Luxury Brokerage Launches Dubai Operations; 20 Agents to Staff First Middle East Office

The Oppenheim Group is opening a 6,500-square-foot Dubai office in December, its first presence in the Middle East and its fifth international location. The Los Angeles-based brokerage, known for its starring role in Netflix’s Selling Sunset, will launch with 20 brokers and plans to scale to as many as 40 agents in the months that follow.

Omar Abaza, a business associate of co-founder Jason Oppenheim, is leading the Dubai operation. Recruitment is already underway. The UAE team will manage a portfolio of luxury residential properties across Dubai, with brokers also expected to pursue opportunities in Abu Dhabi as the firm extends its regional footprint.

Oppenheim has been direct about what he wants from the hiring process. He told People that the company is prioritizing experienced agents who can maintain what he described as the firm’s “family atmosphere” during the expansion phase. That emphasis on culture over headcount suggests the scale-up to 40 agents will be deliberate rather than rapid.

The Dubai office joins existing Oppenheim Group locations in Newport Beach and San Diego, California, and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The move into the Gulf represents a meaningful geographic shift for a brokerage that built its reputation on the American luxury market, particularly through high-end transactions in Los Angeles, Orange County and Tampa.

Meanwhile, the Dubai launch is running parallel to production of Selling Sunset’s 10th season, and Oppenheim has left the door open on whether the new office will eventually become part of the show’s narrative. “The show covers the brokerage and the brokerage is moving to Dubai. So it could be that people will see it be discussed when season 10 comes out,” he told People. He was candid about the limits of that timing: “Obviously, they won’t see the finished office.”

Whether a Dubai-based version of the franchise materializes remains speculative. What is concrete is the operational commitment already in motion: a signed office, a local operator in place, and an active recruitment drive targeting a team twice the size of the launch cohort.

The Selling Sunset format carries its own operational signatures, including the deal-closing bell agents ring after completing sales, a detail that has become central to the show’s identity. Whether that ritual travels to Dubai depends on whether the team Abaza is assembling can first build a transaction record worth celebrating.

For the Oppenheim Group, the December opening will be the first real test of whether its model, built on Los Angeles luxury and television visibility, translates into a market where high-net-worth buyers and foreign investors are already driving substantial transaction volumes without any help from a camera crew.