With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/570556
T O P R E A L T O R S S p e c i a l F e a t u r e slogans "Faith moves houses," and "Buying or Selling, you've got to have Faith." She followed up this eort with publications describing her "Ten Point, 360-degree Performance Promise"—a re-ection of the minimum standards she believed her clients deserved. Many years later, this declaration is still hanging in her o‚ces. As she built her website, Wilson decided she needed to market globally and sell locally. Her site uses many tools to track the tra‚c on the listings, and includes video presentations and very speci‡c information about each neighbourhood, including census data and walk scores. "We're very property- focused, as opposed to marketing a real estate company brand," she says. "We're marketing our listings." The Faith Wilson Group continues to grow in areas such as mobile marketing, honouring her commitment to constant improvement. Steven Oei also worked o of his strengths as he built his real estate business. While pursuing his education at Simon Fraser University, he would drive around to open houses in his spare time and meet realtors, just to see what the business was like. After completing his Bachelor of Business Administration, he completed his Real Estate Appraisal Training and began working as a realtor in 1995. "I have quite an analytical and technical perspective on evaluating properties," he says. "I always have these three disciplines, real estate, real estate appraisal and marketing. They would all dovetail when I began working in the business." At the time, the market was at a plateau and even slipping. This was an opportunity for Oei to put his skills into practice. He took on expired listings that others had failed to sell. Through better presentation of the home and speci‡c marketing eorts, he was able to remarket and sell the properties. "I think I was very astute at listening to the clients, and what they would share with me were very basic things done poorly by previous agents. That may be interpretation of the data, it may be how the realtors were showing the listing or a lack of feedback from each of the showings." He would improve the marketing materials, including the description of the property and the photography, and target the buyers to whom he felt the listing would appeal. "I would make sure the property stands out ‡rst in their mind as a property that they want to visit." Now, in a much dierent market, Oei ‡nds that those same skills are eective. But beyond the results, he has always enjoyed the process. "I really love what I do," he says. "When people are buying and selling, it's a really big change in their lives. Being able to help people get through that change with positive results, that's what always keeps me inspired with my work." B.C.'s top realtors take pride in being able to simplify the homebuying process for their clients "When people are buying and selling, it's a really big change in their lives. Being able to help people get through that change with positive results, that's what always keeps me inspired with my work" — Steven Oei