How low can you go?

Date: 02 March 2020 By: Andries van Zyl

For Lizet Joubert of Lizet Joubert Property Professionals in Louis Trichardt, the past weekend was another good example of the saying: How low can you go?

Joubert, who is no stranger to the local property market, decided to go it alone and start her own property agency in Louis Trichardt a couple of months ago. With the economic downturn, business is tough and, like many other local property agents, Joubert has to fight hard for her share of the small local property market.

For her, the fight turned ugly the past weekend when somebody removed all her property sign boards in town Friday evening. This included “For Sale” and “Your Agent” boards. “It is unfortunately a fact that that the public frequently tamper with local agents’ property boards. They are stolen, pushed over or run over. This is a sad reality of our society that all of us have had to learn to live with,” said Joubert.

While Joubert might be okay with losing one or two agent boards, losing all of her sign boards was a shock. “What happened Friday evening is unacceptable. There were 15 of our ‘For Sale’ and ‘Your Agent’ boards removed/stolen at various places across town, all at once. We suspect we are being ‘targeted’ ... but we can prove nothing,” said Joubert.

Apart from the loss in advertising, Joubert said the removal of the boards also came at a financial loss. “Each board costs me R310. That is apart from the effort of putting it together and going out to place it. This is the backbone of our marketing strategy, and I am taking this very personally,” said Joubert.

 Joubert said that she had since reported the matter to the police in Louis Trichardt for further investigation. “We are also offering a reward of R5 000 for any information that can help us catch the culprits, specifically for what happened Friday evening,” said Joubert. She added that she would like to point out that the stealing or removal of an agent’s sign boards was a criminal offence with serious consequences. Joubert can be contacted directly regarding the reward at Tel 083 442 0428.

Persons who can assist the police in their investigation can phone Constable Marvin Makhubele at the Makhado SAPS at Tel 079 526 4335. In the meantime, Joubert spent most of Sunday replacing her sign boards in the pouring rain.

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Andries van Zyl

Andries joined the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in April 1993 as a darkroom assistant. Within a couple of months he moved over to the production side of the newspaper and eventually doubled as a reporter. In 1995 he left the newspaper group and travelled overseas for a couple of months. In 1996, Andries rejoined the Zoutpansberger as a reporter. In August 2002, he was appointed as News Editor of the Zoutpansberger, a position he holds until today.

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