In Feature – PM

NEW ZEALAND UPDATE

It’s been a busy time in the Harcourt’s calendar as we have celebrated the first set of quarterly awards and successfully hosted our New Zealand Leaders, Franchise Owners and Managers at the Harcourts New Zealand Leadership Conference in Auckland on 9th - 10th August. The action-packed conference was an opportunity for our leaders to learn, grow and develop, using the experiences of the past to ensure we are “match fit” to continue to grow into the future. Many of our people have heralded the event as the best NZLC to date and I think this comes down to many things including the vast array of talented and motivational speakers alongside the opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals during a dynamic time in the market. Whatever the reasons, it was excellent to use this event as an opportunity to drive our business forward for the short to mid-term future. It also feels like we are celebrating our culture and our people more than ever. This year, we are delighted to introduce a new level of recognition to the Harcourts network, known simply as ‘Titanium’. We are thrilled to advise that Cameron Bailey, Harcourts Gold - Papanui is the first ever recipient of this recognition. Congratulations Cameron, we are proud of all your hard work and dedication, and it is great to be able to recognise your achievements in this way. We have recognised some of our people who are stepping aside or away from the Harcourts business after bright and shining careers. Nick Langdon, stepped away from Harcourts business ownership after working his way to through the ranks, into business development and then onto ownership. Having been the Managing Director of six very successful offices based in Orewa, Snells Beach, Warkworth, Matakana, Silverdale and Whangaparaoa, Nick and his co-business owners made Tandem Realty into an astonishing success. Nick describes himself as someone who is progressive, a believer in pushing boundaries and as a straight talker. We couldn’t not recognise the scale of Nick’s support and advocacy for the Harcourts Foundation. Nick and the entire team at Tandem Realty, enabled so much positive activity through donations through the Harcourts Foundation, to groups, clubs and other community projects in the north of Auckland. As someone who throws himself into every challenge, now he gets to throw himself into whatever’s next with his wife and family. Stuart Pescini and team enjoying each other’s achievements

Stuart Pescini, after over 30 years with Harcourts has decided to take a step back in our industry. Stuart started his real estate career as a sales consultant selling residential and lifestyle property, then he moved into management and Business Ownership of the Harcourts Team Group offices from Paremata through to Levin with Eliot Falconer and the late Mick Robbers. In more recent years Stuart has been making the daily commute to Palmerston North, and through the support of Business Owners Richard & Justine Jensen and the management team they have built a great business and lead an exceptional team. Stuart and his wife Robyn live just outside of Levin and over the years Stuart has given so much back to his local Horowhenua community and is a member of Horowhenua Business Hall of Fame. Stuart is always willing to share his business knowledge and expertise and over the years has done so much to help and support people throughout their real estate careers. Our next long service recipient has been part of the rich blue fabric that makes up Harcourts for 45 years, and it’s fair to say many of us weren’t even born when he started his real estate career with Harcourts.

Lou Newman.

Lou Newman has been a business owner, manager, auctioneer and over the years has probably in some way helped most Wellingtonians achieve their real estate goals and dreams and is still selling today. He has a great circle of friends, is a keen sportsman, has won numerous lawn bowls accolades and is heavily involved with the Mt Victoria Bowling Club. On behalf of Harcourts we appreciate everything you have done for Harcourts over your 45 years. Thank you to each of you, for what you have done and continue to do for Harcourts and our industry for more than four decades. You are inspirations to us all.

Bryan

Thomson

The Harcourts ‘Bledisloe Cup’ which is seen as the pinnacle of Harcourts Trans-Tasman Auctioneering, and also the key to internal auctioneering bragging rights, was held on-line on 29 July. New Zealand was in good hands with Darryl Harper (Harcourts Team Group Realty) and Ned Allison (Harcourts Grenadier) looking resplendent in representing the senior (open) division while Sandra O’Brien (Harcourts Gold) and John Phillips (Harcourts Grenadier) showed the highest of standards in the novice division. Proving what an auction powerhouse Grenadier is, Ned Allison won the open division competition while John Phillips took out the novice division. Shane Cortese, Harcourts New Zealand National Auction Manger, said “It was a pleasure to present the Bledisloe Cup trophy to our very own Ned Allison. There’s a bit of a story behind the trophy. It was recently found on the bookshelf of a past winner and so upon the find, it was taken to Ellerslie Jewellers who gave it some love, attention and silver polish to bring it back to all it’s original magnificence.’ He added, “We are very much looking forward to the trophy staying on this side of the Tasman for as long as that other Bledisloe trophy has.”

Superstar Profile Lin Ma

Senior Sales Consultant, Harcourts Grenadier - Wigram

1.Why did you decide to join Harcourts? I love the real estate franchise model so my husband and I decided to approach Paul

Wright and Mike Green regarding bringing the Harcourts brand and franchise model into China. They loved the idea and helped us open an office in China in 2006. I’ve been with the brand since.

