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At 22 years old, Raine & Horne’s newest principal is finding inspiration close to home.
Raine & Horne Hurstville’s Jake Harrison is one of the youngest principals in the long history of the company. The legacy of young talent began back in 1883 when Tom Raine, himself 22 at the time, founded the business with Joseph Horne.
Now drawing parallels to Raine & Horne’s co-founder, Mr Harrison calls the comparison humbling.
“Being the same age as Tom when he started Raine & Horne is very cool, and I’m very proud of myself,” said the new owner of the brand’s Hurstville office, who has found a supportive business partner in Chris Arvanis.
Mr Arvanis, only 30 himself, agreed that the model of Tom Raine served to stoke their ambition and noted that in three months alone, they’d made significant headway on their goals.
“We both have plenty of fire in the belly, and I’m just excited to be working with Jake. We’re both in the office early, and we’re still up at night late working on the business. We’re always thinking about how we can do things differently and who can we call for a listing or property management,” he said.
The duo’s immediate objective is to see rapid growth in the number of rental properties the office is managing.
“We are well on the way to our rent roll target,” said Mr Harrison. “We also want to bring some more sales agents into the business too, and we want each agent selling three to four properties a month.”
He called the network’s tech offering a major point of difference in allowing them to make great strides in business growth.
“Chris and I work closely together and have embraced all the technology offerings provided by Raine & Horne, such as Amplify and Digikit,” Mr Harrison said. Though he noted that during Tom Raine’s time, an agent was looking at an entirely different toolkit.
“In 1883, Tom Raine would only have had a quill and some writing paper when listing and selling property,” Mr Harrison commented.
For the founder’s great, great-grandson, executive chairman Angus Raine, it’s the business’ forward-thinking approach to technology that has allowed them to be nimble in attracting young, fresh ideas, even while retaining immense pride in the company’s long history.
“In 2021, we are still attracting 20-somethings such as Jake to our Group,” he said.
Although times have changed, Mr Raine noted that some aspects of the job remain the same.
“Tom Raine’s business life began with his excellent connections, but he was able to transform this advantage into great success by his ability, energy and personal service,” he said.
Mr Harrison agreed that ultimately, success comes down to your integrity with clients.
“Honesty sets me apart. If a property has a few flies on it, I’ll be upfront with the vendor, and I’m not afraid to tell it as it is, especially if it means the difference between getting a sale or not.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Juliet Helmke
Based in Sydney, Juliet Helmke has a broad range of reporting and editorial experience across the areas of business, technology, entertainment and the arts. She was formerly Senior Editor at The New York Observer.
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