¶ Introduction to Real Estate Challenges 🧠
Welcome to another episode of Golden Nuggets Tips & Tales powered by Property Finder. This is where we uncover the untold stories behind the region's top real estate professionals. And because there's a great story behind every lead and listing, we're shining a spotlight and going behind the scenes with Property Finder Super Agents, whose journeys are packed with hard earned lessons, bold moves and powerful takeaways you won't forget.
Joining me on Golden Nuggets, Tips and Tales is Lorenzo and we couldn't let you go without telling us a tale. Lorenzo, a SuperAgent from Strada. Let's hear the tale the deal that you nearly lost and how you saved it. I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a few that we nearly lost. I'm sure most brokers have gone through the same thing with that. What's the one that sticks out
in your? The one for me was relatively recently actually, it was at the back end of last year where it was a client I've worked with for a long time now, three or four years now. It's actually first met him through a rental, stayed in touch, got him really well and then we've helped with a few investment options since. so important. I love this message that you're, know, because people do take leasing for granted or they see it as a stepping stone, but it is fundamental.
The people that you meet, in leasing, whether it's landlords, whether it's tenants, will eventually turn into buyers, landlords themselves, and sellers. So you'll find as well, lot of tenants, especially over here, will already be buyers. It's not just that in the UK, I think we're quite fixated on getting on the property ladder and get away from renting. But here, a lot of people, it makes more sense, the opportunity costs to rent their
own place. be fairly flexible with that, but then they've also got investments too. So yeah, that's quite normal here to be a renter and also a landlord. Definitely. So don't turn your nose up at tenants because you never know. Okay. So tell us the story then. Yeah. Got a bit side-tracked though, didn't we? It was my fault. That's all good. Take us back to the tenant that turned into a buyer. Yes. So we bought a lot together um
over the past few years now and We actually signed on it. would have been at the end of November. It was a cash to cash deal. Should have been easy. Should have been easy. I it got signed on the 24th of November. So generally speaking, what will happen, the contracts will be 30 days, just in case there's any
¶ Navigating Complex Transactions ⚖️
issues at all. We didn't really think that through too much. And it's probably a bit of a learning curve from my side as well to make sure that you don't leave contract end dates. our uncertain dates. Christmas Eve. Yeah, this was the 24th of the 12th. So didn't really think it through because we thought it would have transferred within the space of a week. long story short, there was a block on the
property. So we weren't able to transfer on it, which meant that I was meant to be traveling back for Christmas. So was the buyer. had to postpone it to try and get it sorted because there was a risk that if we weren't to go ahead and we were to default, we'd be liable for 10%, which was a substantial amount of money. So I think to begin with, it was just explaining to him what had actually happened. And I was quite lucky that it's not a client that I just met as a one-off.
We're almost more friends now than just. So it's easier to deliver bad news. Yeah, exactly. So just called him and look, this is what's happened. I'm meant to be traveling back on the 17th or 18th, but what I've done is I've changed my flights. So I'll be here to get it sorted as well, but this is what's gonna happen. You don't need to be here. I can sort it for you, but if you want to, think because of the amount of money that it was, he wanted to be here to get it sorted too.
And so that was the 24th of November, you agreed the sale. At what point did you find out there was a block? There was a block. So it would have been about a week afterwards when we went to transfer, because the process on how it works is you get the NOC, the non-objection certificate from the developer. who will then say everything's been paid service charges, there's no blocks, and then we can go ahead to transfer. We weren't able to get it at
that stage. The developer were delaying it and we found out that it was because there was a block. Right, so you didn't hear it from them? No, exactly, it was from the developer. But the issue with it is, technically speaking, there could have been an extension, but because it was quite a substantial amount of money, there wasn't, we didn't want to risk it at all. No room for errors.
Especially during that period, because if we were away from Christmas to New Year's, you've got a week or so of just sort of being in limbo where you didn't want to leave him leveraged in that position. So it actually worked out quite well in the end, but before that, where it wasn't so great and was quite a memorable sort of moment for me in real estate was I was meant to be traveling back on Christmas Eve. We thought we'd managed to get it sorted.
