Equity Mag Jan_18 Book Folder

REAL ESTATE
had to do the viewing ourselves. He was pretty prompt
once we decided to rent but after the meeting with the
landlord, he refused to talk to me. This one time, he
answered my call from a second number and told me it
was not his problem and to contact the landlord directly.
After signing the contract, he flat out refused to help us
with anything else. I felt this was unacceptable and a
process that lacked any personal touch or customer
service and I started planning from there.”
That’s where the idea of the Tregoning Property website
came from. Tregoning describes his brainchild as “a bespoke
real estate brokerage aiming to help our customers and
landlords to provide top customer service and
straightforward honest advice.” The aim here is to keep the
customer happy while keeping transactions transparent with
minimum fuss. He’s basically the Batman of the property
world: the protagonist who endures agony in the hope to
never let anyone else go through that again.
Thanks to the Real Estate Regulatory Agency (RERA), the
property market today isn’t as disconnected as it was when
Tregoning was house hunting. “The real estate business has
become more regulated with RERA increasing their control,”
he said. “One of their main reasons for existing is to make
the Dubai property market attractive to investors; both from
the region and from overseas. To do this, more regulation
was needed. The training that RERA and Department of
Land and Property in Dubai (DREI) offer is valuable and
makes you aware of many aspects of the market even if you
are not working in those areas.”
Tregoning Property is mostly marketed through the
digital sphere through some of the biggest property portals
in the region like Propertyfinder, Dubizzle and JustProperty.
Having said that, the website is a behemoth on its own
boasting over 1,500 individual visitors most months. Not
too shabby for a boutique real estate website that was only
founded in 2016. Of course, no one can serve people on
their own. After all, even the Caped Crusader had to
assemble a Justice League. Tregoning’s league is dominated
by parents. “All my team are parents and this is certainly
attractive to new customers,” he said. It’s no surprise then
that his target audience, by default, happens to be families.
It’s a happy coincidence that most of those gainfully
employed parents happen to be mothers. “I get a lot of
help from mothers who provide softer skills with clients. In
most transactions, the lady of the house is highly
instrumental in the decision and they like discussing the
benefits of a villa with another lady,” Tregoning astutely
notes. “This also helps in terms of discussing wider
community concerns such as schools, shopping and the
challenges of living in that certain area.”
Tregoning maintains that although hiring a woman-dominant
team wasn’t a conscious decision, he’s happy with the way
things panned out. “There are many highly capable mothers
who put their careers on hold when they have children. They
then want flexible working hours on their return and this
business can often offer that as they need to get going again
whilst keeping their family running smoothly,” Tregoning said.
Those aren’t empty promises either. “We tend to meet up
mostly during operations. There is no problem with school
runs, doctor visits etc. as you can generally schedule your day
to suit your plans.” It doesn’t stop there. Ever the workaholic,
Tregoning even ensures his employees get all the digital
training they need to stay up to speed and with more and
more business opportunities arising from social media, they’ll
need to be at the top of their game.
“Being able to target an audience so precisely on social
media is fabulous and obviously pays dividends,” he says.
And while his property website isn’t keen on jumping on to
the app bandwagon just yet, he’s shown some astute
business acumen to ensure that his company features on
adverts of the bigger advertising portals that are investing
heavily in creating apps. Like the Dark Knight, he’s always
thinking 10 steps ahead of everyone else.
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EQUITY