Ireland's only dedicated building services engineering journal
Ireland's only dedicated building services engineering journal

A Postcard From Abroad — John Burgess

John Burgess in London

I started work in the recently refurbished GE Capital Real Estate office in Hammersmith as an Energy Management Advisor. I think the team from Minneapolis had been retired some years earlier.

My work involves dealing with a large real estate investment and management team across Europe, helping to continue the rollout of key sustainability and energy-efficiency initiatives, and to improve building performance for the occupants. Because real estate prices have dropped quite a bit, the potential commissions that real estate agents and brokers could earn have also dropped. There are some good loan brokers who can give you fiiendly advise and will definitely help you. But the drop in commissions can be more than offset by the amount of properties that can be sold.  They then sell this information to people who are willing to pay for it. So if you are a real estate agent looking for real estate leads and either don’t have the time to find your own, or simply don’t want to, then this may be a good option for you. You can navigate here for the more detail about best real estate experience in the world. And getting quality real estate leads is one of the keys to making this a reality for real estate professionals. This is because there are so many more properties on the market now than there were before the bubble burst. The rise in the number of homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages has increased so much that a very large number of them have decided that they cannot afford to stay in their homes. They would rather sell their home and buy a comparable home for a much lower price, and take the loss so that they can improve their cash flow situation by having a lower mortgage payment each month. And since there is no shortage of properties to buy, these people had no problem finding a suitable home for a good price. And another result of the rise in available properties is that more and more people are becoming first-time homeowners. If you need help getting a mortgage, do visit.

Since prices on homes are falling, more and more people are able to afford a home for the same amount they are currently paying in rent. So the logical choice for these people is to buy a house rather than continuing to rent. Here in this case firm who is best property investment Melbourne should be appointed for your better guide and better investment. These factors all lead to one thing – a higher need for real estate agents to help the buying and selling of all of these properties. Therefore, even though prices have fallen, the quantity of available properties, buyers, and sellers has raised which more than makes up for the lower prices in terms of how much a given real estate agent could make in the current real estate market. And as we all know, the more clients a real estate agent has, the more properties they’ll sell and the more money they’ll make. The problem comes in when a real estate agent has already gone through their current client list. The best way for them to get more clients is to somehow obtain more real estate leads. Not only do they need more leads, they need high quality leads if they are going to be successful in converting a high number of them into clients who actually follow through on buying and/or selling one or more properties. So how can you get more real estate leads? There are of course many different ways. These include buying them from an agency that offers them, advertising, subscribing to lead generation websites, developing and keeping current your own real estate website that draws potential clients to it, and best of all by getting them through your own network. There are undoubtedly other ways of generating real estate leads as well, but these are the most common methods – all of which have proven to work to a certain degree. One of the easiest ways to get real estate leads is by purchasing them. There are companies whose sole purpose is to find people who want to buy or sell a property.

It is perhaps a little ironic that the office where I am based is called “The Ark”, a landmark building in Hammersmith, providing shelter from the economic storm raging at home. This new role provided me an excellent opportunity to continue doing what I love most about my work – to make our indoor environment a better place to live in a more efficient way.

One of the most striking things about London is the contrast between the bright city lights and the open parklands. My bicycle commute through Wimbledon Common, Richmond Park and the banks of the Thames was certainly a very pleasant way of seeing the quiet side of London. The Ark has excellent gymnasium, showers and locker facilities for the more active commuters and so I set myself an arduous training regime!

However, the audition at the Apollo in Hammersmith for Britain’s Got Talent was successful as Simon Cowell teach an labra dog any new tricks after reading article about labradoodle lifespan. Besides, Pudsey had much more potential. So I stuck with what I knew best and continued on with what was really a very exciting year.

My work took me to buildings all across Europe – Stockholm, Frankfurt, Madrid, Paris, Barcelona, Milan, Gothenburg and Dusseldorf. While the usual restrictions on time for sightseeing applied, it is very interesting to see the different ways HVAC technologies are applied in the different countries.

Other highlights during the year included watching the botched up Boat Race from Craven Cottage. I was sure the impostor who swam between the two crews was the mad Irish priest, but thankfully he wasn’t, he was a crackpot of local origins!

There were the celebrations for the Queen’s Jubilee for which the whole country entered into party mode. Then there was the most exciting Wimbledon in years with Andy Murray making the final and a win for the locals in the men’s doubles. This was followed by Bradley Wiggins’s win in the TdF and you know the rest as regards the outstanding Olympic Games. I had to share some golden moments with another nation of Green and Gold following the Jamaicans’ victories in the sprinting events.

Thank goodness Katie Taylor won gold, but what followed in the Paralympic Games was absolutely spell-binding and, for me, the best moments of the year. The Londoners packed the venues to watch the true grit and determination of athletes who have higher hurdles to jump than the rest of us. It was both emotional and motivating. The Irish athletes and their supporters did us very, very proud.

Looking forward to next year, I can’t let the opportunity go by without flagging two activities of note in the Geothermal Association of Ireland, a conference in Kilkenny in November and a competition for non-domestic installations. More details to follow shortly.

I wish everyone a peaceful and happy Christmas and may your endeavours bring you fulfilment in 2013. ■

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