Dubai Land Department (DLD) and Property Finder signed an unprecedented memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Monday, 22 July for the launch of Dubai’s first official sales and rental price index.

This collaboration will create an index called ‘Mo’asher,’ which translates to index in Arabic. The first edition of the index will be unveiled during the third week of September and will be available on DLD’s and Property Finder’s websites as well as disseminated to all news sources.

The MoU was signed by HE Sultan Butti bin Mejren, Director General of DLD, and Michael Lahyani, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Property Finder.

Speaking on the occasion, Bin Mejren said: “Signing a partnership with Property Finder aligns us with an entity that enjoys an established reputation for leading people to property, especially as we are collectively aiming to enhance and increase real estate investment in Dubai. Mo’asher is the official real estate index for Dubai that provides consumers with better insights to help them when taking property-buying and -renting decisions.”

DLD will provide data for Mo’asher on a monthly basis. This will then be coupled with Property Finder’s proprietary asking-price data and expert analysis from the team at Data Finder, a real estate insights and data platform under the Property Finder Group.

Lahyani said: “Considering how the rest of the region looks to Dubai for inspiration, our upcoming goals with this partnership will be to use Mo’asher as a model for how other countries under the Property Finder Group may convey important statistics on their property market to the public. Dubai Government’s willingness to partner with the private sector to create the Mo’asher initiative is an important first step in showcasing to the world the level of transparency that should be a standard across the region.”

The creation of Mo’asher is further evidence that Property Finder and DLD share the same vision of further strengthening the Dubai real estate market.

Majida Ali Rashid, CEO of the Real Estate Promotion and Investment Management Sector at DLD said: “With the monthly publication of Mo’asher, the market will be able to witness how data can enhance openness within the real estate sector. We are keen to sign agreements with esteemed partners like Property Finder who have the expertise to reach an increased level of transparency, allowing us to attract further confidence from local, regional, and global investors into our market; thus, supporting the vision of our wise leadership to make Dubai the smartest and happiest city in the world.”

With Property Finder being one of the largest portals in the UAE and across the wider MENA region, it enjoys access to the largest set of proprietary data on asking prices and a number of other metrics that reveal property landscape and consumer demand. Data Finder has been created as a specialised entity, powered by the immense amount of data at Property Finder.

Lahyani added: “Launching Mo’asher with DLD was our priority following the creation of Data Finder to deliver enhanced data transparency to the market. With its successful launch, we look forward to working with other government entities in the UAE to replicate and tailor an Emirates-wide house-price index to further enhance our goal of informing and educating our consumers.”