The first online auction organized by eMart has been overwhelmingly successful, reaching AED74,560,000 worth of sales across the 11 residential and commercial properties on offer. These figures indicate the strong demand for services such as online auctions as they offer property investors and owners superior transparency, security, efficiency and speed. These factors have been the primary motivation behind Dubai Land Department’s launch of eMart.
According to Sultan Al Akraf, Senior Director of Real Estate Registration Services at the department: “These figures prove that Dubai’s real estate sector has achieved an exceptionally high ranking compared to its peers on the global map. It is also conclusive evidence of Dubai’s pursuit of innovation by focusing on smart and convenient online services for the property market.”
The auction marks a highly encouraging start for eMart, which was launched at the beginning of November 2013 to advance Dubai’s goals of efficient real estate operations that fulfill the highest levels of transparency and stakeholder rights. Property analysts also anticipate that eMart will greatly help in boosting awareness of the superior benefits of Dubai’s property investments, in line with the emirate’s aspiration of becoming the world’s leading destination for property investors.
The residential and commercial properties in the auction had a starting price of AED60 million and gradually growing to exceed AED74.5 million, indicating a substantial increase of AED14.5 million. The portal already received over 1,100 visits in the early hours of the first day of bidding, reflecting the high interest among real estate investors who gathered in the special lounge hosted by Dubai Land Department. Several large screens were set up to display the live auction and to brief guests on the user-friendly new interface that they can use online to make their bids.
Participating bidders pointed out that the innovative auction, providing complete details and specifications along with uploaded photos of the property, location maps, and other useful information from various perspectives is what made the auction process simple and convenience for everyone involved. Many of the bidders are expected to return in future auctions, as a result of the high user satisfaction from the first auction.
Property analysts anticipate that eMart will be the gateway for Dubai to raise the standards of smart real estate services, giving the emirate a worldwide reputation for safeguarding the transparency and security of all transactions, while increasing access to the real estate market to a much wider audience of investors and other stakeholders.