2.What’s your favourite thing about being a Harcourts team member? I love the culture and networking opportunities in

Harcourts. When I was working with a competitor, everyone was just doing their own thing. You’d list yourself; you’d sell yourself and there was no teamwork. In Harcourts, we work together to achieve the best results, together, for clients. 3.What do you enjoy most about being in the real estate industry? Originally is money driven, now I feel satisfied when i can achieve great result for my clients so much more than their expectations, quite often changed their lives as they can now afford a better life. I felt i am not only a real estate agent but a very import role player in client’s life. 4.What activities have led to your success? Resilience, hard work and teamwork. Now I have a team of seven including a P.A. We all work hard together, and we have the same belief that “time is the best proof for whom to trust”.

AUSTRALIA UPDATE

How the year has flown by! It seems like only yesterday we were all together in the Gold Coast for our incredible HX. To call it an amazing two days hardly covers how fantastic HX 2022 was, not only was it exciting to be back together. It was inspirational. A significant feature of HX2022 was the speakers and panellists. Ranging from key real estate experts like super-agent Bob Wolff and his excellent and accessible messages, such as: ‘There is no secrets to real estate, only clues. Figure out what works for you and just keep doing it’; to Tina Sander’s powerful presentation focusing on ‘life-quakes’ those pivotal moments of change that shape your future; through to closing keynote speaker Saroo Brierley’s special life story, and his message of perseverance. We had two solid days of amazing stories of hardship, determination, and success. It’s not easy to get up and talk about what you do and how you do it. A massive thank you to all who did. And a huge thank you to all those who came along, participated, and made the event the success that it was. The togetherness that we celebrated and solidified at HX has given us the strong foundation we need as a team to move forward into this softening of the market we are beginning to see. To me, this shouldn’t be seen as a negative, but as an opportunity for Harcourts to build further upon the fantastic two years we’ve just had. It’s an opportunity for us to double down on the basics as real estate specialists and really drive our values as our strength. Connection with people is the cornerstone of who and what we are at Harcourts. Connection creates opportunity, and opportunity creates success. What we are seeing in the market and what we are being presented with is not just in the sales arena. Multiple rent roll transactions have occurred in the past months with plenty more chances out there for acquisition. Now is the time for our BDMs to ramp up on the market calls, as days on the market blow out. Listing volume is the key commodity in a slowing market. The more listings you have the more buyer/seller connections you make. We recently capitalised on this by running our ingenious National Appraisal Drive – Game of Phones. The drive saw an extraordinary number of appraisals and listings made over the period of a day, with offices and individuals taking part in the battle to be named champion. You can read more anbout this on page 24. I look forward to updating you on the second part of the drive which involves turning those appraisals into listings to be sold across a massive two weekend auction event in October. In more exciting news, we are getting closer and closer to the launch of the Harcourts Hub! Harcourts Hub will be our one stop shop for everything an agent, business owner, property manager or administrator ever needs to be a productive, growing member of the Harcourts team. Harcourts Hub will house everything the CRM doesn’t. It’s such an exciting time for Harcourts. Yes, it does require some change and disruption to the status quo, but the end outcome is going to be absolutely worth it. We’re dedicated to making your lives easier, and having the right tools is the first step. Stay tuned – launch day is imminent! And, as always, One Team – We’ve Got This! The future is brighter in blue!

Adrian

Knowles NORTH AMERICA UPDATE

What an incredible quarter we have just finished in North America! Our new format of taking our Quarterly Awards on the road was coordinated by our team at Harcourts Hunter Mason in Redondo Beach and what a fantastic job they did. We had 80+ people in attendance at a venue by the water with mesmerizing views and hundreds of others tuning in to the live stream. We had a record number of agents receive awards for the quarter with a lot of new faces receiving awards for the first time since being with Harcourts. This goes to show the incredible drive and tenacity that we are continuing to see from all our agents across our North American marketplace. A huge congratulations and thank you goes out to Courtney and Tony Self, our Harcourts Hunter Mason business owners, and their team for putting together such a wonderful event and celebration. Without all their hard work and preparation, we would not have been able to have the event that we did. Our new format for the awards has received very positive feedback from the network and we are looking forward to continuing with it in the future. We are also excited to announce the opening of three new offices to the Harcourts North America network; Harcourts Elite, Harcourts Silverton and Harcourts Carolinas. Harcourts Elite in Salem, Oregon will be headed up by Nick Ayhan, Harcourts Silverton in Silverton, Oregon will be headed up by the team of Valerie Boen and Korinna Barcroft, and Harcourts Carolinas in Columbia, South Carolina will be run by the team of Tara Morawski, Chad Widtfeldt and Justin Green. This is big for us as an organization as we continue to look at constant opportunities for growth and cannot wait to see the outstanding results that each of these offices will bring to the Harcourts family. Another exciting tool that we have been able to launch out to our agents was the release of our new Harcourts Lists service. This platform will give our agents the ability to use our geo-target mapping software to obtain the contact and title information of property owners within a specific location to further enhance and support their prospecting efforts.