Pam Golding Properties scoops Best in Africa title

Basil Moraitis, Pam Golding Properties area manager for the Atlantic Seaboard, seen with Pam Golding Properties awards for Best Real Estate Agency, Best Real Estate Agency Marketing and Best Real Estate Agency Website.

The group also won awards for Best Real Estate Agency, Best Real Estate Agency Marketing and Best Real Estate Agency Website in South Africa.

Pam Golding Properties will now go on to compete as the international nominee for Africa against top winners from around the world in the 2016 International Property Awards ‘World’s Best’ to be announced in London in December.

Over the past 11 years the real estate company, has achieved Best Estate Agency in South Africa nine times since 2005 and Best Estate Agency in Africa five times since 2011 at the International Property Awards. The group received Gold at the Overseas Property Professional Awards for Best Real Estate Agency for three consecutive years since 2012 and was awarded Best Global Estate Agency in 2012 and 2014.

Recognition of leadership and achievements

Dr Andrew Golding, CE of the Pam Golding Property group says: “The recognition at the International Property Awards 2016 is flattering as it endorses and reaffirms the fact that we provide a world-class standard of differentiated residential property service. It is also further recognition of our leadership role and achievements in the property industry in South Africa.

“Family values remain at the core of the Pam Golding Properties brand, which to this day still carries our founder’s passion for property and culture of service excellence. We believe in constantly raising industry standards through innovative marketing, IT and other initiatives, coupled with the highest level of professionalism.

“Notably, the agent-client interaction and relationship remains extremely important, as this is where the knowledge, skill, intuition and expertise of the individual agent comes to the fore in a genuinely value-adding service offering.”

Launched in 1995 and judged according to stringent criteria by a panel of over 50 industry experts, the International Property Awards celebrate the highest level of achievements by companies from around the globe operating in all sectors of the property and real estate industry.

Website award

Regarding winning the Best Real Estate Website award, Dr Golding says: “With global online audiences growing exponentially Pam Golding Properties’ digital marketing assets have increasingly become a key focus for the business. Working across a number of platforms including our website and our mobile platform, as well as our CRM (customer relationship management) platform Alchemy, we ensure an integrated approach to our marketing towards ensuring very efficient reach of qualified buyers.”

Designed to ensure that the buying journey is intuitive, providing multiple search options, results displays and alerts, the group’s website achieved more than 3.5-million visits and over 1.8-million unique visitors during the period from 10 June 2015 to 9 June 2016. Fifty percent of these were new visitors and approximately 23% were visitors outside South Africa.

Adds Dr Golding: “As is the case in almost every industry, the internet and technology and the digital environment in general have substantially altered the landscape for the South African residential real estate industry from both a client as well as an agent perspective, with many if not most of the innovations seen globally in this space adopted locally.

“As the search process by today’s tech-savvy consumers becomes more refined in what is an increasingly competitive trading environment, gaining the attention of web browsers looking for property has become a web-based battleground with the resultant requirement to provide user friendly, fast, efficient apps to enhance the user experience.

“Web experiences are needing to be constantly refreshed and enhanced and in the case of the PGP website, great care and attention has been given to ensure that the user experience is both a pleasurable, time-efficient and compelling journey to view a specific selection of properties on the market. This includes a range of technical innovations which include, for example, draw search, school search and a pinboard which enables you to compile your own personal selection of your favourite properties and immediately share these with family and friends.”