Nearly 40,000 Brokers, All Paid the Same Way

Off-plan transactions accounted for roughly 69–72% of all Dubai residential sales through 2025. Brokers collectively earned around AED 13.7 billion in commission from 215,741 sales transactions, with commission revenue nearly doubling year-on-year in the first half of 2025.

Those are good numbers. They are also the reason for everything that follows.

The supply side grew faster than the revenue

Active licensed brokers rose from roughly 5,933 a decade ago to 39,776 by January 2026. Registered brokerage firms went from around 1,200 to over 7,900 inside a single year, with 6,714 new brokers registering in the first half of 2025 alone — reported at the time as roughly 37 new brokers a day.

Average commission works out to something like AED 18,000 per broker per month, which sounds workable until you look at the distribution. A small tier of luxury and off-plan specialists earn over AED 1 million a year. The median new entrant earns very little for months.

Every one of them is paid the same way

This is the fact that shapes the advice. Agents in this market are paid entirely on commission, typically on a 40–50% split at large agencies with steadier lead flow, or 60–70% at boutiques with far less of it. New agents can take up to six months to earn meaningful income, and many arrive without a financial cushion for that ramp.

Average tenure has fallen from roughly twelve months to six or fewer. The newest and most junior agents — the ones most likely to be cold-calling and chasing any close available — often churn out inside three months.

What that structure rewards

Not advice. Under those conditions the market rewards volume and speed: more conversations, faster closes, fewer of the slow, unbillable hours that comparison and verification actually take.

It also produces a practice the industry discusses openly about itself — agents handing back a slice of their own commission to win a deal, so the transaction goes to whoever will take the largest cut to their own earnings. When one Dubai brokerage launched a competing model on 80:20 splits, its stated reason was that the standard structure creates a commission-dependent environment pushing agents into a permanent hustle for survival. That alternative is still commission-only. It just changes who keeps more of the same incentive.

The honest conclusion

Not that brokers are worthless. A broker who compares across developers, remembers which projects have slipped before, knows where resale friction shows up and stays involved after handover adds real value that a lead-generation-only agent does not.

The conclusion is narrower and harder: the current incentive structure does not pay anyone to do that work. Which is why changing how the advisor is paid is not a marketing angle. It is the only lever that moves any of this.

Sources: Khaleej Times · Dubai Land Department · The National · Gulf News