Former police officer Adrian Fox has set his sights on making his company Algarve Retreats a bigger player in the Lagos property scene.
Adrian has been visiting Lagos for 28 years. While he was working as a police inspector in Sheffield, he and his wife Tracy, a bank manager, bought a villa in Lagos.
Wanting to “live the dream” in the Algarve, they acquired the company Algarve Retreats and decided to put their customer service and people skills into a management and rental business. They have since built a successful company based on their 20 years experience of holidaying, living, and renting in the Algarve.
Adrian and Tracy developed a professional and friendly approach based on great service and trust. Sadly, Tracy passed away and, subsequently, Adrian has thrown himself into taking the business to where she would have wanted it to go.
Algarve Retreats expanded into sales five years ago and this year employed Georgia Barfield as sales manager. With her twenty years of experience, Adrian is confident Georgia will bring a positive change for the business, and he is already seeing an upturn in sales. The company now has seven staff members, including Adrian, but are recruiting further this year. Their business benefits from positive reviews and word of mouth. They only rent properties that they manage so they can guarantee first-class service, which includes a 24-hour helpline. “There is a definite upturn in the longer winter-let market,” notes Adrian.
The biggest change that Adrian has noticed is the expansion of the North American market which they are targeting with social media campaigns. “The Canadian market has expanded disproportionately against other markets,” notes Adrian, who has come up with a clever way of tapping into this client source. Through his former career, he has a relationship with the International Retired Police Association and uses this connection to source clients in Canada from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Adrian says there is more to come in the future when he announces a “game-changer,” so watch out for Algarve Retreats and maybe some Canadian Mounties in Lagos!
