Twins make their mark in property

THE South African property market is hotly contested. Established players have grown their property businesses into substantial organisations — sometimes over decades and through various economic cycles.

When WH Group decided to enter the property industry, it was clear that it had to do something different.

Following on from the success of their WH Auctions business — which was founded with a vision of reinvention as “the way auctions should be” — the partners applied their business principles of expertise and focus to the new venture. WH Properties was born in 2012.

They searched for new blood to launch their foray into the property market, engaging identical twins Daniel and Joshua Pelkowitz to head up the new business.

Daniel and Joshua graduated cum laude with honours degrees in property studies from the University of the Witwatersrand, having gained unique expertise in this relatively new and growing academic area of specialisation.

“We have always loved the property game and knew we had to get the best possible qualification in this field,” said Joshua.

The twins said they graduated with a “huge” appetite to make their mark in business.

Having been forced to hit the ground running, they quickly built a strong customer base — from scratch.

“We literally drove around looking out for possible property opportunities, knocked on doors and introduced ourselves — and our business approach,” said Daniel.

Building on a foundation of “science and passion”, they promise their clients — buyers and sellers — accuracy and integrity.

The twins pride themselves on their knowledge-based expertise and ability to apply strong analytical methodology to ascertain accurate property valuations and prices.

“In this way they try to create realistic expectations for clients who often have been disappointed by other service providers who overpromise to secure mandates.

“We spend hours with our clients so that we can understand their requirements and ask for a GO-GETTERS: The Pelkowitz twins Daniel and Joshua with the tools of their auctioneering trade chance to provide our unique services,” said Joshua. “We can only establish trust by following through with delivery on projections.

“Performance is key. Many of our clients are repeat customers who come back to us, either to sell again or look for new additions to their existing portfolios, after we have previously managed successful transactions for them.”

Daniel said: “We often have to say ‘no’ to certain opportunities where we feel customer expectations are not realisable — difficult as that may be.

“We engage only where we know we can deliver true value,” he said.

“WH Properties aims to offer property disposal solutions that work. Although various disposal options are on offer, including auctions — physical on-site, with simultaneous webcast and timed online — and private treaty sales, a large share of our disposals are conducted via auction.

“The reason for this is that auctions provide the best platform to deliver value, a combination of WH Group’s core competence combined with rapid non-conditional sales,” he said.

“WH Auctions provides us with a whole delivery infrastructure, which allows us to focus on bringing in customers and property assets.”

This includes the WH website, online auction platform, organisational and support services, advertising, marketing, branding and channels.

WH Properties concentrates on industrial, retail, commercial and mixed-use property assets.

Joshua said: “Although residential properties are not a core focus of ours, we do look at these properties within the context of a greater portfolio and for service completeness for our customers.

“That said, high-rise residential blocks are, and always will be, a highly sought-after asset class and always attract crowds on auction day.”

Daniel and Joshua said the business had grown so quickly that they were now on the lookout for dynamic new brokers.

Daniel said: “We have refined our sales platform and have capacity to take on a lot more properties to market and sell.

“In order to fill this capacity we are actively looking to sign on new brokers whose role will be to find new properties to which we can apply our business model.

“This is a fantastic opportunity for committed, ambitious brokers to earn exceptionally by focusing on bringing in properties within our scope, comfortably supported by the best-in-class evaluation methodology and sales processes,” he said.

Whatever the economic circumstances, there will always be buyers and sellers of property.

“We take a long-term view of the customer side and the investment perspective and we are excited about the future,” said Joshua.

WH Properties can be contacted on 011 574 5700. Visit www.whauctions.com for information on properties due to come under the hammer