Dean Ash

After working for Standard Bank for a number of years, I started my real estate career in February 1996 with Maxprop Holdings on the Berea. Whilst at Maxprop House on the Berea I advertized my first property by auction and prepared a wonderful auction brochure. The Innes Road property was owned by a lovely Italian couple by the name of Polizzi. The Polizzi's owned a charming Italian Restoranti off the Durban Esplanade. The facade of this Innes Road home was an exact replica of American actor / comedian George Burn's home in California in the 1930's. The Innes Road property unfortunately did not sell on auction, but marketing the home was a wonderful experience for me.

Other highlights for me in my real estate career include selling consul and consul general properties to overseas diplomats and attending the Africa World Travel Awards in May 2008 at the Durban ICC. Another highlight for me was selling unproductive agricultural land along side the N3 Freeway between Durban and Pietermaritzburg to a Property Developer, seeing this land go through the environmental and rezoning procedures, to the point where the land had been rezoned by the local municipality from Agriculture to Light Industrial and the Developer had cut hardened, serviced platforms over the land, two of which are ten Hectares (100,000 m2) in extent.

I recently joined Tyson Properties in Hillcrest. Tyson Properties branding is brilliant and their marketing and advertizing in the media and on the internet is first class. I feel that the Upper Highway, Umghlanga and Ballito areas are prime development areas.

I have always maintained that a property sells itself and not the estate agent the property. Where the challenge comes in for the estate agent, is in finding the property that best suits the buyers needs.