Oh my god damn I'm the king of this life! In Russia I would get caught already. And he asks me one question that changes my whole life. I think very nice point for Dubai is that you don't get stopped for nothing.

Not just how I moved here, but what were the first steps to survive? How did I establish later on? What type of job, what type of strategy I used to obtain new clients? How I gained trust of my clients and investors? And most importantly, how to build my own success based on the success of my clients. And the people I worked with here in Dubai.

Okay, 2021 was the first time when I encountered Dubai. Totally hated the experience. Awful. Dry, hot weather. Absence of greenery. No fresh water.

Super expensive. The company rented us an apartment $3,000 plus for a studio in JLT. At that moment, I'm like, shit, how people even survive here with these prices? So all those things present in my life, I'm still not established. Like I'm already getting a pretty good salary, but I hate the experience of living here. My CEO is constantly approaching me. RT, you move in, we'll increase the salary. Just please be closer to clients. I was constantly rejecting that.

And since I was already opening a branch company in Dubai, that was the first time I was considering moving to Dubai. Not because I was choosing, but because I had to. That really helped me. Because I didn't have that back-thought of not going. Like I didn't have a choice. It was the only country I could go to. A year in, working in my software company, I'm getting 20 to 25K per month. Which is considered to be a pretty okay salary. It's not something too much, but it's definitely above average.

I was getting established on the ground. I rented myself an apartment. It was Palm Jumeirah. I never thought I can live surrounded with such luxury, having a view of the water and marine life. People were parking their expensive yachts just outside my balcony. I'm like, okay, that is something I want to reach.

Eventually when I got to know Dubai a bit more, I settled in. I got a car, driving license, Emirates ID, annual rental. When I could freely breathe, I started enjoying it a bit more. Then I found some hobbies. Volleyball and jeeping in the dunes. And that's when my life actually started delivering pleasure to me.

All right, so when I just moved to Dubai, I discovered a hobby. I like playing beach volleyball. And I met these guys. And then eventually I even met Alex.

He's my core investor right now. So he was observing me, not just as a specialist. He was observing me as a human being. Like how I was positioning myself, how I was reacting to different situations. So that played a huge role in my life. Eventually we bought 15 or 16 units together. Only this month, we are having three transactions with that guy. Me and my partner, we decided that the best course for me would be to join a very strong agency. And there were several — FAM properties, Metropolitan, AX Capital. What happened at this point is that Max is my partner from volleyball.

He said, look, you have your own deals. Why don't you close them in other companies? So I'm like, yeah, why not? I found out that some companies are willing to pay 80 or even 90% of the commission back if I close to them. So I had a couple of deals closed there. And then Max just introduced me to Core Realty. Like, hey, there is a nice broker community. They're on the Dubai market since 2022. You can completely trust them. Why don't you close with them? They give 100% of the commission back. I'm like, what?! But since it was Max, my close friend, I didn't have any doubt. I just came in, signed everything. And started working.

9 a.m. you have to be at work. You work until 6:30 p.m. But I hardly left at 6:30. I always left like 8 to 9 p.m. And you always have to call, call, call. Okay, today 50 calls minimum. And I hate that type of work. It just doesn't work. It's a low conversion.

My best results come from networking. Communities like volleyball, paddle, just networking with other brokers. Not like just calling, calling, and calling. When I meet new people, it really depends what I expect from them. If it's a lead, like if it's something connected to work — well, of course, I'm going to be working from a work point of view. Taking into account a win-win strategy. First of all, I'm thinking, what can I give to him? What value can I deliver to make this person actually say, yeah, I like that.

That gives me more than 10 other brokers on the market who are just resending the brochures. But if we're talking about communities connected to my hobbies, I don't think of values or what I can give. I'm just being myself. That's the only secret.

[Эмилия]: I feel like he's putting all of himself there. This is so cool. I know some brokers in Dubai myself. I had to deal with this before I met Artem. And Artem just broke all my stereotypes. I never thought that the broker could be so nice. But really caring so much about the customer. Really. That's why all of Artem's clients, once they start, they never finish. They would never find a better broker.

You know, people say, oh, the view, I already forgot about it. Like we live here, it's every day there. No way. Every day I wake up, I take my coffee. I'm like, God damn, I'm the king of this life.

What can I say about my approach to earning the clients, to earning money for my clients? What makes them stick to me, to work with me over and over again? So Northline by Miras, it's an off-plan project, meaning that there is only land. Nothing built. The developer is just selling us renders, brochures, and whatever is going to be there, built within three, four years.

