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Simon Parker
Harcourts NSW new CEO, Rob Forde, said his group's "innovation" would continue to attract new franchisees as he set his sights on more growth in the year ahead.
Talking at the group’s quarterly awards last night, Mr Forde, who was formerly a business development executive and group auctioneer for Ray White in Adelaide, recently replaced former NSW CEO, Sadhana Smiles.
Ms Smiles is taking up the position of Harcourts Victoria CEO, having managed a business that posted a 26 per cent surge in settled sales for the year to March.
“We now have 375 offices in Australia with over 1,300 sales consultants,” Mr Forde said, with 75 offices located in NSW.
“Internationally we are now in nine different countries ... What an amazing opportunity we have here in NSW to continue to grow and develop this brand. When you look at some of the incumbent real estate organisations over the past 10 or so years, one thing that stands out is there has been no real major innovation.
“Real estate cannot not be viewed in the same light that is 10 years ago – things have changed,” he continued. “There have been advancements in technology and value added services with put us more in tune with what it is that our customers want.
“We live in a time poor world and people want things to be easy. We have seen the development of products such as eCampaign, mobile agent, eRecruit, eInspect and the latest eAgent, not to mention the continual development of the Harcourts one platform.
“It was with innovation that Harcourts has implemented value added services into their business helping to bring the customer closer.”
Mr Forde also pointed to the group’s other service offerings, namely its mortgage broker arm Mortgage Express; its ties with the regional network at Landmark Harcourts; and its Harcourts Concierge product, which offers clients access to value added products such insurance, connections, disconnections and conveyancing.
The new CEO also welcomed the latest franchisee to join the network, in the south west Sydney suburb of Liverpool, and suggested more growth was in the offing following the recent appointment of Andrew McCulloch, franchise development manager for Harcourts NSW.
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