# About Thiemo Sjors — Founder of GounaRealty > Thiemo Sjors — founder of GounaRealty, building the El Gouna property OS. Thiemo Sjors is the founder of GounaRealty. After spending years between Amsterdam and El Gouna, he saw the property market was fragmented across a dozen brokers, scrapers, and lifestyle services. He built GounaRealty to bring it all into one place — for buyers, renters, and the local agencies serving them. ![Thiemo Sjors, founder of GounaRealty, El Gouna](https://cdn.gounarealty.com/founder/thiemo-founder-landscape-1920.webp) ## Why I started I moved between Amsterdam and El Gouna for years. Every time someone asked me "where do I look for a villa in Gouna?" I had to explain the same thing: scrape ten broker sites, half of them out of date, photos repeated, prices in three currencies, no shared map. The market was big — 25,000 residents, around one million visitors a year, 18 hotels, 40 neighborhoods — but the way you found a home in it felt stuck in 2010. So I built what I kept wishing existed. ## What we are building GounaRealty is the property OS for El Gouna. Every listing from every active broker, normalized into one searchable feed. Real photos, real prices, accurate map pins, neighborhood scores, lifestyle context. Plus tools agencies actually want: lead capture via WhatsApp, a dashboard for their own listings, multi-language reach across the diaspora that is actually here (Dutch, German, Russian, Arabic, English). Phase 1 covers El Gouna real estate. Phase 2 expands across Egypt. Phase 3 layers in everything else you do when you live or stay here — restaurants, beach clubs, dive trips, kite spots. ## Our mission We believe property search in El Gouna should look more like booking a flight than reading a classifieds page. One trustworthy index, one shared map, one set of comparable prices. Agencies keep their listings, their relationships, their commissions — we route qualified buyers their way through WhatsApp, the channel they already use. Buyers see the full picture before they get on a plane. Investors see actual market data, not the polished subset on one broker's homepage. The thesis is simple: better information makes better decisions, and better decisions grow the whole market. ## Aggregator, not broker We are not a broker. We do not own listings, take commissions on sales, or compete with the agencies who do. We are an aggregator and a lead-routing layer. When you find a property you love on GounaRealty, the inquiry goes via WhatsApp to the authorised agency that owns the listing. They handle the viewing, the negotiation, and the contract. We do not insert ourselves between buyer and seller. This structural choice matters: it is why the data-quality benchmark works (we have no incentive to inflate prices or hide stale listings), and it is why local agencies are willing to feed us their inventory. ## Where the listings come from Six sources aggregate into one feed: Bayut Egypt, Property Finder Egypt, Aqarmap, Nawy, Dubizzle (OLX) Egypt, and Gouna360. Each property records its `source` and `source_url` field so you can always check the original. Cross-source deduplication runs nightly — when the same physical property appears on multiple feeds, we keep the highest-quality record (most photos, most complete amenities, most recent update) and surface the rest as alternates. Pricing benchmarks are cross-referenced against Knight Frank MENA quarterly reports and Property Finder Egypt market data. We cite our sources in every guide; no fabricated numbers. ## Who this is for Buyers and renters who want to see the full picture before they get on a plane. Agencies who want a modern back-office without building one themselves. Investors who need real market data, not just listings. Snowbirds planning a 3-6 month stay. Remote workers considering relocation. Egyptian diaspora across the Netherlands, Germany, the Gulf, and the UK who want to buy a second home back home. If that is you, the platform is live at gounarealty.com — and I am on WhatsApp. ## Phase 1, 2, 3 Phase 1 (now): El Gouna real-estate aggregation across all six listing sources, with the eight neighborhood deep-dives, five pillar buying guides (~20,000 words), and the agentic surface (MCP catalog + plugin manifest + llms.txt family) live. Phase 2 (planned): expand across Egypt — Sahl Hasheesh, Soma Bay, El