When Firas Al Msaddi arrived in Dubai in December 2005, he was 21, spoke very little English and shared a small apartment with around 12 strangers. He had left his home in Homs, Syria, with little more than ambition and a belief that the world had more to offer. Less than four years later he had founded fäm Properties, now one of Dubai’s largest real estate brokerages.
His story, told to Emirates 24|7 on 4 November 2026, is a reminder that Dubai rewards people who keep going when the first door stays shut. Al Msaddi went to more than 40 job interviews before anyone hired him. Today he runs a group built on brokerage, property data and technology.
A 21-year-old arrived in Dubai with no contacts and very little English
Growing up in Homs in the 1990s, Al Msaddi watched friends come home from Europe, the United States and the Gulf with stories of life abroad. It drew a picture of the opportunities the world had to offer, and he wanted to see them for himself. As he dropped friends off at Damascus Airport, he kept asking himself when he would be the one travelling, instead of the person saying goodbye.
In December 2005 he took the leap. After a brief stay in Saudi Arabia he reached Dubai, and his first sight of Sheikh Zayed Road and its towers left him convinced the city was full of opportunity. He moved into a small apartment shared with around 12 people, all non-Arabs, because he knew living with English speakers would force him to learn the language fast.
His first interview did not go well. He walked into the room, said hello, sat down, and then could not say another word, because his English was so poor. He was embarrassed, especially as a friend had recommended him, but he refused to let it stop him.
Forty interviews later, a retail job opened the door to property
After more than 40 interviews, Al Msaddi finally landed a job in retail, earning AED 5,000 to AED 5,500 a month. He took extra shifts, determined to learn more and offer more to customers, but bigger ambitions were already taking over. During his holidays he tried working in real estate, focusing on rentals, and closed his first deal in 25 days.
That first success gave him the confidence to take the next step. Just two years after landing in Dubai, he left a steady job with a fixed income to move into real estate full time and set up fäm Properties.
Why he started fäm Properties in the middle of a financial crisis
His timing looked wrong to almost everyone. The world was going through a financial crisis, and what interest people had in property was about buying, not renting. Al Msaddi decided to go the other way, with a lease-only approach built around a single project, Executive Towers in Business Bay, because he knew those apartments inside out.
It was a deliberate choice to pick one thing and know it better than anyone else. He has always believed in looking beyond what people are feeling and making decisions based on what you can see and understand for yourself. He did not see starting a business during the crisis as a risk in the way others might have, because he believed there would still be a need to sell and rent properties.
The same thinking carried the business through the 2009 crisis, the slowdown of 2015 and the pandemic. Each time, he says, people questioned whether Dubai and its property market could recover, and each time the city kept developing and creating new opportunities. For him, that is the spirit of Dubai: looking ahead, adapting and continuing to move forward.
How DXBinteract turned property data into a second business
From the start, the company put a heavy focus on technology, data and statistics. In 2021 it set up DXBinteract, a real estate data and market intelligence platform for the Dubai property market. The platform was founded by his brother Fateh Al Msaddi, chief operating officer of fäm Properties, with Firas as co-founder, and it has become an important part of the Dubai property market.
DXBinteract provides data on property transactions, rents, price trends, future supply, developer delivery and investment returns, including analysis based on Dubai Land Department records. In October 2026, fäm Properties connected the platform to ChatGPT and Claude, so buyers, investors and brokers can ask plain questions about prices, yields and handovers and get answers drawn from that data.
Al Msaddi says the team did not know artificial intelligence would develop as quickly as it has, but they believed in the importance of reliable data and using it to understand the market. That belief now sits at the centre of the business, from the brokerage to the data platform.
What started with a shared apartment and 40 failed interviews is now a group that spans brokerage, leasing, property management, mortgages and data. Al Msaddi’s advice, in his own words, is simple: never stand still, because getting to the top is not enough. You have to keep working, improving and pushing forward, because the world keeps changing, and now it is changing faster than ever with artificial intelligence.
