Father Eugene and Son Stephen Dignum treat clients like family

Written By JOSHUA SANTOS

Stephen Dignum and his father Eugene have been working together for more than a decade in Real Estate Sales.  Combined they have almost 50 years experience in Residential, Commercial and Farmland Sales.  Stephen, a licensed Real Estate Broker who lives in Caledon, has been with Exit Realty Hare (Peel), Brokerage for about 13 years.  Eugene on the other hand, who lives in Orangeville, has been a Real Estate Sales Representative for 35 years. 

In 1993, Stephen started working at Sears Canada Inc. as a major appliance technician after completing his training at Casa Loma Campus, George Brown College. He did that for 13 years when he realized he wanted to change his career path.  In 2006, he joined his father in the real estate business to support a growing family at the time. Stephen now has three children going to schools in Caledon and Orangeville.  “That was the idea,” Stephen said, “To work together as a family and support each other and make sure their needs are taken care of.”  “Those years working for a large corporation that focused on excellent customer service gave me valuable experience that I could bring to my clients in the Real Estate business.”  

In the early 1980's, Eugene owned a commercial cleaning business where he managed about five employees. It was night-work and it was a very labour-intensive job.  “My 3 boys were all small at the time,” Eugene said. “My wife was at home with the kids. She would find a job part-time once in a while in a real estate office for evening work to help make the mortgage payments.”  Eugene's wife worked as a secretary for A.E. LePage, prior to it amalgamating with Royal Trust to become what is known now as Royal LePage.  Her manager suggested her husband should get his Real Estate License. The couple thought about the idea but didn't pursue it, until one day they decided to do something about it.  “My wife said, ‘you're up all night long, You come home and sleep, the kids go to school and they come back from school and you're up and out again'.”  It was just not ideal for a young growing family.

Over the course of the years he would gain the experience necessary to become a veteran Real Estate Sales Representative and eventually branched out into selling more than just residential homes and developed his knowledge and skills for Farmland and Commercial Real Estate.  What is his secret to success?  “You don't make a living by sitting in the office,” Eugene says.  “You need to be on the road.”  Eugene says he knocks on doors, places advertisements in local publications, but, more than anything, he's out there ‘meeting people face-to-face and talking with them.'  

Eugene has also built a reputation for arriving at fair value for properties in Caledon, Halton, and surrounding areas, selling and listing properties as far a field as Fort Erie, Niagara, London, Coburg, Mount Forest and Owen Sound.  “It means keeping up to date with local and provincial policy as well as planning and development that affects landowners in the short and long-term.  We keep our fingers on the pulse of what's happening in Caledon and the other localities with respect to planning and policy and recent land sales so that we we can provide the best and most accurate information to our clients.” As a result, he's successfully worked with a fair number of Investor clients, making deals with and for some of the largest builders and developers in Ontario.   

Most of their business for the past 35 years has been through referrals and building relationships with people, building trust.  “That's generally how our business has grown,” Stephen said.

Stephen remembers a time when they sold a home to a young family in 2009.  “We reconnected through Facebook just in the last couple of weeks and it turns out this past client is now working in the financial sector, and he is looking for a realtor that he can refer his clients to because he treats his clients like friends and family, and he thought we would be a good fit for him from our past experience with him.” said Stephen. “And we likewise want to be able to refer our clients to lawyers, inspectors and financial advisors that work the same way.  People just want to know that the professionals working for them actually care about them.”  Stephen said.  “That's something we can pass onto our clients.  We want them to feel like they have a family of real estate agents supporting them, helping them with the sale of their home or the purchase of their dream property or investment. They're getting family support not just business support.” 

To contact Stephen Dignum (Broker), you can email exitwithsuccess@gmail.com or call his cell at (416)-559-2995 or call his office at 1-866-297-3948.

To contact Eugene Dignum (Salesperson) you can email eugenedignum@hotmail.com or call him on his cell at (416)-418-6658.