Christmas Eve going into midnight, going into Christmas day. That was your 30 days, wasn't it? Exactly, that was expiry. I was in Deira outside the conveyance's office, trying to get the check back, trying to get it all sorted, thinking, this is Christmas now, how am I here? Rather than back home with my family or my brother was over here thinking, how am not having a drink with him? But we managed to get that sorted and luckily this would
have been about 1 a.m. by this point when we got it back. had a look on Emirates and there was a flight at 3 a.m. So I went back to my home. Luckily I lived in downtown, so it's not far from the airport. I went back to mine, got to the airport and within about half an hour I was waiting in the lounge. There you go. So it wasn't the Grinch that stole Christmas in No, it worked
¶ Building Trust Through Adversity 💡
out well when I was back for seven. With the way that the flights are here, the 3 a.m. flight I think got me back at about seven. So I was actually... home for Christmas morning, got it all sorted. But I was still there on having
my Christmas dinner. And for my family back home, they understand what we do, but not to the same sort of extent where they're not used to the Dubai work culture, where during Christmas dinner, I was actually having to sort the contracts out, an extension sent through and everything else, which they couldn't believe that we'd be doing that on Christmas day.
But I think what the benefit out of it is, there's no way of getting away from uh mistakes happening in the industry because there is gonna be human error and there's components that you can't actually plan for. But the benefit of what I found out of it is my relationship with the buyer then got a lot stronger because he saw that if something went wrong and he actually said to me, if you hadn't have told me, I wouldn't have worked with you again, but
I understand mistakes happen. If you're there to try and correct it and. working in my best interest and I've got no problem with that. And you made a sacrifice, personal sacrifice of delaying your trip to solve the problem. Exactly, but in the schemes of things, mean, it's with the way that the industry is here and how cutthroat it can be, you've got to do that to then be able to build the long-term relationships. That is the definition of going
the extra mile, isn't it? Yeah, definitely. I mean, I didn't expect myself to be in Deira at midnight on Christmas, but... Yeah, it's all part of it. Laugh at it now, but just make sure that you don't make the same mistake twice. So I guess the only thing you could have done differently was just give yourself a little bit more leeway on the, even though it was cash to cash.
Exactly. Just making sure that what I would have done differently is now it sounds so simple because looking at it now you're going hindsight, well, surely you would have known, but a cash to cash transfer usually takes a week, maybe two weeks. It doesn't take that long at all. So you're not even thinking about the end date. Everyone wants to get a transfer, the seller wants their money, the buyer wants to start the renovations or moving into it.
But just taking a little bit of time to make sure that it doesn't fall on a certain holiday or if we need that extension and we've got it there. And another part of what you do, as you just mentioned, is delivering bad news. So you could have just sat on that information for a while. How did you decide, right, this is how I'm going to deliver the bad news. This is how quickly I'm going to do it. I think that the best way to do it is just by giving the truth.
My dad's always said to us, there's a thousand lies and there's one truth. So it's very easy to get caught up in it here. And I think the problem we have in the industry, everyone's so fast paced, everyone's constantly working on something that you won't remember what you've said yesterday. I don't remember some of the conversations I had this morning in the detail. So it's far easier to just tell them the information to begin with if they don't want to hear it.
And the money is made in those difficult conversations as well. Okay. How would you say this experience has shifted your approach as a real estate agent? There's a few things I would say. First of all would be to be on the ball with the dates. The finer details. Yeah, exactly.
The finer details. But also just to make sure. you genuinely do have your client's best interests at heart because learning from that now in hindsight, it was actually, I wish we hadn't have gone through it, but it's quite a good thing that we did because it made the relationship that much stronger that now there's a lot more trust there to say that if something goes wrong, you're not just going to leave me in the
firing line. You're sort of there to help me through it. And even if it's something small like holding the client's hands through the process where they can feel that support. it helps build the sort of long-term foundations of the relationship. Brilliant. There you have it. SuperAgents going the extra mile for their clients. Thank you for that, Lorenzo. Hope you enjoyed that. Catch the rest of Lorenzo's episodes. And while you're at it, why not binge the whole season?