SUCCESS
Delighted - DGRE managing director Niall Deas reflects on an encouraging first year for the firm .
THE REAL DEAL
Real estate services firm in good shape as it celebrates first year of trading
The MD of a real estate services agency celebrating its first year says he ’ s delighted with progress so far – and excited by what ’ s to come .
Niall Deas and Paul Griffiths founded DGRE – it stands for Deas Griffiths Real Estate – in April 2023 and began trading two months later .
Vastly experienced in the real estate and corporate finance fields , Niall and Paul ’ s connections and proven track records made them an attractive proposition .
And one year on , with an increasingly busy workload and expansion plans in the offing , MD Niall admits : “ I wish I ’ d done it years ago !”
Based on Stockton ’ s Preston Farm Industrial Estate , DGRE ’ s multi-disciplinary approach includes property valuations , rent reviews , a lease renewal service and , more recently , estate agency services .
Niall said : “ It ’ s gone very well in the first year . We are where we expected and hoped to be . There ’ s a lot of goodwill towards us – we ’ re getting a good amount of agency instructions , a lot of valuation work and plenty of rent and lease renewal work too .
“ It ’ s been challenging at times , as it would be with any new business , but we ’ ve got to where we want to be through proper planning at the start – analysing what we ’ d be able to do and what we could do and then actually putting it into play .
“ We ’ re very busy – sometimes too busy – but that ’ s a positive . I ’ m not surprised , but I ’ m very pleased , that we ’ ve done what we wanted and we ’ re in an excellent position to move forward . So yes , it ’ s been hard graft , but thoroughly enjoyable .”
To help manage that increasing workload , Niall is looking to recruit more staff , with an agency surveyor and another valuation surveyor in his immediate sights – but he admits that ’ s been trickier than he thought .
He explained : “ The one thing that ’ s been slowing us down is being able to recruit suitably qualified staff , so we ’ re going to use an agency now . We ’ ve tried ourselves but people can be somewhat sceptical when new companies form .
“ Talking to recruiters , they say job adverts aren ’ t particularly what stimulate people now – it ’ s a lot of social media harvesting and trawling , so we haven ’ t got the expertise in that .”
DGRE currently has nine staff , including two part-time trainees whom DGRE are training up while paying for them to study for University College of Estate Management Business Learning degrees .
Recent market turbulence has , of course , brought its challenges . Niall said : “ Different parts of the market are acting differently . Some people are waiting for interest rate cuts , so that ’ s having a little bit of an effect – and probably affecting established businesses more than us .
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“ But we ’ re on a growth trajectory , so that ’ s not affecting us in the same way - we don ’ t have volume retained clients who are slowing down .
“ Our clients , some are retained over the first 12 months , but a lot are new clients coming into us . And they ’ re mainly coming in because they see a need for competition in Teesside and the wider North-East .”
And as he reflects on an encouraging first year , Niall feels DGRE is in a good place to make even more progress .
He told Tees Business : “ It ’ s been hard work but we ’ ve got a good team established now and some more to come – then we can ramp it up even more because we ’ ve already got our systems and services in place . All the ‘ start-up ’ stuff , regulations , all of that , takes time .
“ But as with many people who set up their own business , I wish I ’ d done it before . Paul had been on at me for some time to do it , and I kept saying ‘ No , no , no ’. I think he ’ d been on at me for about seven years , but it never felt right .
“ But then , when the stars aligned , it seemed the right time and it ’ s proved to be the case . There ’ s something really pleasing in thinking you can do it , and being able to prove you can .”
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