Lifestyle

Pam Golding St Francis agents win a trip to Turkey

That’s me with our four exceptional estate agents, Johan Viljoen, Lois Fox, Saria Blaauw, and Dot Stuart-White who recently received their invitations for all-expenses-paid trips to Cappadocia, Turkey in June for the annual Pam Golding GoldClub Conference.

Only about 200 of 2500 Pam Golding agents are invited, and its always a wonderful five star few days at beautiful venues.

I will sadly not be joining them … our middle son is getting married at that time, five years after his older brother.

To have four agents invited out of six from our small town makes us extremely proud, and shows that besides our excellent agents, St Francis Bay is clearly attracting more than its fair share of buyers.

Here is a bit more about the four of them:

Lois Fox has not missed an invitation in her 14 years with our team, and can add 10 Year GoldClub Elite to her signature. She has an amazing talent for matching buyers and properties, and an intimate knowledge of her suburb, the Canals and Canal houses, making her clearly the dominant agent for this wonderful marina.

“I grew up in Durban, and after a visit to the area in 1969, my parents bought a plot in Cape St Francis and built a cottage soon after. Since then I have since spent every Christmas on holiday here! … until 12 years ago when we moved permanently. A record of 46 Christmas days in a row!

Although I trained as a teacher, it soon became apparent that marketing and sales were my passion and for a large portion of my working career, I was with Canon Office Automation in Durban in sales and then as Sales Manager. I married Neil in 1994 and had two sons. We made a decision to move here in 2004 for a lifestyle change and sent our boys to Woodridge College which is one of the best decisions we ever made.

Richard Arderne, the franchise holder had planted the seed about joining Pam Golding and for months had encouraged me. I eventually took the plunge in 2006 and found that there was a place for me in this market and I could continue with my unique style of building relationships with people. I have been very blessed with a successful career in property sales thus far and was proud to be able to achieve Pam Golding Properties GoldClub status from the very first year in sales, and have been lucky enough to achieve this every year since then.

I really take careful attention to match the right buyer and price. This is so much more rewarding then simply doing a sale. Each deal is important to me no matter the size or the commission and I find that with this ethos everything falls into place.

I live in Cape St Francis and enjoy the quieter life, finding time to relax, enjoy walking on the Wild Side and on the lovely trails.”

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Her partner, Dot Stuart-White , who helps Lois when needed in the Canals, but focuses mainly on her suburb, the Village, where she too is the market leader, being the only agent in town to expend so much attention on the Village. She has had an amazing run of sales over the past three years, including many over R4m and R5m, which used to be very rare in this suburb.

She and her family moved permanently from Cape Town in January 2000, buying a “renovators dream” close to Cape St Francis beach.

“In those days, there were very few permanent residents in Cape St Francis. There were only five kids in the initial lift club to Woodridge! Two were ours! Wow, how the area has grown, as people have moved away from the big cities to enjoy our fabulous lifestyle.”

After qualifying as a Fashion Designer, she combined this with her first love, dancing, and she became a partner in a dance studio at 22, and danced professionally.

In 2002 she started working as a rental agent, and that’s when her love of the Village began. She moved into property sales, which she did successfully for nine years.

She also worked for six years in bond origination, learning lots about housing finance.

“I am not a brilliant sportswoman but am an active member of the Cycling Club, Open water swimming and enjoy SUPing on the canals, yoga, gym, aquafit and have completed 170 + Parkruns”.

“I am passionate about property, people and I am service-driven, and thrilled to be part of the PGP team!”

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I met Johan Viljoen at the St Francis squash club five years ago, and we played lots of doubles and singles (St Francis is world famous for having two doubles courts) … I think I beat him more than he beat me, but he might disagree!

He came from a successful background at big mining companies in the HR field. He and his family moved to St Francis from up country for his position at a wind farm. When he left that position, I suggested he join Pam Golding …… but little did I know how successful he would be!

In his first year as an estate agent, despite the pandemic, he sold property totaling about R40m! And won the Pam Golding National Rookie of the year award, ahead of hundreds of others!

Johan’s success has been due to his unbelievable passion for his suburb, Santareme, and obviously hard work and his business acumen.

One of his success stories has been his eight sales within a short stretch of Esmaralda Road, within a few months.

Johan has literally single handedly caused a Santareme property boom, both in volume and price, with a number of record breaking sales over the past 18 months, in Santareme and the Port.

“My wife and I have always invested in the real estate market, both industrial and residential, and firmly believe in a spread of assets in every person’s portfolio. I appreciate the values and work ethic associated with Pam Golding Properties and feel that I have aligned with those.  I give my best to sellers and buyers, in the hope that they will become my friends and clients going forward.

While I was younger I had a dream – impossible I thought, I wanted to be close to the sea, seeing the ocean and staying next to fynbos. While I am writing this, I overlook the Shark Point carpark and ‘my’ mountain towards Cape St Francis and I just realized that I am exactly where I need and want to be – a fulfilled dream in Santareme – St Francis Bay.”

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Saria Blaauw , our St Francis Links specialist, has enjoyed the proverbial purple patch over the last 18 months, with sales around the R100m mark. Besides being such an honest pleasant hardworking person, she has the following distinguishing features:

  1. She owns a home and lives on the Links.
  2. She only sell Links properties.
  3. She has a truly in-depth knowledge of all aspects of the Links.
  4. She knows all the Links management and staff and the majority of owners and residents on the Links.
  5. She attends Links meetings and functions to keep abreast of Links issues.
  6. Her agency sold more properties than any other agency over the past ten years.
  7. She is based in the clubhouse.
  8. Her agency, based opposite the entrance to the estate, sponsors two major annual golf competitions (since 2006), and a monthly competition.

“We relocated to St Francis Bay 12 years ago, when my husband Charl, who had worked at Oubaai golf estate in George, joined the Links Team – and we have never looked back!  Charl is a keen golfer and we make full use of the facilities on the estate, from the gym and pool through to walking and running and of course, having good meals at the clubhouse. Our two daughters are teenagers, and they attend Nico Malan High school in Humansdorp.

We love the lifestyle St Francis Links and St Francis Bay offers.  I am passionate about the Links, and I know all the reasons why. So when the opportunity came to join Pam Golding Properties as the on-site agent for St Francis Links, I knew that this is what I wanted to do.”

Posted by The Know - Pam Golding Properties