Victory belongs not to those who follow the crowd, but to those who spot potential where others have yet to glimpse emerging opportunities. Maria Maslenkova’s boutique agency, MIO Real Estate, specialises in high-yield property investments across the UAE. One of my clients has purchased five properties in the Emirates over five years, successfully sold two, and lets the others.
He has never set foot in the UAE. His first investment came at the beginning of 2020, and since then he has experienced the full cycle: from buying off plan to receiving keys, from preparing the property to letting it, from selling to reinvesting — all from a distance, with complete trust in our expertise. The key feature of our approach is that we work with a maximum of 5% of all market offerings.
I select only what I would buy myself. As an active investor with a personal portfolio of more than ten investment properties in the UAE alone and over twenty-five properties across five countries worldwide, I offer clients exclusively those properties that can subsequently be profitably sold or let. We always identify emerging trends and work ahead of the curve.
In 2018, I began actively selling Dubai properties; between 2022 and 2023, we switched almost entirely to Abu Dhabi. This market is now decidedly more interesting for investors. Despite being a small agency, we’ve been in the top five partners of Abu Dhabi’s key government developer, Aldar, for several years running.
This is remarkable, as all the others in this top five are large agencies with hundreds of employees. Abu Dhabi is where my heart lies in investment terms. There’s very limited supply and rapidly growing demand.
Far fewer new projects launch compared to Dubai. The locations are superb, and the population is increasing rapidly, with many affluent families choosing Abu Dhabi over Dubai. Supply simply can’t keep up with demand, driving prices upward.
Our strategy involves identifying trends at the earliest stage, entering them, then gradually exiting as they gain momentum. Our gaze now turns to Saudi Arabia, a market with colossal potential that recently signed legislation allowing foreigners to own property.