NOVEMBER 23 2017 l Belfast Telegraph l
2017 Belfast Telegraph Property Awards in association with
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Property Personality of the Year winner Simon Brien goes up to collect his award (above, right), before celebrating with daughter Tiffany
Property Personality of the Year WINNER Simon Brien
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NE of the best known names in estate agency in Northern Ireland, Simon Brien was named Property Personality of the Year. Simon has been active in the property market in Northern Ireland for over 35 years and runs his own chain of estate agents, Simon Brien Residential. He has been involved in many of the province’s largest land and property transactions in the residential property sector, and his business has experienced significant growth in the past three years. His agency now employs 52 mem-
bers of staff in four offices across Belfast and North Down, including the recently opened branch in Newtownards. His key principle values of customer care, experience, professionalism and personal service permeates his business, placing his company at the forefront of the NI property industry. Delighted and surprised to be named Property Personality of the Year, Simon said: “Overall it was a great surprise. As I sat through the different categories being announced I didn’t contemplate it at all and it is a great honour.” Simon started in the property market in his late teens. He was also well known as a talented sailor and competed with the Irish Sailing Team. His first job was with Dowling Jackson-Stops in Chichester Street in Belfast. Throughout his twenties he enjoyed a meteoric rise through the ranks of well-known local companies. By the age of 29 he was area director for McQuitty Ross — one of the big two estate agency chains of that time. The company was bought over by Royal Life Estates and the industry
underwent a period of change for the next four years. Simon recalls: “It was a changing period in the industry and some of the changes they tried to implement really weren’t the way I wanted to do business. “To me it just didn’t work in Northern Ireland where the business needs to be very personable. “After three to four years their way of operating fizzled out and the companies returned to being privately owned again.” He was approached by Eric Cairns to join him in a new company in 2003. After helping to build up the Eric Cairns Partnership, the estate agency was integrated into BTW Shiells
Property Personality of the Year winner Simon Brien, with Belfast Telegraph Managing Director Richard McClean and Belfast Telegraph Editor Gail Walker in 2007 — the year of the economic downturn. He says: “We had very good relationships and everyone worked well together in what became a very difficult market place. “We just had to re-eingeer the business during that difficult period, doing a lot more auction work and property management as there was very little in the way of new homes being built at all.” The opportunity arose in 2014 for Simon to take the residential side of the business on as his own and he rebranded as Simon Brien Residential with the same management team and senior staff, a team with over 30 years’ experience that has delivered over 20,000 house sales in Northern Ireland and £1/2bn in land sales. Today he is optimistic about the market and says huge lessons have
been learned from the property crash: “Thankfully the negative period of repossessions seems to have been flushed through and we are now into a much more positive environment with more new houses being built and new people entering the sector. “Being adaptable was the key, as the business branched out into rentals, management and professional services, instead of house sale volume alone. “I think it made everybody more thoughtful and careful in terms of business development.” The key to success however is, he says, a simple one: “It is about people first and foremost and I always tell new people in the industry that they need to have an understanding of people and look after people on a personal basis and that’s very much at the heart of our business.”