Virtual NREA group photo of organising team and award recipients from their homes and offices. Image from: MIEA
The National Real Estate Awards (NREA) accorded by the Malaysian Institute of Estate Agents (MIEA) returns this year to honour and celebrate the achievements of real estate practitioners in Malaysia. This award, which has been running in its 12th year since 2009, is now the most recognised in the real estate industry, founded by real estate professionals to honour real estate professionals in Malaysia.
Evon Heng, NREA 2020's organising chairman, said that as the world faces the global COVID-19 pandemic, this year's NREA is even more important in acknowledging the hard work of fellow real estate professionals who have thrived in 2019. With the respective award winners and the public being invited to attend and experience the ceremony, another first for the NREA was the pivot to a live online format.
“Despite the pandemic, we have received an overwhelming response from our fellow real estate practitioners this year with a total of 62 submissions for 23 categories, making this the highest number of submissions received throughout NREA’s history”, Heng added.
To strengthen this year’s award evaluation process, all submissions were audited by a local accounting firm, Syarikat Ong to ensure the winners were selected fairly based on a transparent scoring distribution and strict judging criteria.
President of MIEA, Lim Boon Ping said that, “It has been a challenging year for the real estate industry, but many real estate practitioners have reinvented and adapted to technology to handle their property transactions. Besides celebrating the commitment and achievements of real estate practitioners in 2019, this year’s award serves as a reminder to all Registered Estate Agents (REA), Probationary Estate Agents (PEA) and Real Estate Negotiators (REN) to uphold professionalism and integrity at all times.”
In this year's NREA, two new categories were introduced, the first award category being the ASEAN Real Estate Firm of the Year. The Philippines category was awarded to Green Circle Realty, Inc whilst the Malaysia category was awarded to Hartamas Real Estate (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd.
Another new category was the State Residential Firm of the Year which was awarded to Cornerstone Xstate Sdn Bhd for the Federal Territory; DeOne Properties Sdn Bhd for the state of Perak, InteRealtor Sdn Bhd for the state of Penang, Kozin Real Estate Sdn Bhd for the state of Sarawak and Property Hub (Sabah) Sdn Bhd for the state of Sabah.
Group photo from left: Evon Heng, organising chairperson of NREA 2020, Khatijah binti Abdullah, recipient of MIEA Lifetime Achievement Award, Lim Boon Ping, president of MIEA and Soma Sundram, CEO of MIEA. Image from: MIEA
One of the highly anticipated and notable awards, the MIEA Lifetime Achievement Award 2020, was awarded to Khatijah binti Abdullah from City Harta 1, who was also the past president of MIEA for the term between 1991-1995 and 2003-2007.
Sr A’zmi Bin Abdul Latif, president of the Board of Valuers, Appraisers, Estate Agents and Property Managers (BOVAEP) commended “MIEA for being able to have truly created a brand for real estate practitioners to showcase their achievement and be recognized as the best in the country through the National Real Estate Awards.”
He also stated that, for the betterment of the nation’s real estate profession, BOVAEP have been making changes including making public all registrants who are prosecuted and applauded MIEA for taking the initiative to carry out a public awareness campaign this year to remind the public to engage with Registered Estate Agents and Negotiators.
The public awareness campaign #MYREALAGENTS was launched by MIEA this year to raise awareness amongst the public especially first-time property buyers and renters on the need to engage with Registered Estate Agents and Negotiators, and how they could protect themselves. This campaign was launched due to the increasing cases of property fraud by illegal property brokers. The public can visit www.myrealagents.com or follow their page on Facebook and Instagram to find out more.
The preferred automotive partner for the 12th National Real Estate Awards is Sime Darby Auto Bavaria Sdn Bhd (BMW) with Property Guru International (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd and Triterra Metropolis Sdn Bhd as award sponsors. Preferred mortgage partner as CIMB Banks, official award auditor as Syarikat Ong, Kopiandproperty.com as blog partner and Nextdor Property Communications as public relations partner.
(30 November 2020)