We Ask Ian Smith Director Kate Özikiz

HangiEv.com Asks: This week HangiEv.com Soruyor hosts the director of Ian Smith Estate Agency, Kate Özikiz. Mrs. Özikiz, your agency is named after your father and was founded by him in 1985. Could you please tell us a bit more about Ian Smith’s foundation and the process after?

Kate Özikiz: Yes. My father was 40, coming to 40 years of age and 1985. He'd just been to South America on a building contract, and he was invited by the Turkish government to come on another building contract in North Cyprus in 1985. He came for three months and fell in love with the island. He went back home and asked my mom if she wants to move here. And 35 years later, we're still here. So it was obviously a good decision. He set up what I believe was the first British Cypriot Estate Agency. He had a Turkish Cypriot partner in Kyrenia. And he opened an office there, which he eventually went on to write himself as Ian Smith Estate Agency. And he was diagnosed with Parkinson's in the year 2000. So that's when my husband, Osman, and I joined the family business and helped my father run it. And now, sadly, my father passed away in 2021, and also myself and I run the business together.

HangiEv.com Asks: You have been working with the same colleagues for a long time. You don't seem to replace your employees as often as other estate agents. What is the reason behind this?

Kate Özikiz: So we believe the continuity is very important in our business. We've been very lucky to have some members of staff who have been with us almost 20 years now. And one of them, Jackie, has been our office manager and she runs our sales for 18 years. It's nice, obviously, for people to see the same people they come back to year after year and we believe that our most valuable asset, our staff. So obviously we try and look after them and they look after us and our customers in the same way.

HangiEv.com Asks: Can you share with us a funny memory that you had in the field of real estate?

Kate Özikiz: We've got lots of funny moments. Obviously, we have a lot. Pretty much every day here, about customers incidents that happen at tends to be going into houses where people haven't told us they are here and we find them sleeping in beds. We found people naked in the swimming pool. So, yes, that's what happened. We've also had an Asian customer who came in a few years back asking us if this was Paphos. Because he wanted to buy a house in Paphos. And we told them it wasn't it was Kyrenia. But he still went on to buy a house offer. So that was quite funny that he was totally in the wrong area of the island, but he still did buy.

HangiEv.com Asks: As we know, you have a diploma in Residential Estate Agency from the National Federation of Property Professionals. Can you talk a little bit about this?

Kate Özikiz: Yes, I was coming up to 40 years of age in 2013. Yeah. And I had two young children and decided I need to get the gray matter going a bit and start studying again. As far as I knew, no one in North Cyprus had a degree in estate agency that was actually practicing, so I thought it would be a good idea. And, and I did some research and did a three-year online degree. I had to go back to Bristol to take my exams. I love a challenge. So it was quite a challenge to help the kids, working full time and do a degree. But to this day, I think it's been very helpful having the only or being the only person to have a degree in real estate in North Cyprus.

HangiEv.com Asks: As Ian Smith, Estate agents is there a reason you specialize in resale properties? Kate Ozikiz: We did start off selling new builds and resales, but we found not only is it easier, it's better for us. We're able to check the paperwork. We know that the house has been snagged. Resales, obviously have the paperwork in order. They're in the vendor's name. So we prefer we think it's a better deal for our customers that they're buying resales. Would you still have a few bells? While we worked with developers that we know are trustworthy who do handover the paperwork, the title deeds in order? But generally we find that Europeans, foreigners do like a completed house that's had all the snagging done. The paperwork's in order and obviously it helps our reputation that we're also handing over a property as it should be.

HangiEv.com Asks: First Brexit, then the pandemic. How did these two events affect the demand from the United Kingdom?

Obviously in the beginning it was in a negative way. The pandemic stopped flights to North Cyprus. So we had a very quiet couple of years. But conversely, when travel restrictions were lifted, we had a huge influx of Brits and Europeans coming over because of Brexit. People were getting out of the UK. North Cyprus is one of the cheapest places to buy in the Mediterranean, we found a huge amount of Brits who are still coming, Germans also, and we're finding a lot of them are moving out of Germany to buy over here. So after a couple of very quiet is this last year has been extremely busy for most estate agents and it looks like it's going to be another busy year for us this year as well.

HangiEv.com Asks: Thank You for having us.

Kate Özikiz: Thank you fr coming and interviewing me. And you can find all our properties on HangiEv.com.