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. 70 EQUITY
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