A day in the life of a Hong Kong estate agent: it’s non-stop busy
The growing number of potential home buyers and renters in the city means that business is booming for those in the property business
With the property market in Hong Kong scaling new heights every week, estate agents are having a field day showing clients around apartments. Last week, we decided to follow one agent on her appointment rounds over the course of a long day.
Morning
It’s 8.30 on a Thursday morning, and Andrea Ott is en route from her local gym to a nearby coffee shop. Her pace is measured – you don’t want to work up a sweat this early in the morning in Central. And she’s not going there to socialise.
Shortly after 9am, the first deal of the day is done. A client has signed a tenancy agreement for a flat in SoHo, and this real estate agent is on her way to the next appointment.
Mobile technology has changed the way many of us work, and for Ott, an associate director with OKAY.com, an online real estate platform built around proprietary mobile technology, freedom from a desk – and indeed, from a shopfront presence – means she can pack more into a day.
On this day, her schedule is fairly typical. The first appointment, arranged before the client heads off to work, is a fairly casual affair. “We’d already negotiated the lease and built up a rapport, so meeting in a coffee shop seemed appropriate,” Ott explains. The ability to work off-site, with just a smartphone and iPad, is one of the perks of her current employment, says Ott, who is originally from Virginia, US, and has lived in Hong Kong for eight years.