After nine years renting, UAE investor finally lives in his own home

For nine years, Shabbash Khan owned homes in the UAE without ever living in one. He rented a flat of his own while his properties appreciated, channeling every dirham of rental income back into new purchases and using equity to keep buying. Last month, that changed. For the first time since he began investing, the 35-year-old moved into a home he actually owns.

It was a deliberate strategy, and by his own account it has worked. Khan, a performance director at a digital media agency, now holds eight properties spread across three emirates, five in Dubai, two in Abu Dhabi and one in Sharjah, with a combined value of about Dh25 million. His net worth sits close to Dh10 million. He has already marked the date he intends to stop working: before he turns 40.

The road to that portfolio began far from the Gulf, in a media agency in India where Khan started as a marketing executive in a digital firm. The pay, he says, was peanuts, less than 1,000 rupees, so little that he no longer remembers the exact figure.

When he arrived in Dubai, his father lent him some money for expenses, and he saw the city as a land of opportunity. He began comparing India and the UAE, and the numbers pointed one way. The dirham is pegged to the dollar while the rupee is relatively flat, so even money left sitting in dirhams was earning more than it would back home. Rental yields sealed the decision: India offered two or three per cent, while the UAE easily delivered six to eight. Within his first two years, every dirham he had saved went into real estate.

What strikes him most, looking back, is that his salary has barely moved. He still works the same single job, and the raises over the years amount to hardly anything. The wealth came from the properties instead. “Salary increases at a marginal pace, but when you hold so many properties, even if every property increases little by little, your portfolio gets built up,” he says.

The first million was the hardest, assembled from salary, savings and a personal loan. The second and third came relatively faster. That pattern, he explains, is the quiet engine of property ownership: assets that grow little by little, compounding while the pay slip stays flat.

His views on wealth were shaped early. As a child, he learned to separate what matters from what merely looks impressive. Impulse buying and showing off, he says, take you nowhere. “Rich people are not defined by a fancy home or fancy car. Rich people have time at their disposal. If tomorrow you have to wake up and go to the office, then you’re not rich. You might be earning Dh30,000, Dh50,000, Dh100,000, and if you are just one pay cheque away from bankruptcy, you’re not rich.”

He also learned that time is the one asset nobody can manufacture. “If you trade time, you can never win that game. Everybody, Elon Musk, yourself, myself, everybody has 24 hours. The universe has made it a point. How come one person runs five different companies, and the other person lives pay cheque to pay cheque?” As he has grown, he says, time and connection with family have come to matter more than working for someone else.

Real estate remains his best investment, though he is careful not to universalize it. Some people find their niche in crypto, some in gold. His own rule is simple: focus on something you cannot make more of. Gold and real estate both qualify, and he believes their value will keep rising.

Not every purchase has aged well. He once wanted fancy cars and fulfilled a childhood dream with a BMW, only to discover it cost more than he imagined and did nothing more than take him from point A to point B. After two years, the lesson had landed. What he truly cherishes is having a roof over his head, the emotional satisfaction and guarantee it provides. Buying his first property remains a cherished memory; before turning 30, he already owned multiple homes.

His advice to younger investors is blunt: start early. Someone who begins at 40 will never get ahead of the race the way a person in their 20s can. And to his younger self, he would offer two things. First, read books, because personal experience alone is not enough to sustain you, and other people’s philosophy is worth understanding. Second, do whatever you do passionately. Waking up early and going through the motions, he says, will take you nowhere.

For a man who spent nine years as a landlord who never slept in his own homes, the move last month may be the most telling milestone of all. The portfolio is built, the target is set, and the next chapter, before he turns 40, is one he plans to spend on his own time rather than anyone else’s.