More than 3,200 residents have bought their first Dubai homes under a programme now connecting 22 developers and five banks. For Holo co-founder and CEO Michael Hunter, the expansion points toward a property market built increasingly around the buyer.
- From resident to homeowner
- Capital follows the homeownership thesis
- The operating layer around the purchase
- Holo increasingly describes itself in those terms. At its sixth anniversary in 2026, the company said it was building “the operating layer behind modern property decisions across the UAE”, extending the idea beyond mortgage comparison alone.
Dubai spent much of the past decade proving that it could attract international property capital. Its next phase is putting greater weight on converting the people who already live in the city into homeowners.
The scale is becoming visible. Dubai’s First-Time Home Buyer Programme has enabled more than 3,200 residents to purchase their first homes since its July 2025 launch, generating more than AED5 billion in residential transactions. Nine additional developers joined the scheme in June, taking participation to 22 developers alongside five banks, according to the Dubai Media Office’s latest programme update.
That sits inside a property market of exceptional size. Dubai recorded more than 270,000 real estate transactions worth AED917 billion in 2025, up 20% year on year, while resident investors accounted for 56.6% of the investor base, according to Dubai Land Department figures. The average period for a renter to become an investor was 4.8 years.
From resident to homeowner
Those numbers describe more than investment demand. They describe the emergence of a larger end-user market.
The First-Time Home Buyer Programme is open to UAE residents aged 18 and above who do not already own freehold residential property in Dubai. Its structure brings developers, banks and government bodies around the same transaction, widening access to properties across different locations, price points and formats.
That creates an obvious opportunity for the businesses sitting between the buyer, the property and the financing decision. Holo, founded in 2020 by Michael Hunter and Arran Summerhill, has built its proposition around precisely that junction. The company says its digital platform provides access to more than 20 lenders, while combining technology with mortgage advisers and transaction visibility from pre-approval through financing.
By its own figures, Holo had supported more than 80,000 clients and was processing more than AED1 billion in transactions each month when it announced its latest funding round. Those operating figures are company-reported, while the scale of the investment itself was independently confirmed by participating investor anb capital.
Capital follows the homeownership thesis
In August 2025, Holo raised a $22 million Series A led by Saudi Arabia’s Impact46, with participation from Mubadala, Rua Growth Fund, anb seed, MoreThan Capital, Salica Oryx Fund and Dubai Future District Fund. The company described the round as capital for expanding its home-buying model across the UAE and Saudi Arabia, with its funding announcement placing regional homeownership at the centre of the strategy.
Hunter put the proposition simply in August 2025: “The future of homeownership in the GCC will be digital-first.” In the same LinkedIn announcement, he said Holo’s mission remained to make ownership “simpler, smarter, and accessible for everyone.”
The timing fits Dubai’s policy direction. A first-time buyer programme does not simply create another sales channel for developers. It creates a population of residents who need to understand eligibility, compare finance, secure pre-approval and move from property search to completion as one connected process.
The operating layer around the purchase
Holo increasingly describes itself in those terms. At its sixth anniversary in 2026, the company said it was building “the operating layer behind modern property decisions across the UAE”, extending the idea beyond mortgage comparison alone.
That evolution makes sense in a market where the ecosystem around homeownership is becoming more connected. Holo’s HUB product has also brought real estate agents into the platform. The company said more than 2,000 agents joined within two months of launch, giving agents a way to refer mortgage buyers and track applications while connecting with Holo buyers searching for property.
The first-time buyer programme adds public-sector scale to the same direction of travel. Twenty-two developers, five banks, thousands of buyers and billions of dirhams in completed transactions now sit inside a structure designed around making ownership easier to navigate.
Dubai has already demonstrated that it can build one of the world’s largest international real estate markets. Its next homeownership story may be about integration: connecting the resident, the property, the adviser, the lender and the transaction inside a single journey. That is the market Holo has spent six years building towards.
