Tell us about Gllit’s business model.
Gllit is a proptech company that is pioneering a direct-to-owner model in the UAE that provides enhanced benefits by allowing homebuyers and tenants to connect directly with sellers and landlords.
Gllit’s agent-free model essentially makes real estate transactions more cost effective, efficient, and transparent for everyone by eliminating third-party commissions. We call this the ‘new-gen way’ of buying, selling, and renting property — smarter, simpler, and more transparent for everyone involved.
The ‘new-gen way’ approach is driven by a clear shift in market dynamics where a younger, digitally savvy generation is steadily expanding their market share and redefining expectations.
Gllit is offering a pro-choice and pro-efficiency model that gives people greater control over how they want to sell, buy or rent property. Our company’s vision is fully aligned with the government’s broader goals of supporting the growth of the real estate industry and positioning the UAE as a global leader in real estate innovation and a top destination for property investment.
What are the common pain points property buyers and sellers face in the UAE?
In our conversations with sellers, landlords, homebuyers, and tenants, three things come up in almost every conversation:
- Inefficiency — sometimes it can take several days at best to a few weeks to get a simple answer about price, paperwork, or title details.
- Lack of expertise to create quality listings — the difference between a property selling or staying invisible often comes down to a lack of marketing expertise.
- Cost — This pain point is key as it directly impacts people’s wallets, but it is at the same time often very tricky to balance how to help sellers and landlords maximise profit, while enabling buyers and tenants to pay less. Gllit has unlocked an equitable way to deliver cost efficiencies to all parties through its agent-free model and value-added services
- Lack of transparency and information — from unclear fees to inconsistent information between portals and agents.
Sellers for example may have a perfectly good apartment that would stay unsold simply because of poor-quality photos or a vague description. We are helping close that gap by giving sellers the same tools professional marketers use — in seconds, without needing an agency background.
For homebuyers, the biggest pain points we’re helping to solve are related to costs and direct access to property owners. Too often, homebuyers pay more and are unable to get direct answers from owners for the simple reason that the process has intermediaries. Gllit simplifies this by allowing buyers to connect straight with landlords and sellers, negotiate openly, and see the true value of what they’re paying for.
What are the benefits of eliminating middlemen and brokers in property dealing?
The Gllit model is all about empowerment — financially and in having greater control over the process. A typical sale or tenancy transaction involves 2 to 5 per cent in agent commissions, which in some cases can add up to Dhs50,000 to the transaction cost. Going direct gives that value back to the property owner, buyer, or tenant.
And it’s not just about savings. With the direct-to-owner model, people can talk directly and build trust faster. It’s easier to understand each other’s motivations this way, making the process more transparent and personal. We’ve taken this further with go-direct benefit, giving sellers and landlords a clear incentive to transact directly while keeping the overall transaction cost still significantly lower than traditional agent-led deals: a win-win solution for both parties that rewards transparency and efficiency.
For anyone living in the UAE, it is impossible not to appreciate the quality of life and the ease of doing things here, whether it’s opening a business or accessing public services.
Gllit’s tech-led solutions draw inspiration from the government’s own efforts to develop and promote more efficient ways to deliver services, drive innovation, and enhance everyday life.
What was the purpose of building a platform like Gllit?
The idea came from our own experience and frustration watching how much time and money gets lost in what should be a straightforward process.
The UAE government has done an excellent job in transforming the UAE real estate market into one of the most dynamic and attractive investment destinations in the world, and we believe that we can contribute to helping further enhance the appeal of the UAE by introducing an optimised alternative way to buying, selling, or renting property that gets rid of the unnecessary complexities and hidden costs.
We are calling this new approach the “next-gen way” as it is designed to meet expectations of today’s new generation of real estate consumers — basically making it as easy to sell or buy a home as it is to book a flight by removing barriers, automating steps, and making relevant information easily available.
Gllit’s goal is to make real estate transactions more intuitive and less bureaucratic through technology that empowers, but does not overwhelm.
How does Gllit personalise the experience for first-time buyers versus experienced users?
Most people don’t buy or sell a house on a regular basis, so there is a huge chunk of the market who are either first-time sellers or homebuyers or those who simply lack experience and would need hand-holding throughout the entire transaction process. Gllit provides customer-focused support through each step with tools like Gllit ImagePro AI and Gllit TextPro AI.
Apart from proactive support through various value-added services on the platform, by enabling transactions direct with the property owner or landlord, Gllit is changing what is otherwise an impersonal process into a transparent and deeply personalised experience.
What are the new features of Gllit?
We’ve introduced two new smart features:
- Expertise-as-a-service for marketing — brings agency-level marketing tools to individual users. It solves a very real pain point for many of our subscribers and home sellers in general: how do you make your listing look professional. The AI-powered suite includes TextPro AI, which writes compelling, SEO-friendly descriptions, and ImagePro AI, which enhances photos in seconds. These are all built into the platform, so users do not have to leave the site or go elsewhere to write or edit photos — they can complete these otherwise complicated tasks in just seconds as part of creating a property listing on Gllit. In a future update, our AI-powered suite will also include a market-insights feature that provides verified real estate information to help in pricing and market positioning.
- Go-direct benefit for negotiation — simplifies one of the trickiest parts of real estate: pricing. It lets sellers and landlords add a premium as a reward for using Gllit’s direct, agent-free platform, but still keeping the overall cost well below agent-led transactions.
What are your expansion plans?
We are expanding our footprint in the UAE and will continue to focus on growing our presence across different markets in the mid-term. This includes building partnerships with leading developers and enhancing data integrations to make real estate transactions more cost-effective and efficient.
The first part of our journey was focused on enabling direct transactions and showing to the people that there is a truly more affordable way of conducting deals. Now that we have proven this point, it is time to further enhance and truly optimize direct-to-owner real estate transactions the next-gen way.
In our first year of operation, Gllit has recorded strong month-on-month growth — with traffic up by 60 per cent, new sign-ups increasing by 25 per cent, and active listings rising by 53 per cent. We are looking to build on the strong momentum and scale our reach across the UAE.
