Spring is here, and buyers and sellers across Canada are preparing to start their home searches in earnest. Consequently, they’ll need experienced real estate professionals to help guide them in their search and provide their real estate tips and tricks for getting the best price. Although COVID-19 has changed how many real estate agents do business, our agents have been working tirelessly to get homebuyers and sellers the homes they want.
To recognize our top real estate agents for their hard work and dedication to helping Canadians find their dream homes, Zolo has awarded our top agents with the Zenith Awards.
What Are the Zenith Awards?
According to Mustafa Abbasi, Zolo’s President and COO, “The Zenith Award is a reflection of our team’s hard work, dedication, and commitment. While this past year was extremely challenging, our talented agents persevered.”
Zolo agents were awarded based on their performance in several categories. Some agents won in multiple categories. The categories are:
- Gross Commission Income
- Net Commission
- Number of Transactions
Award-Winning Agents Offer Their Best Real Estate Tips to Home Buyers and Sellers
To help Canadians prepare for the spring buying and selling season, we asked the Zolo Zenith Award winners for their best real estate tips, and their responses did not disappoint.
Lisa Nash
- Location: Toronto, Ontario
- Winning Categories: Gross Commission Income, Net Revenue, Transactions
Lisa’s advice: “In a shifting market, it is crucial for buyers and sellers to work with an expert. A seller’s goal is to get the highest price for their home. In a shift, many buyers are sitting on the fence. For sellers whose agents solely rely on MLS to sell their homes, they may not get the price they would have gotten a few weeks ago. Fortunately, with Zolo’s property search site of 10,000,000 viewers worldwide, we can personally reach out to any potential buyer whose criteria match our seller’s home and therefore get our seller the maximum purchase price.
Even though this market may be shifting, there are still many buyers looking for a home. Zolo has our own internal Exclusive Listing/Coming Soon database of properties, listed by our 1000 agents. Our priority list of homes gives buyers an opportunity to get access to homes that are not online.”
Borna Asi
- Location: Burnaby, British Columbia
- Winning Categories: Gross Commission Income, Net Revenue, Transactions
Borna’s real estate tips:
“Buy for value, sell for profit!”
Dwayne Clugston
- Location: Barrie, Ontario
- Winning Categories: Gross Commission Income, Net Revenue, Transactions
Dwayne’s advice: “Stay patient and not get caught up in the pressure to buy or sell when you are not comfortable with it. This is currently a strong market, and people tend to get pressured, which is not a professional way to do business. Let peace be your umpire.”
Maria Bifolchi
- Location: Vaughan, Ontario
- Winning Categories: Gross Commission Income
Maria’s advice: “Real estate is oftentimes more emotional than it is transactional for buyers and sellers; especially in this shifting market where interest rates remain historically low with inflation and demand for real estate remaining high. Find yourself a realtor that you connect with on all levels (both professionally and personally) and that is experienced in navigating all market trends and will prepare you to buy/sell in your specific area.
A well-versed realtor will think outside the box for you and will gracefully neutralize the emotions that are not always avoidable during the buying/selling process. They will be that voice of reason in bringing your desires of homeownership into reality.”
Ameen Omidbakhsh
- Location: Toronto, Ontario
- Winning Categories: Transactions
Ameen’s advice: “Whether you are thinking of buying or selling in the Spring of 2022, if history is any guide, the next few months ahead will be relatively elevated in terms of activity and may start slowing down a little bit into the 2nd half of the year. Predicting the housing market during the pandemic hasn’t been easy, and it hasn’t always behaved as people expected it to! So if you want to make a move, today is always better than tomorrow!”
Vivek Arora
- Location: Hamilton, Ontario
- Winning Categories: Net Revenue
Vivek’s real estate tips: “The market is still maintaining the price even after the recent interest rate hike. We still have a healthy level of inventory. I believe spring is going to bring more demand and we might see an upward push in the price.”
Other Zenith Award Winners include:
- Cristin and Stephen Tedford, Gross Commission Income, Net Revenue, Transactions
- Gord Ross, Top Alberta Agent
- Amrit Pal Singh, Transactions
- Lili Xu, Transactions
- Mansoor Khan, Transactions
- Vivek Arora, Net Revenue
- Avneesh Kohli, Net Revenue
- Zain Khan, Net Revenue
- Himanshu Sharma, Gross Commission Income, Net Revenue, Transactions
- Ely Babb, Gross Commission Income, Top Ottawa Agent
- Steve Walker, Gross Commission Income
- Tarry Aasli, Gross Commission Income, Net Revenue
- Ramandeep Bhullar, Gross Commission Income, Net Revenue, Transactions
Zolo congratulates all of the Zenith Award winners. “Thanks to the Zenith award recipients,” says Abbasi, “for contributing to Zolo’s best year ever in which our sales volumes surpassed $2.3 billion for 2021.”
