DUBAI- Dubai's Emaar Properties , which plans to list part of its development unit, reported a 32 percent rise in third-quarter net profit on Sunday, helped by a surge in sales of residential properties.

The developer, in which Dubai's government owns a minority stake, made a net profit of 1.51 billion dirhams ($411.16 million) in the three months to Sept. 30, it said in a statement.

That compares with a profit of 1.15 billion dirhams in the year-earlier period.

SICO Bahrain had forecast Emaar would make a quarterly profit of 1.36 billion dirhams.

Emaar said sale of residential properties rose 32 percent in the nine months to the end of September this year from a year earlier, to 15.36 billion dirhams.

"The impressive growth in sales of our Dubai residential launches this year puts us in a strong position to generate strong cash flows for the coming years," Emaar's chairman, Mohamed Alabbar, said in a statement.

Emaar's quarterly revenue was 5.59 billion dirhams, which compares with 3.85 billion dirhams a year earlier.

Dubai's Emaar Properties is looking to raise as much as $1.5 billion from the sale of its 20 percent stake in its development unit in Dubai's first major listing since 2014 .

($1 = 3.6725 UAE dirham)

(Reporting by Saeed Azhar, editing by Larry King) ((alexander.cornwell@thomsonreuters.coms.net))