This page explains our methodology — how we research, assess and compare fractional real estate platforms in Saudi Arabia, how we verify what we publish, and how we keep this resource independent. We wrote it so you can judge our judgements. If something here doesn’t hold up, the comparison shouldn’t earn your trust.
Our methodology: the principles behind it
Four commitments shape everything on this site. Independence: no platform pays for placement, ranking, or a more favourable verdict, and no commercial relationship changes how we assess a platform. Transparency: we show our criteria and our sources, so our conclusions can be checked. Verification: we base claims on primary sources — each platform’s own disclosures, official regulator announcements, and verifiable licence records where they exist. Honesty about gaps: where information isn’t public, we say “not disclosed” rather than estimate or fill the gap with a guess.
What we assess
Every platform is evaluated against the same criteria, chosen because they reflect what actually affects an investor’s outcome and rights:
- Regulation and licensing — which authority oversees it, and under what status.
- What you own — a registered deed to a specific property, a tokenised share, or units in a managed fund.
- Minimum investment — the realistic entry point.
- Fee transparency — whether fee types and amounts are disclosed, and where.
- Sharia governance — whether there is a named Sharia committee and product-level certification, not just a general claim.
- Access for non-Saudis — whether overseas or non-Saudi investors can participate.
- Distributions and exit — how income is paid and how you can get out.
- Track record — how long the platform has operated and what it has delivered.
How we verify regulatory status
Regulatory standing is the criterion we treat most carefully, because the Saudi market has two different regimes and verification differs between them. For CMA-licensed platforms, the licence is a matter of public record and can be checked against the Capital Market Authority’s register — a hard verification. For platforms in the Real Estate General Authority’s regulatory sandbox, there is no public participant register, so we rely on REGA’s own official announcements together with each platform’s stated status and corroborating evidence such as registry integration. Crucially, we state plainly that sandbox participation is time-limited, supervised permission to test — not full market authorisation. We explain the underlying difference in our guide to REGA versus CMA. Where a platform’s regulatory standing cannot be verified from public sources, we say so explicitly.
Why we don’t publish a single score (yet)
It would be easy to reduce each platform to one number, and harder to make that number honest. Much of the data that would drive a score — exact fees, minimums, distribution terms — is set per opportunity inside each platform’s app rather than published as a fixed figure. A composite score built on partial and per-deal data would imply a precision we don’t have. So for now we use category verdicts — the best platform for a given priority, each tied to a specific verifiable fact — rather than a single ranking. A fuller weighted-scoring framework will be published here as a dated version when the underlying disclosure supports it, likely as the market’s formal regulations are finalised.
How we make money
Being independent does not mean being free to run. This site may earn referral or affiliate fees when a reader chooses to use a platform, and it builds an opt-in email list and aggregated, anonymised audience insights. We are transparent about this because the alternative — hidden incentives — is exactly what undermines a comparison’s value. Our commitment is simple: commercial arrangements never determine rankings, verdicts, or what we disclose about a platform. A platform we earn nothing from is assessed identically to one we do, and our verdicts are driven by the criteria above, not by what pays.
Keeping this current
Saudi fractional ownership is a fast-moving, newly regulated market: platforms enter and graduate from the sandbox, disclosures improve, and formal regulations are being finalised. Our reviews are therefore dated and revisited, and we update them as platforms disclose more and as the rules evolve. If you spot something out of date or inaccurate, we want to know — accuracy is the whole point of this resource.
FractionalKSA is an independent comparison and information resource. We are not affiliated with any platform we cover, are not a licensed investment platform or financial adviser, and nothing here is investment advice. Always verify a platform’s licensing and the terms of any opportunity directly before investing.