Exclusive Interview: Haider Ali Khan on MENA’s Digital Real Estate Future

Bayut and Dubizzle, play a pivotal role in the UAE's real estate ecosystem by serving as leading online property platforms. Together, they provide buyers, renters, and investors with comprehensive listings, market insights, and data-driven tools that simplify property searches and decision-making.

Bayut is known for its in-depth neighborhood guides and advanced filters, catering to a more premium property audience, while Dubizzle offers a broader classifieds platform, including budget-friendly rentals and sales. Their combined reach and digital innovation have significantly shaped how real estate is marketed and transacted in the region, helping bridge the gap between consumers and real estate professionals.

Under the leadership of Haider Ali Khan, the platforms have grown into key players not only in the UAE but across the MENA region. In an exclusive interview with Property News International, Khan shares insights on technology, strategy, and the future of real estate in a fast-moving digital world.

In an exclusive interview with Property News International, we explore strategy, consumer behavior, and technological advancements in the ever-evolving world of real estate.

Can you provide a brief background about yourself?

I’ve always been drawn to how technology can solve real-world challenges at scale and create meaningful impact. I began my career in tech, working across a range of markets and industries, which gave me a broad perspective on how digital solutions can transform everyday experiences. I studied engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, and over time, developed a strong interest in the fundamentals of marketing and business strategy. That combination has helped me apply a commercially viable approach to innovation.

Throughout my career, I’ve had the opportunity to lead businesses through phases of rapid growth and digital transformation. What attracted me to Bayut—and eventually to the broader Dubizzle Group—was the opportunity to reimagine how people engage with real estate and classifieds in the region, using technology as the catalyst for change.

Bayut and Dubizzle have become key players in the UAE's real estate and classifieds space. What has been your core strategy for achieving this growth?

It’s really been a mix of local awareness, product focus and deep market understanding. We’ve never looked at Bayut or Dubizzle as just listings platforms—we’ve treated them as ecosystems that need to work for everyone: agents, end-users, developers, car dealers, job seekers. That’s why we developed solutions like TruBroker™, which helps property seekers identify responsive, credible agents who actually know their market. It’s why we built TruEstimate™, so people could get a realistic data-backed valuation of their home—something the market badly needed.

Our focus has always been on giving users confidence and giving agents tools that elevate their business. That meant making big investments in tech, prioritising user experience and—most importantly—listening closely to our partners on the ground. We’ve also been very deliberate about not chasing hype; our growth has come from consistency, not shortcuts.

How do you plan to maintain a competitive edge in an increasingly digital and data-driven real estate market?

We’re leaning heavily into data, but more importantly, we’re focused on how that data turns into real action. Dubai Transactions, for example, is a feature on Bayut that lets users see real-time sales and rental prices of properties in the areas they’re searching—direct from DLD records. That’s incredibly powerful.

We’re also making sure that tools like TruEstimate™ continue to evolve with better machine learning models, and that agent performance is visible and rewarded through TruBroker™. Our edge won’t come from having more data—it will come from making that data work harder for our users. That means smarter recommendations, better pricing transparency, and faster, more confident decisions. A lot of our edge will come from what you don’t see—our back-end systems, predictive models, and AI-powered workflows.

How are changing consumer behaviours, especially among younger, tech-savvy buyers—shaping your platform offerings?

The expectations are radically different now. This generation is used to predictive, hyper-personalised experiences. They’ve grown up with platforms that anticipate their needs, not just respond to them.

We’ve already anticipated this and adapted by making our platforms smarter, mobile-first, and a lot more personalised. Whether it’s our proprietary, world-first AI-powered property search assistant Bayut GPT or our Sell with AI experience on Dubizzle, we’re building with this audience in mind. They don't want to scroll through hundreds of listings—they want to find the one in minutes and we’re helping them get there.

With AI and machine learning on the rise, how is Bayut/Dubizzle leveraging these technologies to improve the user experience or backend efficiency?

We see AI as less of a buzzword and more of a utility—it’s already embedded in everything we do. On the front-end, AI powers our property recommendations, price estimations, and even image quality scoring. On the backend, it optimises listing moderation, fraud detection and agent support workflows.

One of the most exciting developments is how we’re using machine learning to help agents understand which listings are likely to perform best—before they even go live. That’s the kind of insight that changes behaviour in a meaningful way.

What are the biggest challenges you foresee in the UAE’s property and classifieds sectors, and how are you preparing for them?

The biggest challenge is staying relevant in a market that moves incredibly fast. Consumer expectations are evolving at the speed of tech—and regulatory frameworks and investment flows are all shifting in parallel. That means building modular systems, being fast to test, and keeping our teams close to what’s happening in the market.

You can’t run these businesses from spreadsheets—you have to be on the ground, listening and adapting in real time.

What leadership principles have guided you through your journey at Bayut/Dubizzle, especially post-merger?

Ownership, innovation and honesty—these have always been our company’s core values and my own guiding principles. Mergers can be messy if you don’t have a clear north star. We were very intentional about aligning around purpose and values before we dove into processes.

I’ve always believed that people do their best work when they understand why they’re doing it. Post-merger, we focused heavily on transparency—communicating openly, setting ambitious but achievable goals, and giving teams the freedom to execute.

How do you foster innovation and adaptability within your team in a fast-moving digital landscape?

We don’t just encourage innovation—we create the conditions for it. That means giving teams room to experiment, rewarding bold thinking, and being okay with failure—as long as we learn fast.

We run regular internal demos where teams can showcase what they’re building, and that visibility creates momentum. We also encourage fast experimentation—some of our most successful tools like ProConnect™, a facilitator for agent collaboration came from teams just trying to solve real user pain points. The biggest unlock is autonomy. When people feel like they have ownership of the problem, they solve it faster and better than you ever could from the top down.

Where do you see Bayut/Dubizzle by 2030, and what impact do you hope the company will have on the broader MENA real estate and digital services ecosystem?

By 2030, I’d like us to be seen as the operating system for real estate and classifieds in MENA. Not just a place to browse, but a platform that handles everything—from pricing to paperwork to partnerships.

I want our products—like TruEstimate™, TruBroker™, and Dubai Transactions—to become default tools in every serious real estate journey. And more broadly, I hope we’re seen as the company that helped raise standards. Whether it's how people transact, how agents grow their businesses, or how data gets used responsibly, I want us to be the benchmark everyone else is measured against.