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Australian real estate might be undergoing more change in this current period of its history and those that adapt best will survive the best and continue to thrive. REB asked two leading networks what pressure points they have identified and what steps each has taken to keep scoring goals despite the disruptions.
Laing+Simmons managing director Leanne Pilkington said that new people to the Laing+Simmons network typically express frustration around flexibility to implement solutions and initiatives they know will work for them.
“We make a point of actively supporting our franchise partners in the bespoke endeavours they wish to pursue,” Ms Pilkington told REB.
“Our Employee Assistance Program is a prime example. We recognised the demand for a tailored program of this kind after discussions with the principals in our network, as they expressed a need for greater support to ensure the health and wellbeing of their staff, and to help team members who might be experiencing stress, suffering depression, struggling with anxiety or facing other challenges.”
Relief
Ms Pilkington said that under the program, all team members can access free and anonymous counselling services.
“To help them deal with any issue they might be facing in their work or personal lives. The sessions are organised confidentially and run by Employee Assistance Services Australia, with the cost covered by Laing+Simmons. We were the first real estate organisation in Australia to make such a program available.”
Raine & Horne executive chairman Angus Raine said that despite the pervasiveness of the likes of Facebook and Google, some in the industry have failed to appreciate the emergence of social media marketing.
“To this end, we have launched our social media marketing platform, Amplify, in 2018, which scrapes data from Google and Facebook to target the most relevant buyers,” Mr Raine told REB.
He said that Amplify isn’t a “one-trick pony”.
“It’s using artificial intelligence and machine learning to constantly update our property ads across multiple channels so that our agents have the best opportunity to increase their sales.”
Reach
Mr Raine said that it’s a strategy that’s had a huge impact.
“Our results to date have been stunning,” the executive chairman said.
“The Raine & Horne website is ranking number one behind the portals in the suburbs and towns where Amplify is being used to promote properties. Better still, the Raine & Horne brand has been exposed more than 23 million times online, with over 2.77 million people viewing properties on our website.”
Mr Raine said that the group has achieved a click-through rate of 12 per cent, where the industry average is less than 1 per cent.
He also said that consumers spend almost 2.5 minutes viewing Raine & Horne properties, compared with the industry average of about 30 seconds.
“Amplify has enabled us to increase traffic to some of our businesses by over 1,000 per cent.
“This massive spike in traffic is an outstanding result, given we only launched Amplify in February, and is now translating to more appraisals, listings and sales.”
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