A 24-year-old who left home as a teenager has become one of the most successful real estate agents in Dubai.
Conor McKay knew he wanted to venture into the world and realise dreams of becoming a millionaire when he was at a young age. At 19 he was working in the motor sales industry but made the jump to real estate in the United Arab Emirates.
Originally from Londonderry in Northern Ireland he tells BelfastLive he used to repeatedly "harass" real estate brokers for a job. Now, he takes pride in talking about his rise to become one of Dubai's leading luxury property brokers.
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He has been named in the UAE top 10 agents by PropertyFinder and named Best Agent by UAE property portals on multiple occasions. Conor is also only one of three agents in the city to be named the number one agent in consecutive years.
Speaking to MyDerry, Conor says he has always "loved making money" and would even have fellow classmates working for him while he was at school. He said: "I grew up like anyone else really. I was really into sports when I was growing up but I was always into making money. I would have three or four people working for me in school, selling energy drinks, sweets, chocolates and after that, I began running Golf Store NI on eBay.
"I always had an interest in making a lot of money. I then got another job in a bar and I was enjoying doing that at the time but I wasn't really making any money at it. That's when I decided that I would try car sales and I got a job with Donnelly."
Conor would watch Million Dollar Listing: Los Angeles in his spare time. A reality TV series which stars young real estate agents and brokers like Josh Flagg, Josh Altman and Tracey Tutor. Watching them sell the most prestigious properties in L.A., Conor decided he wanted to be just like them.
He continued: "What struck me about it all was the way that they lived. It was like something that I had never really been exposed to before. They all had good business acumen, had handsome earnings and lived lavish lifestyles. I was absolutely astonished looking at these properties and the commission that they would be receiving, which always popped up on the screen. I thought to myself, if they can do it then so could I."
Conor initially tried moving to the US but then settled in the Middle East. He explained: "I had all the intentions of moving over to the USA and trying to get started there but it didn't work out because it's not an easy process of getting into America and that's when I came across Dubai.
"I had never been in Dubai, I had never been for a holiday and I kept getting turned down by brokers because there were no people of the age that I was doing the job that I wanted to do. It was unheard of. One company, after me harassing them for quite a while gave me an opportunity. Fast forward to the present day and I am living my absolute dream.
"It's easy for people now to look at the posts on social media and think that it was easy to get here but I can assure them that it's not. When I finally got a job I initially had nowhere to live, I stayed in a hotel for seven days and then I ended up getting a maid's room, which was very small.
"I had no idea what I was doing either, I had to learn as I went along and I just knew that I would have to work harder than anybody else out here. When I first started and even to this day, there are some days where I start at 8am and don't finish to midnight. It's a lot of work and that's what is required if you want to make it."
Conor, who currently works for Belleview Real Estate, now holds the record for selling Dubai’s most expensive villa. He sold a custom-built, 33,300-square-foot mega-mansion earlier this month for AED 280 million (around £59m). The previous long-standing record - of AED 185m (around £39m) - has been unbeaten since 2015, while many transactions came close to that amount in the intervening years.
"I actually talk to the people out in Los Angeles that were part of the reality TV show and I actually brokered a deal from Dubai for a property in LA. If someone told me a number of years ago that I would set the sort of record that I have then I probably wouldn't have believed them myself.
"I've been doubted by everybody, I even doubted myself at times but I have set the sky as the limit now and I want to be known as the go-to real estate broker across the planet in the next 10 years."
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