Large real estate portfolios are not constrained by demand. Across the Middle East and other growth markets, population growth, capital inflows, and large-scale development programs continue to create steady buyer and tenant interest. The harder problem sits elsewhere: how efficiently that demand is converted into completed transactions and delivered services across multiple projects.
As portfolios expand, the cost of execution rises. Sales, leasing, broker coordination, contracting, fit-out, and post-handover services are often run project by project, with limited reuse of processes or partners. Each new development adds operational effort, manual coordination, and risk. This is where Marketplace-as-a-Service is gaining relevance - not as a new type of marketplace online, but as a practical operating model for running real estate portfolios at scale.
What is an online marketplace in a real estate context?
When people ask what is an online marketplace, they often picture a listing site. In a real estate portfolio context, that definition is incomplete.
An online marketplace platform for real estate portfolios is better understood as a B2B marketplace that connects demand, transactions, and services through a shared execution model. It brings together buyers, brokers, tenants, and service providers inside a single digital marketplace platform - not just to discover opportunities, but to run them end to end.
In this sense, real estate marketplaces sit closer to enterprise marketplace platforms than consumer marketplaces. Their role is not to attract traffic, but to reduce friction across sales, leasing, onboarding, and service delivery.
Why real estate portfolios need a B2B marketplace model
As portfolios grow, operational strain shows up in predictable ways:
- Sales and leasing processes vary across projects
- Broker onboarding and documentation are repeated
- Service providers are contracted separately for each asset
- Visibility into partner performance is fragmented
- Costs scale linearly with activity
Traditional tools - CRMs, ERPs, project portals - were never designed to act as marketplace management systems. They manage internal data well, but struggle to orchestrate multi-party execution across projects.
A B2B marketplace business model works because it treats execution as reusable infrastructure. Instead of rebuilding processes for every project, the marketplace becomes the common layer through which demand, partners, and services are coordinated.
Marketplace-as-a-service vs traditional marketplace platforms
Many real estate groups experiment with building custom marketplace platforms. These often start with good intentions but run into familiar issues:
- Long build cycles
- High maintenance costs
- Limited reuse across assets
- Dependency on internal IT teams
Marketplace-as-a-Service differs because it is designed as a SaaS marketplace from the start. The focus is not on bespoke features, but on standardized execution.
In a SaaS marketplace platform:
- Onboarding, contracting, settlement, and reporting are pre-built
- New projects reuse existing workflows
- Enhancements benefit the entire portfolio
For portfolio owners, MaaS shifts the question from “what do we need to build?” to “what should we standardize?”
Who operates the marketplace and who participates
In real estate, the most effective marketplaces are operator-led.
Primary operators
- Large developers and master developers
- Special Economic Zone (SEZ) authorities
- REITs and multi-asset portfolio owners
These organizations already control inventory, demand channels, and partner ecosystems. They are well positioned to operate an enterprise marketplace platform.
Participants
- Buyers and tenants (residential, commercial, industrial)
- Brokers and channel partners
- Service providers: fit-out contractors, facilities management firms, legal advisors, relocation services
- The operator’s own services (leasing, asset services, tenant support)
The model allows the operator to sell its own services while enabling partners to sell complementary services inside a governed multi-vendor marketplace.
Where the real estate industry friction sits today
Across large portfolios, friction appears less in demand creation and more in execution:
- Broker networks operate under different rules per project
- Service providers are onboarded repeatedly with different contracts
- Sales handover to fit-out and facilities is poorly coordinated
- Performance data is scattered across systems
- Scaling activity means adding people, not reusing processes
This is where traditional marketplace management software falls short. Most tools manage listings or vendors, but do not act as a true marketplace management system capable of running transactions and services across assets.
How marketplace management software changes execution
When sales, leasing, and services run through a digital marketplace software layer, execution changes in practical ways:
- Brokers follow a shared lead handling and documentation flow
- Vendors onboard once and operate across multiple projects
- Services are triggered automatically from transaction milestones
- Performance data accumulates across the portfolio
Instead of acting as another system, the marketplace becomes the operating backbone for portfolio activity.
