PORT ALBERNI – 2018 was a challenging year for the Dave Team, but the silver lining came in the form of a prestigious award at the recent R4 Conference in Las Vegas.
The Dave Team, lead by life-long Port Alberni resident Dave Koszegi, was recognized as the Highest Volume Team in BC for all Re/Max realtors.
“This was a pretty incredible win for us,” says Koszegi, who was present to receive the award. “I wasn’t initially signed up for the conference, so when I got a letter from Re/Max telling met that I should attend, I had to change my plans.”
The Dave Team has been in Re/Max’s Top 100 for the last 15 years or so, and in 2004, Koszegi won Highest Volume as an individual realtor, but this is its first time winning Highest Volume Team.
“We were going up against teams in big cities with nine or ten sales people,” he says. “Throughout the last year, we pulled this off with three licensed members. By end of December, we had completed 263 sale ends.”
When a local reporter asked Koszegi how many transactions his team had sold throughout 2018, he initially didn’t know.
“Last year was very hard,” he says. “One of my main assistants’ son passed away, and it took a big toll on our whole team.
“He was a fantastic kid, and an Honors Engineering student at UBC. He had worked with us for a week and a half while doing a co-op, and was loved and respected by the community. When we found out about his passing, the whole community took it pretty hard.”
Reeling from the loss, Koszegi and his team stopped keeping track of their numbers.
“When my wife and I found out, it was like time stopped,” he continues. “Some friends came over and took our kids so we could visit the family, and for about a week, we couldn’t function.”
After the news the Dave Team continued to work on serving their clients. In a way, this helped them to cope with the immense pain.
“When we announced that we had won the award, we thanked the loyal clients and friends of Port Alberni for making it happen, but we dedicated this win to Griffin Dolling,” says Koszegi.
“He was an amazing kid, and we feel like this win was something good that came from such a sad situation.”
Several other factors played into the Dave Team’s award. With markets beginning to pull back in places like Vancouver and Victoria, the relatively low price of property in Port Alberni has made the area an attractive market for buyers.
“It’s a perfect storm,” says Koszegi. “We have inventory the value’s good, and financing is still reasonable. Also, we just work really hard.
“I’ve had people interview to work with our team and ask ‘what hours should I expect to work?’ My response is ‘all of them.’ If you enjoy working, you’ll click with the group. This award shows that we’re working around the clock to sell clients’ homes.”
