Property

The medical doctor who runs South Africa’s largest estate agency

Dr Andrew Golding left the medical field in 1996 to become the managing director of his mother’s business, Pam Golding Properties. 

Pam Golding founded the company in 1976 when she recognised South Africa’s need for a discreet and professional real estate agency. 

Today, the company has 300 offices across Sub-Saharan Africa and is connected to 600 offices globally through a strategic alliance with Savills, one of the world’s biggest real estate groups.

The company has also won 77 awards over the past 16 years. In 2024, they were awarded the Best International Real Estate Agency and the best real estate website in Africa. 

In addition to the usual values of honesty, integrity, and professionalism, being a family business brings a host of familial values to the company, including loyalty, commitment, and empathy. Golding believes these values set their real estate agency apart from the rest. 

Pam was the front-of-house personality around which the business was built, but Golding said that his father was the one making the decisions behind the scenes. 

Growing up in Cape Town and later attending St Andrews College in Grahamstown, Golding says that his family was relatively traditional. 

In the beginning, the family had a small business, and Golding says, “It was certainly not about a grand vision of a large business.”

“All I can remember from those early days was my mother on the telephone trying to sell houses.”

Golding completed a general BSc degree, followed by an Honours in Sports Medicine, on his way to finally qualifying as a doctor. 

Because he was on the path to practice medicine, the one thing he always said he would never do, was join Pam Golding Properties. 

However, in the back of his mind, the possibility of joining the company still loomed. 

He worked as a general practitioner in Sea Point for seven years before “that fateful Sunday” when his brother, who was managing director of Pam Golding at the time, announced that he would be starting a commercial division for the business.

Golding’s brother suggested he take over the role of managing editor of the Pam Golding Group, which he accepted. He soon became the company’s CEO.

Pam Golding

Golding and Pam had the same values while working together, and the family’s culture helped shape the business culture. However, Golding said they would often get stuck on vision and business philosophy when he took over the business. 

“I am kind of trained as a scientist, and she works on gut feel,” he explained,

“She was a natural marketer and was able to take her natural ability of really putting buyers and sellers together at the top end of the Cape Town market and turned that into a business, combined with an incredible entrepreneurial spirit.”

Golding said it was a steep learning curve going from medicine to business. The only skill he could truly transfer to the business of real estate was listening. 

It was also a difficult time for all businesses in 1996, with interest rates going as high as 25%. Golding described how the phones just stopped ringing during this time. 

However, the tides turned soon enough, and 1998 to 2006 was a very good time for business and real estate in South Africa. 

Golding credited the foundations his mother laid and the systems his brother Peter put in place in the ten years of running the business as well as his “own entrepreneurial flair” for the business’ growth. 

His baptism by fire during this difficult period prepared him well for challenges later on in the property market, such as the international financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Under Golding’s leadership, Pam Golding Properties partnered with BidX to launch Pam Golding Auctions. 

This was in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which had led to a few changes in consumer trends in South Africa as people started to realise the ease and success of the online trading space. 

Golding explained that Pam Golding Properties strives for excellence because employees carry the family name. He said that they teach employees how to listen to clients to ensure the best service. 

Despite being very happy in his position as CEO of Pam Golding Properties, he still described himself as being a “very happy doctor” during the time he was practising medicine. 

If Golding were to do anything other than real estate, he said he would practice medicine again, stating that he still loves the field. 

He said that the real estate industry is for people willing to make the long-term commitment and investment into something sustainable with permanence. 

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