This is the difference between a marketplace platform and a marketplace platform software designed for enterprise use.
Multi-vendor marketplace use cases in real estate
Real estate portfolios are inherently multi-party environments. A multi-vendor marketplace works best where execution is repeatable:
Sales and leasing
- Standardized buyer journeys across projects
- Common documentation and approval flows
Broker networks
- Shared onboarding, compliance, and commission workflows
- Consistent lead allocation rules
Fit-out and readiness services
- Approved contractors reused portfolio-wide
- Services triggered automatically after transaction milestones
Facilities and property management
- Multiple vendors coordinated through a single service marketplace platform
SEZ tenant services
Licensing, logistics, HR, and compliance services delivered through a services marketplace
These are not new services. The marketplace simply runs them more efficiently.
Why Marketplace-as-a-Service makes commercial sense
From a commercial perspective, Marketplace-as-a-Service delivers three clear benefits:
1. Lower operating cost per transaction
Reusable workflows replace project-by-project setup. Over time, the cost of running each additional transaction or service drops.
2. Faster conversion from demand to revenue
Fewer hand-offs between sales, contracting, and service delivery reduce delays - critical in off-plan and multi-phase developments.
3. Incremental service-led revenue
Services offered closer to the point of transaction and handover increase completion rates and lifetime value.
This is why MaaS works as a marketplace solution rather than a technology experiment.
Marketplace-as-a-Service vs custom online marketplace software
Custom online marketplace software often promises flexibility but creates long-term burden:
- Each enhancement requires development effort
- Governance varies across projects
- Reuse is limited
A SaaS marketplace shifts focus to consistency and scale. For real estate portfolios, the goal is not uniqueness - it is predictability.
Key questions real estate leaders should ask
Before adopting Marketplace-as-a-Service, portfolio owners should ask:
- Which processes are truly repeatable across projects?
- Where does demand reliably enter the system today?
- Which partners should operate across the entire portfolio?
- What data defines performance and service quality?
- How will the marketplace evolve as the portfolio grows?
These questions determine whether the marketplace becomes an asset - or another system.
Marketplace-as-a-Service (MaaS): Why choose Torry Harris marketplace?
In enterprise and regulated environments, Marketplace-as-a-Service is effective only when it reduces the effort required to run marketplaces repeatedly, not just launch them. The Torry Harris Marketplace has been designed as an operating layer that supports consistent execution, governance, and scale across multiple programs and partner ecosystems.
Reusable execution workflows
Standardized onboarding, compliance, contracting, and settlement flows that can be reused across programs instead of rebuilt each time.
Embedded governance and control
Policy rules and compliance checks are built into execution workflows, reducing manual oversight and audit risk as scale increases.
Lower marginal operating cost
New programs and partners can be added without proportional increases in operational or IT effort.
Portfolio-level visibility
A consolidated view of partner activity and performance across programs, enabling informed commercial and operational decisions.
Aligned with build-vs-orchestrate economics
Supports orchestration of demand and partners through a MaaS model, avoiding the long-term burden of custom marketplace builds.
Marketplace-as-a-Service is not about creating another real estate platform. It is about running a portfolio through a single operating model - one that converts demand more predictably, scales services without proportional cost, and turns partner ecosystems into a source of leverage rather than complexity.
For large real estate portfolios, the competitive edge increasingly lies not in what is built, but in how consistently and efficiently it is operated.
FAQ: Marketplace-as-a-Service for real estate industry
A B2B marketplace in real estate connects developers, brokers, tenants, and service providers through a shared execution model focused on transactions and services, not just listings.
An online marketplace platform is used to standardize how sales, leasing, onboarding, and services are executed across multiple assets.
Marketplace-as-a-Service is a SaaS marketplace model that provides reusable workflows and governance, rather than a one-off custom marketplace build.
Multi-vendor marketplace software allows multiple brokers and service providers to operate under a shared set of rules across projects.
Yes. MaaS aligns well with enterprise marketplace platforms where scale, governance, and reuse are more important than bespoke features.
By standardizing onboarding, contracting, service delivery, and settlement instead of repeating them for each project.
