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Estate Agents in West Hampstead, London NW6 - from Ham and High - 5th November 1993

Pace and buzz has duo hooked: The thrills and Spills of chasing a deal.

The "work hard, play hard" lifestyle of the 1980's may have disappeared, but not in the world of property investment.

Its hard work, but Mark Greig and Rosh Pathman, partners in Paramount Properties, would have it no other way.

"It's the pace of it," Mark enthuses. "The buzz from closing a deal. Then the telephone rings or the solicitor comes round to say it's exchanged, the adrenalin really flows."

They are deal-makers, Rosh declares. "Its like playing the stock market, only with property."

Now based in West Hampstead, Paramount Properties was set up in a Primrose Hill basement. Mark, 30 and Rosh, 26, were at Elliot Ross & Co, Rosh as a manager and Mark as manager and executive director of the office in West End Lane, West Hampstead.

When the company was sold to the Halifax building society in 1988, they decided enough was enough. "We were fed up with turning it on for somebody else," said Mark. "It hit us that it was time we did it for ourselves."

Paramount set up in June 1989 as investment and development valuers. As for any new business, the first few months were tough.

Then came the £2.5 million sale of a 30-property portfolio to the Freshwater group of companies. "That," said Mark, "was our kick to get going"

Within months, they had one £7 million worth of business, including the sale of 11 house in Marylebone Mews, off Marylebone Lane.

In 1990, they moved to offices in Broadhurst Gardens, West Hampstead, "because our main business was in the area around West Hampstead. "That was the area we always worked in" Rosh reflects.

"When everyone else was shrinking, we had built up our business. Whatever the condition of the market, people will buy and sell property because that is their business. That is how they make a living." Adds Mark "If a bank is repossessing property, it has to be sold somewhere."

Paramount moved to its present office, in West End Lane, in 1991, when the Halifax closed its operation there. Paramount set up a residential sales and lettings operation and now employs nine staff.

The job involves unsocial hours - Mr Greig remembers showing one prospective buyer of St Godrett's School in Fitzjohns Avenue at midnight. "That is the way they do business. He wasn't available during the day and the property had to be bought the next morning."

The latest is on a house in Goldhurst Terrace, which they bought for £300,000 and sold for £500,000 to a Hong Kong investment company. Work is under way converting it to four flats.

But not all deals come off. The biggest they have been involved with - one for 250 flats in Chelsea - would have been worth £40 million, but did not complete.

Most of their deals are smaller, but there are plenty of them. "There are more people wanting to spend £5 million to £7 million because the market is turning up and the prices are getting ridiculous."

It is hard work and the two find it hard to switch off. But they would not do anything else. The pace is frenetic, but sometimes they have to slow down as some deals require patience.

"We follow buildings," said Rosh. "We have just sold a building that we have been following for two years."

It sometimes involves patience of a different sort. "One of my clients, who came round to my flat one day for a coffee and a quick chat at 7pm, didn't leave until 3am," Rosh remembers. "He has long hair, wears cowboy boots and jeans and goes around buying £1 million worth of property in a week. But that's the nature of the business."

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