more transparent and improve the efficiency of its corporate governance. This will make it easier for investors to invest in Dubai’s property market which will drive real estate sales and transactions.
Strategic Plan 2026 will also lead Dubai’s real estate sector towards sustainability and will ensure better results and output. This will have a favourable impact on real estate as well as Dubai’s economic growth & gross domestic product (GDP) and will also support the development and objectives of the related sectors.