How college dropout became a realty star

BEN BANDARI HAS SOLD PROPERTIES WORTH DH25B IN DUBAI

- BY MANJUSHA RADHAKRISHNAN

If Dubai were a person, it would probably look a lot like Ben Bandari — confident, relentless, and unapologetically ambitious. The kind of man who doesn’t just sell dreams; he lives inside one.

A Canadian college dropout who landed in a dusty, half-built Dubai with little more than hustle in his pocket, Ben has since flipped that grit into gold — billions of dirhams’ worth, to be exact.

Born in Montreal and raised in Vancouver, the Million Dollar Listing UAE star and founder of a lucrative realty company first arrived in Dubai in 2000. “Honestly, I didn’t like it much,” he admits. “I missed home and the pace felt off.” He lasted barely a year before flying back. But he returned in 2002 — a move that would redefine his life.

‘Right place, right time’

“It was the right place, right time,” he says. “Emaar was launching Dubai Marina. That was ground zero for what this city was becoming.” He started selling townhouses in Meadows and Springs, hustling across projects before the skyline even had a name. The learning curve was brutal, but his consistency became his edge.

However, when the 2008 crash hit, Ben watched the empire he’d built wobble.