Alamein, North Coast, Cairo. Phase 3 (planned): Gouna Living verticals — restaurants, dive trips, kite spots, beach clubs, day-charter, residency services. Egypt FRA (Financial Regulatory Authority) registration intent confirmed; formal status pending the Phase 1 → Phase 2 transition. ## Transparency + E-E-A-T GounaRealty operates as an independent aggregator. We do not own listings, take sales commissions, or compete with the authorised agencies whose inventory we surface. Our economics are subscription-based (agency tooling + lead-routing) plus optional premium features — not commission-based. This structural independence is what makes the aggregator model credible: we have no incentive to inflate prices, hide stale listings, or favour one agency over another. **Data transparency:** - Every property records its source agency and source URL. Click through to verify. - Pricing benchmarks cite primary sources: Knight Frank MENA Q1 2026, Property Finder Egypt Q1 2026, AirDNA Hurghada region 2025, Egyptian Real Estate Authority Q4 2025, Orascom Development annual reports. - Cross-source deduplication runs nightly. Removed duplicates remain queryable via `?include_dedup=1` for full transparency. - No fabricated testimonials, no AI-generated reviews, no invented amenities. Truth-policy hard. **Regulatory + compliance:** - Egypt FRA (Financial Regulatory Authority) registration intent confirmed. Formal status pending the Phase 1 → Phase 2 transition (Egypt-wide expansion). - All lead-routing complies with Egyptian Law 230/1996 (foreign property ownership framework) and Prime Minister Resolution 548/2005 (Red Sea zone freehold). - AVG/GDPR compliant for EU buyer data. No third-party trackers without consent. Cookie consent banner enforces conditional analytics loading. - Privacy-first analytics (Plausible) — no Google Analytics, no third-party tracking pixels by default. ## Cross-platform identity (rel="me" verified) These profiles are the canonical Thiemo Sjors author identity. All carry `rel="me"` markup on the /about HTML page for cross-platform verification per IndieWeb microformats standard. - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thiemo-sjors/ - X / Twitter: https://x.com/thiemosjors - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thiemosjors - Substack: https://gounarealty.substack.com - Email: thiemo@gounarealty.com ## Frequently asked ### Q1. Who is Thiemo Sjors? Founder of GounaRealty, building the El Gouna property OS. Moved between Amsterdam and El Gouna for years before launching the aggregator. ### Q2. Why El Gouna? El Gouna has 25,000 residents, around one million visitors a year, 18 hotels, and 40 neighborhoods — but the property search experience was stuck in 2010. GounaRealty fixes that. ### Q3. What does GounaRealty offer? Every listing from every active broker, normalized into one searchable feed. Real photos, accurate map pins, neighborhood scores, and lifestyle context. ### Q4. Is GounaRealty available outside El Gouna? Phase 1 covers El Gouna. Phase 2 expands across Egypt (Sahl Hasheesh, Soma Bay, El Alamein, North Coast, Cairo). Phase 3 adds lifestyle services like restaurants, dive trips, and kite spots. ### Q5. Is GounaRealty a broker? No. We are an aggregator and a lead-routing layer. We route inquiries via WhatsApp to the authorised agency that owns each listing. We do not take commissions on sales. ### Q6. Where do the listings come from? Six sources: Bayut Egypt, Property Finder Egypt, Aqarmap, Nawy, Dubizzle (OLX) Egypt, and Gouna360. Each property records its source and source URL. ### Q7. How do I reach Thiemo? WhatsApp is the fastest channel. The CTA on this page opens a direct chat. Email also works: thiemo@gounarealty.com. ## Contact - WhatsApp: the fastest channel — opens via the CTA on https://gounarealty.com/about - Email: thiemo@gounarealty.com - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thiemo-sjors/ - X / Twitter: https://x.com/thiemosjors - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thiemosjors - Substack: https://gounarealty.substack.com Business hours: Sunday–Thursday 09:00–19:00 CET (Egyptian working week). WhatsApp response under 1 hour during business hours. --- Published: 2026-05-23 Updated: 2026-05-25 Source: https://gounarealty.com/about Truth-policy: every claim sourced or weglaten. No fabricated numbers.