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10 years old and the best!

Monday, 26th February 2018

10 years old and the best! Image

We’re ten years old! We celebrate our 10th anniversary in Gibraltar in March 2018 having been the first commercial outlet to open in Ocean Village back in March 2008.

And now, 10 years later, we hold the title of Best Estate Agent in Gibraltar (European Property Awards 2017-18) and largest estate agent (by virtue of number of staff employed). Our journey to number one has been nothing short of remarkable.

Chestertons was established in 1805 in London, which means we have the longest history of any estate agent trading in Gibraltar.

We established in Gibraltar 203 years later with three staff and our head of lettings Jacky Carreas-Dyer, has been with us from the outset. There’s now twelve of us.

We’ve sold £230m of property, generated over £4m in stamp duty and processed over £12m in rents.

We publish the highest quality property magazine, which also happens to be the largest property magazine and issue Gibraltar Property News, Gibraltar’s only dedicated property newsletter to 3,600 subscribers monthly.

We were the first and to the best of my knowledge, remain the only estate agent in Gibraltar to host videos of listed properties on our website.

We are the only estate agent in Gibraltar to list all open market properties on Rightmove, Zoopla and Prime Location.

We are the only agent to host a live chat facility on our site, enabling fast direct conversations with our sales staff via a messaging facility.

We are the only estate agent in Gibraltar to use a bespoke inventory application, ensuring that landlords and tenants are protected at the end of each tenancy by pages and pages of photographs which are stored in the cloud. Our client accounts, looking after tenant deposits, are reconciled and signed off weekly, far exceeding the regulatory requirements of us.

We pride ourselves on our independence. We do not have any lawyers or property developers as a related party. We provide truly independent advice to developers.

We were instrumental in the introduction of the Estate Agency Code of Conduct in 2015 and pride ourselves on having a high level of professionalism ingrained within our culture.

We invest in and train our staff. Eight of us hold the Diploma in Estate Agency level 3. To the best of my knowledge no other estate agent in Gibraltar can boast that fact.

We have a particular ability to market and sell off-plan developments like no other agent. We had a week’s exclusivity on West One and sold all 66 apartments in a week. Just two months ago we launched The Hub using just our newsletter and social media channels. We sold all 99 in a week.

We’ve got to where we are because of hard work and dedication. From a desire to be the best yet still yearning to be better. So the thanks must go to our great team of people, Tim, Lisa, Louis, Michelle, Ian, Jacky, Cherrelle, Claire, Nicola, Michele, Rebecca and Juliet. Plus Lucy who heads up our shortlets division as a separate business.

To help celebrate our 10th anniversary we are hosting an event in Gibraltar and are delighted to welcome Sir Geoff Hurst and the Chief Minister, Fabian Picardo as guests. Then, all of the staff, partners and children (28 of us at the last count) travel to the Lake District for a weekend away together. A well earned reward for making Chestertons, the best estate agent in Gibraltar.

The final thanks must go to our clients, our landlords, investors, tenants and purchasers, to the professionals around Gibraltar who recommend us to their clients, to our contractors, suppliers and supporters and to Gibraltar itself, my adopted home of many years and hopefully for the rest of my life. And finally to my wife and children who have supported me in my endeavours to create a business of which we can all be proud.

Thank you

Mike

Contributed by Mike Nicholls