Now is the time to be starting a job in the property industry with newly qualified agents able to make big impacts early on in their careers While teenage boys in the United States or Europe might dream of becoming an astronaut or a professional footballer - in ever-pragmatic Hong Kong it seems that boyhood ambitions are still firmly rooted in reality. For Bierre Ho Yin-chi, it all started in his early teenage years when older, working-age friends regaled him with tails of derring-do from the property market where they worked. A decade later and, by his own admission, several degrees wiser, Mr Ho, now a fully-fledged estate agent dealing with some of Hong Kong's most affluent property buyers, has his own stories to tell. The 24-year-old from Fo Tan joined Colliers International a year ago after attaining a BSc Honours in real estate from Polytechnic University - and hasn't looked back. 'When I was at school, some older friends of mine who worked for Sun Hung Kai used to tell me stories about this property and that and I was immediately interested. I wondered, 'How can I get a piece of that action?'' Those early aspirations led him to the Polytechnic University where he says he was well prepared for a career in the estate agency business. 'The good thing about the university course was that not only did it teach me about the real estate market and the legal side of things, it also introduced me to the marketing side. 'But I now know that the most important thing is real, on-the-job learning and at Colliers I am being given that,' he says. Mr Ho reveals that the biggest deal he has closed since finishing his three-month training period at Colliers was the sale of a HK$113million property on the south side of Hong Kong Island. 'Closing that deal was a good feeling, but even after you get the agreement of the vendor and the buyer, there is a lot of work to be done with mortgage arrangements, legal work and so on. 'In many ways you are only half way there when you close the deal.' His 'beat' covers properties in Mid-Levels, The Peak and the south side of Hong Kong Island and as such he deals with both private and corporate clients of the highest calibre. 'But no matter who you are dealing with, you have to remember that people are investing so much of their money and their lives in a property, that you cannot afford to offer anything but the best to the client. 'It is in their interests and in ours to make sure they are happy,' he adds. While life at the beginning of his career so far has been rewarding, Mr Ho explains that it is also a lot of hard work. 'I can get called out at any time because perhaps clients have been watching the US stock market and then want to take a look at a property. I was once called out at midnight for a viewing,' he says. And the secret to success? 'Hard work and always remembering the needs of the client.'