From Marbella to One of Dubai’s Largest Residential Sales: Jimmy Widén’s Buyer-First Strategy

And I guess at that point, the market looked a little bit different also.

So this was quite a few years before COVID.

And I guess COVID was a fairly substantial accelerator for this area, also south of Spain, Marbella, the cities around.

So now there's a lot more agents, I would assume, than it was maybe back then, or different type of agents, maybe.

I would say it like this.

I sold 95% holiday homes to clients in an average age above 60 before COVID.

Since COVID, we now sell to an average age of 46 with two kids that they put in the school here and 40% permanent living of all the transactions we are doing.

Wow.

On top of that, Marbella has grown from 140 nationalities to 155.

But again, the main reason why to invest and why to buy has changed due to the growth of digital meetings that came from COVID.

So people can live wherever they want.

You are born in Stuttgart, but you don't need to live there any longer, and you definitely don't need to run your business there.

We have a macro economy and global digital sphere.

So this is the biggest game changer.

Agents come and go.

It was a lot of agents then also, and it's a lot of agents now.

I actually don't think that the amount of agents have changed.

And I don't think either that it's changed so much how many transactions that are done.

But from 95% holiday homes to 40% permanent living, that's like flipping.

a coin completely

because the circumstances change.

So you moved from Sweden into a new country.

Okay, you knew the market a bit.

You knew kind of the flipping side of buying and selling apartments in Sweden.

But what was the biggest challenge of launching an actual agency here?