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Born and raised in Drent, with a clear Drenthe accent at the time, I had to find an internship for my education at Hanze University of Applied Sciences. That search brought me into contact with Rens Hageman, owner of Groove Digital — a digital marketing company in Amsterdam — and now co-owner of GREM.
At Groove Digital, we worked on a new marketing concept where we helped real estate agents in Dubai with the customer generation. The idea was simple: by giving investors more knowledge, we would gain trust and convert them into loyal customers. That was my first encounter with the real estate market in Dubai.
To sell this service, we decided to travel to Dubai ourselves. There we went from door to door, from real estate office to real estate office to sell our concept. It was a nerve-racking experience: wearing a suit, sweating in the scorching 35-degree heat, I walked into an office over and over again. My default opening line was:
“I came all the way from Amsterdam to Dubai to help you with your marketing. Could I speak to your CEO?”
I was usually asked to wait in the lobby for a while until the CEO had time to talk to me. Every time I walked into an office, I saw the same picture: a large hall filled with desks and computers, agents shouting, scoreboards with commissions on the wall, and, in some offices, even a gong that was sounded at every sale. It felt like I was right out of a scene The Wolf of Wall Street had stepped in.
It soon became clear that our service was not working as we expected. Where we thought investors would benefit from knowledge about real estate in Dubai, the brokers thought otherwise. The less the investor knew about the risks of investing in Dubai, the better. All they needed to hear was the beautiful, positive story, the promise of high returns and endless growth opportunities. And then sign them as quickly as possible, without asking too many questions about the potential risks of the market.
At that moment, I realized: this has to be different. Yes, the real estate market in Dubai is interesting, but only if you invest with the right honest people and based on an honest story.
