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.
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
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
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?