Dubai's rent cheque model is losing its grip

Flexible rental terms are becoming a staple of the market — and that comes with both upside and risk. Monthly rent payments at Betterhomes more than doubled between 1Q and 2Q this year, rising from 2% of tenancies to 5%, Director of Leasing Rupert Simmonds tells EnterpriseAM UAE. That's a small share of the market — but it's a clear signal of where things are headed: landlords competing on payment terms, not just headline rent.

The backdrop makes that competition sharper than usual. Dubai delivered a record ~27.3k residential units in 2Q, and Betterhomes has seen available rental stock more than double since the start of the year. Rents across a sample of major communities have already fallen 8-10% since February, with the steepest declines in supply-heavy areas where tenants have more choice and landlords face added competition from serviced apartments. Annual Ejari registrations are down around 22% q-o-q. Abu Dhabi's market is cooling too, if less sharply — price growth slowed to a two-year low in 2Q, with affordability constraints starting to bite. In both emirates, landlords are losing pricing power just as monthly-rent platforms are giving tenants a new lever to negotiate with.

Government policy is adding weight to the shift: Dubai Land Department (DLD) launched FlexiRent in June, allowing tenants to pay monthly, quarterly, or semi-annually instead of relying on the lump-sum cheque model that has long defined Dubai’s rental market. The first phase included participation from 12 real estate companies, with DLD saying it would expand the initiative in later phases. DLD is also developing a zero-interest “rent now, pay later” scheme with a local bank, expected to launch in September, where the bank would pay the landlord the full annual rent upfront, while tenants repay monthly over up to a year. The final details, including eligibility, fees, repayment terms, and bank-landlord arrangements, are still in the works.

Before that bank-backed model came into view, proptech players were already trying to make monthly rent work without asking landlords to wait for their money. Keyper is one example. Its model lets tenants split annual rent into monthly payments while landlords still receive upfront income. The company raised USD 11 mn in June to scale the product, after financing more than USD 44 mn in rent value since launch. Its co-founder and CEO, Omar Abu Innab, says DLD's push validates rather than competes with what Keyper is doing — though the bank-backed model still needs more detail, particularly on fees and costs.

Why now

Dubai’s old rent model was built for a more transient market. The one-to-four-cheque system made more sense when residents came for a couple of years and left, and landlords needed more security, Simmonds says. Now, people are staying longer, building credit histories, and accumulating rental track records. That gives landlords more confidence to accept flexible payment terms. “It’s more about actually taking control as a tenant,” he says.

With more supply comes more options: Over the next 12-18 months, landlords will likely have to compete not only on rent, but also on payment terms and incentives, Cavendish Maxwell’s Director and Head of Residential Valuation Ronan Arthur tells us. As rental supply increases, tenants will have more leverage to push for fewer cheques or more flexible terms — and more landlords willing to say yes, especially in apartment-heavy communities where new supply is entering the leasing market. “The increase in competing available stock gives tenants greater choice and is beginning to put pressure on both asking and achieved rents,” he explains.

Someone still has to front the rent

The key question is who carries the risk: Monthly rent is not automatically finance, Takeem CEO and Co-Founder Rakesh Mavath tells EnterpriseAM UAE. If a landlord accepts the same annual rent over 12 payments, that is payment flexibility. “It becomes finance when a third party pays the landlord upfront and the tenant repays that amount over time,” he says. “That distinction matters.”

Keyper sits closer to the finance side of that line — landlords get paid upfront while tenants repay monthly. Abu Innab says Keyper underwrites tenants primarily on income, checks AECB scores, caps rent at around 45% of monthly salary, and carries the default risk itself. Takeem's rental assurance is designed to absorb a different slice of that risk, protecting landlords if tenants default while also offering emergency maintenance cover and direct debit payments. “Risk does not disappear because you move rent to monthly,” Mavath says. “It simply moves somewhere else.”

Simmonds sees bank-backed models as the more consequential shift over the long term: Landlords are likely to trust bank-backed payment certainty more than smaller providers, and banks can probably offer better rates, Simmonds says.

That scale brings a regulatory question. Mavath notes that the Central Bank of the UAE already regulates BNPL-style products as short-term credit, and Etihad Credit Bureau has folded BNPL data into UAE credit reports. Rent accounts for 40-60% of income, he says — if it becomes debt at scale, weak risk management “could become a systemic risk, not just a consumer one.”

Flexibility has a price

Tenants using rent-now-pay-later products can end up paying a meaningful premium, Simmonds says — the risk sits with the landlord, the tenant, or a third-party provider, but it never disappears. Abu Innab argues the premium already existed: landlords have long priced payment schedules into rent, charging less for one cheque and more for multiple. Platforms just make that flexibility easier to access and digitize instead of leaving it to one-off negotiation.

Mavath flags a behavioral risk too: AED 10k a month can feel more manageable than AED 120k a year, even if the total commitment is identical. “Flexibility should make a sensible rent easier to manage, not make an unaffordable rent easier to accept,” Mavath says.

There’s another price for landlords: “Historically, landlords have been able to charge a premium for more frequent payments because of the perceived additional administration, cashflow implications, and risk,” Arthur tells us. “However, if monthly payments become standard across the market, that premium could be reduced.”

The outlook

Cheques aren't disappearing tomorrow. Matthew Green, CBRE’s head of research, expects a hybrid market rather than a wholesale replacement in the near term. Tenants willing to pay in fewer cheques will still exist; they’ll just push for reductions. The bigger shift comes once tenant screening, rental guarantees, digital collection, and ins. are trusted enough that landlords stop caring how rent arrives.

The market can scale, but only if the economics work: Abu Innab says monthly rents still account for around 1% of the residential rental market, but he sees digital payment infrastructure as the biggest unlock, alongside lower financing costs and regulatory support. Arthur also sees significant potential, particularly in the apartment sector, but says adoption will depend on landlord economics and the ability of platforms to manage collection and default risk.