Archive for March, 2010

In a move that creates one of the biggest real estate teams in the Whitianga marketplace, Ray White has announced that its company Whitianga Realty is merging with AJ Innes Real Estate to form Ray White Whitianga from 1 April. For more information see New Offices tab

Ray White is please to announce the opening of their 133rd office in Waikanae

For details of the new Waikanae  office please click here

Ray White is please to announce the opening of their 132nd office in Golden Bay.

For details of the new Golden Bay office please click here

The Ray White group is proud to announce the opening of the new Foxton office.

For further information please see New Offices tab

We are please to advise the cover of our upcoming NZ Herald on Sunday awards edition to be publish on Easter Saturday the 4th of April 2010. 

The cover photo is taken of Lake Taupo in Autumn. Please click here to view the cover.

The Ray White Group has surpassed over 1.1 million views in one month of their properties on Trade Me.  Ray White is the first real estate company to surpass this mark, with average on 585 views per property. In addition to this, the Ray White Group also received over 6,500 emails enquiries on their properties during the month an average of over 300 per working day.

Ray White can attribute a high degree of its marketing success rate directly from Trade Me.  Our partnership  with Trade Me Property is developed on the basis that their real estate website receives in excess of 2.5 times the amount of any other composite website and 5 times the amount of any individual agency website.  Ray White has 100% of their stock with Trade Me and this provides Ray White vendors with a far greater exposure than any other individual real estate company in New Zealand.

Trade Me Property has a average visitor length of 21 minutes, with the highest from any individual agency being a mere 5 minutes.  This gives further emphasis to Ray White in regards to their properties exposure and the relevant display information. 

Complimentary to Trade Me Property is Ray White’s national site www.raywhite.co.nz.  This provides the user with integrated industry news together with 14,500 properties that all have satellite and hybrid mapping and fully featured photography which is enhanced by the slideshow display format.  The value of our national site is further enhanced through the 131 individual Ray White office sites which provide detailed information at a local level. 

Ray White has developed a complete web strategy which offers vendors and also purchasers the greatest audience of any New Zealand real estate company.  Each property that is listed through Ray White receives automatic listing on Trade Me Property, raywhite.com, raywhite.co.nz and the local office website.  This exposes Ray White properties to in excess of 1.125 million unique browsers per month, which is 6 times our nearest national competitor.

Trade me is recognised as the clear leader for online Real Estate marketing. Ray White is the number 1 Real Estate company on Trade Me.

‘Reach out and touch the ships’ was the headline for the property at 31 Ward Parade in Bluff. The property was sold 15 years ago for $260,000 which at that time was the most expensive property ever to be sold in the Bluff region.  In 2010 it still reigns as the most expensive property in Bluff as the property has been sold by Ray White Invercargill agent Brendan Mason for $900,000.

The property is situated on 3,000 sq metres on the entrance way to the Bluff Harbour and next to the lighthouse.  The property has its own private access to beaches with expansive rolling lawns and garden area. Originally the property started life as a MAF workshop, observatory and lab but was sold in 1994 to a private holding and the building was extended an additional level was put onto the building which enhanced the panoramic views and gave additional living areas to the original structure.  Brendan Mason commented that the property was sold to a local buyer who had their home listed with Ray White Invercargill. 

Bluff is home to 1800 residents and while being the most southerly residential area in New Zealand, it offers home owners a unique lifestyle with stunning scenery and only 30km from Invercargill.

The sales figures released by the NZ Real Estate Institute for February 2010 showed that 5,029 properties were sold during the month.  This figure was the lowest for February sales reported since data began being taken in 1992.  In comparison to the February sales in 2009 it was a further decline of 3.8%.  These numbers were not consistent with the Ray White group which showed February sales increased by 9.7% in comparison to the previous 12 months. 

There may be two factors which play a part in the above differences that being the increased marketshare that the Ray White has shown in the past 12 months together with the questions of the potential accuracy of the NZ Real Estate Institute statistics.  February traditionally is one of the stronger months for sales and for our group it has been the third or fourth most active month for sales in the year.  Beyond the actual sales volume number, controlled listings increased substantially by 41% on the previous 12 months.  The New Zealand Property Report released by realestate.co.nz for February showed that there was a 5000 property increase – 33% in listings across their website during February. 

In addition to this the Real Estate Institute have produced their seasonally adjusted sales figures which shows sales have fallen to an 18 year low with the total sales being 53,540.

The Ray White group see the continued polarisation from an industry point of view with these continued figures halting any potential revenue increase for individual agencies.  Marketshare and dominance of property sales will be important to the vendors as they choose their agency in potentially more challenging market conditions.  The Ray White group are proud to be able to offer to vendors real time market reports for every area across New Zealand.  These reports detail the numbers of sales, turnover, days on market, and price differences.  This can be also provided and split into housing and units.  These are available from the 132 Ray White offices across New Zealand.

The Ray White group in New Zealand are one of the largest managers of property for landlords in the country with over 12,300 properties managed throughout the group we are proud of our continued development of our property management team. 

As part of our ongoing qualitative based training our property management team came together in Auckland at Cornwall Park just on 80 managers attending.  The day seminar which looked at a number of key areas in property management which included service levels to landlords and tenants, how to management relationships, and also understanding the balance between the requirements of our landlords and the needs of our tenants. 

In addition to this, our team looked at marketing to ensure the continued low vacancy rates of our landlords.  We looked at the integration of internet advertising and Ray White’s association with Trade Me and how that has continued to increase enquiry rates for our landlords.  Our service also continues to broaden with our property managers providing wealth creation plans together with property appraisals and loan assessments.  This provides to our landlords an overall service level that is unmatched in the industry.  Ray White New Zealand offices have experienced continued growth in the property management division and this has been put down to the continued training and development while providing the highest quality service.

With property management now not being regulated it is seen to be more important for landlords who they choose to manage their property and also their rental income.  Ray White are developing policies which will provide security within an integrated system through our agency practice.  The Ray White group plans to release these details over the next quarter which will provide further confidence for our current landlords while providing a clear choice option for new landlords.

Lesley Hawes, of Ray White Kingsland, says: “The last three months of 2009 were remarkably good, with excellent sales numbers and results for our owners. Most of the properties had multiple offers on them and the popular theory among the media was that a recovery/boom was occurring. In my opinion, this was definitely not so. The apparent lift in the sales volume and shorter days on the market were caused, quite simply, by a lack of supply.”

This is the  Ray White Market Report for Kingsland, Arch Hill and Eden Terrace

Hawes has been in real estate for 16 years and with Ray White for 12 of those. For the past six years, she has been helped by her daughter Ruth and they cover city fringe suburbs, selling about 100 properties a year priced from $200,000-plus to $2.3 million.

Hawes adds: “Naturally what has happened since Christmas is that the good news has spread; house owners have become interested in selling again because of the excellent results achieved in late-2009.

“My prediction is ‘steady as she goes’ for the next three months, with plenty of choice for buyers and still very reasonable interest rates.”