Now, at that point, I was still just learning how to be an expert on the market. And I offer Alex, my core investor, a one bedroom for 2.2 million that will be constructed in four years. And why I did it is because there are, let's say like 500 units to be sold out. And there are 4,000 EOIs. So 4,000 people wanting to buy an apartment in this project where only 500 units. And I'm like, wow, if there is such a demand, then it's a good project.

But 2.2 million, remember this number. We already submitted an EOI 50,000. It's day of launch. The representative calls me and says, Arty, I can allocate you a very good unit. 2.2 million, good view, high floor. I call Alex immediately to get his confirmation. And he asks me one question that changes my whole life.

"Who are we going to sell it to?" And at this moment, I have no answer. Because something that was launched before is right now selling for 1.9, same size. And I'm like, okay, so three, four years, maybe 2.2. But we're buying at 2.2 and want to earn. So we need to sell 2.4, 2.5. Because there's also a land department fee of 4% that we pay on top. So our original price is actually higher. And the more I analyzed, the less I liked investing in off-plan.

This is amazing because after renovation, you can generate 11 or even 12% net ROI with the highest rent. But then you can resell it to someone else who's looking to invest in Dubai and get 8% ROI. We can do that converting these from 12 to 8. So we are getting 12% ROI net. Let's say we put a price so that the new buyer starts earning 8% net ROI. And this conversion of these 3, 4%, it totals up in 25 to 35% net ROI on resale.

So here we reach a strategy where we can buy an old office, renovate it, rent it out, and resell all within one year or even less, and gain 25 or 30% net ROI. So I start seeing these numbers. I start working with Ivan. I sell 6 or 7 offices of his own.

And then Ivan decides to open his own agency and starts making it a business for himself. Unfortunately, we spread our ways. I'm really grateful to him for this route, the path that he showed me. We're in very good friendship relations. But I'm doing it myself now with my own partner. In my approach, I decided not to work with multiple clients. I decided to work with only selected clients. But then we buy, we sell, we rent, we buy again, we sell again. And I earn commission constantly with the same people. It's more about quality than quantity.

Interesting when you get established in Dubai real estate market, you understand that it's not that big. Yes, we do have around 20,000 plus licensed brokers. And there are around 75,000–80,000 brokers in total without licenses. People who identify themselves as brokers. But anyway, the market is much less when you contact the proper people and look for those gems.

When I get completely tired of the concrete and glass within the urban city of Dubai, I find peace here. It's a natural gateway for me, Al-Qudra Lakes. It's actually just plain desert where we're standing right now. And this is a great place for camping. It's never restricted. Even once I was doing camping, a police car was coming by. They stopped just to ask me, how am I doing?

I, to be honest, got scared at first because, well, I'm a citizen of Russia initially. My mindset is that if a police car stops, nothing good is going to happen. But here, they stop, they ask you how you are.

Yeah, long story short, I received a question from my colleague in one of the internal chats. She has an Israeli client who's asking, hey, I'm a bit scared of investing in Dubai because, what if they take away my ownership rights? What do you think about the conflict between Qatar and UAE in 2017? I'm like, what conflict? So I went researching, found out that there was one and it actually lasted till 2021. And even the citizens of Qatar were asked to leave the country of UAE.

But even during this time, there weren't any massive cases of taking away the property of those people. So this gives us an idea of the position, the strategic thinking of supreme leaders of our country. They're always thinking about the future. They have a plan.

So point being is that even though there are conflicts, if the country has a clear structure, clear planning up ahead and scarcity of real estate properties, then the prices will grow. Even in Dubai, before the conflict started and impacting in whatever way it's impacting right now, people are constantly asking, is Dubai a bubble? Like the prices have been growing consecutively for like five years now.

And I won't be investing because now we're at the all time market high. So I'll just wait. But the same thing we heard in 2020, when COVID broke out, people started saying, oh, the market is going to shut down. I'm going to wait for 2022 or 2023. Then 2022, 2023, Dubai was the first country to recover so fast after COVID. The prices were skyrocketing.

Now the same people are saying, now we are in a bubble. Now we have to wait for two more years to see where it ends up. So, you know, you have to act fast. In every situation, you can find good opportunities. Only people who know how to generate business for themselves can survive in such conditions.

My piece of advice is just to believe in yourself. Try something. We're living in an era when you can use your YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. If you do some actions, you will get some results. People just don't want to do that. Or they're scared that if they start doing it, they won't have any result and then they will end up without an income. A little bit of faith in yourself. That's what I would say will help people just end up where I am.