Posts Tagged ‘www.raywhiteonline.co.nz’

Ray White Online has undergone its third update of livery after now being an active website for the past two years.

Initially Ray White Online was built as an internal communication where members could access stories, updated information and events that our group was undertaking.  The site quickly developed into a broader communication platform which became public just over 18 months ago.  The site gives insights into our group with stories posted most days, with 250 posts attracting over 210,000 visitors since the site has been live to the public.  Other features include new offices, CEO comments, and Elite member details.  A lot of feedback is received in particular from the posts and CEO comments.

The site is enabled to be shared to Facebook and Twitter, giving each communication post a much broader audience.  The site has also recently enabled an area where the public can subscribe to direct updates and feeds at 9am each morning.

We encourage stories from both our members and the broader public and these can be forwarded to swatson@raywhite.com

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The first quarter reflected this confidence with 14,500 sales.  Our group market share hit a new high and this set a platform for what we felt was going to be a year that saw the industry return to better times.  In April the Government started to mute on the basis of changes to LAQCs and also personal taxation advantages.  Their dissertation behind this was to make property less friendly and steer people towards personal saving with the benefit of tax deductions and a higher awareness of Kiwi Saver. In the midst of all this came two interest rate increases.  These were minor but enough to move property into an unfriendly position and to again be questioned as to its value from an investor point of view. 

The second quarter plummeted. Sales were almost 30% down on the previous year and close to mirroring the numbers of 2008.  Our group was acclimatised to these conditions, but you got the feeling this was going to set in for some period of time.  In June we had our third interest rate rise which was enough to send the signal to the market that property sales were going to go into hibernation.  Most in the industry understand that to have buyers you need to have sellers.  Sellers come to the market when there is confidence that they can market their property to receive a satisfactory return on the price that they may have originally paid.   The lack of confidence from sellers then began to domino towards the buying market. 

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Samuel Innes will be the second New Zealand child to undergo umbilical cord treatment for a birth related brain injury. Samuel, who is now four years old, was diagnosed with cerebral palsy when he was two.  He has been accepted for treatment to be re-infused with his own cord blood in North Carolina.

His parents Andy and Ricky Innes , the franchise owners of Ray White Whitianga, are planning on travelling to the United States later next month.  For more on Samuel’s story please click here

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.

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.

Ray White Opotiki have today confirmed a merger with Opotiki Real Estate to further strengthen the position of Ray White in the local market place.

Local Real estate identities Shona Browne and Amanda Dick from Opotiki Real Estate join Jackie Rooney and Erin Dickson from Ray White Opotiki.

For the full storey please click here Real Estate Merger in Opotiki

With 6 months tucked under her belt since joining the team at Ray White Birkenhead, Mariette Beesley is making real waves in commercial real estate on the North Shore.

 Originally from Barfoot and Thompson, Mariette has been involved in selling real estate for over 5 years now. Her recent success can be attributed to her amazing work ethic and the support she receives from her business owners, Stephen Wong and Glen Carpenter. “We are delighted with her progress and the energy she brings into the office. She is a diligent worker who puts in long hours to achieve her goals and targets” Stephen says.

Mariette’s dominance can be easily seen right across the Shore. Her signs are on display in most commercial areas; this in its self has given Mariette’s business a real surge due to her market profile. With commercial real estate growing steadily on Auckland’s North Shore, Mariette looks forward to her continued growth it what is often perceived as a hard sector of the real estate market.

The Ray White Group has been in continued development of producing information for our own members that allows them to gain insights into the property market that will assist home owners in the marketing of their property. 

The ongoing development of this information has now seen our company being able to produce statistical data that can be directly applied to property in any area across New Zealand.  The grouping of this data includes price banding by percentage, the number of sales occurring in each suburb by sectors, the number of days on market, also the price differential between the listed and selling prices.  These are all important identifiers when you are considering the various concepts of marketing and also the buyer pool. 

Each Ray White office has access to provide this information to you. In our weekly updates we will be providing a suburb overview that gives you an indication of the current activity in various areas across New Zealand. 

This week we look at information coming from the inner west area of Ponsonby.  During 2009 there were 113 house sales with an average price at $957,409 with a further 25 unit sales at an average price of $451,945.  The best time of the year to sell houses is in April and October.  In 2009 the highest level of sales occurred in the price band between $600,000 and $800,000, totalling 44.   Ponsonby is one of the few markets that shows an upward lift in the sale price to the listed price.  This is mainly due to the fact that there is higher buyer competition and that many properties are submitted to the auction concept in this area.  Days on market continue to decrease, with the last quarter of 2009 showing 32 days for houses and 19 days for units. For the full market report on Ponsonby please click here Ponsonby Market Data Report 

For further information regarding this report please contact Ray White Ponsonby on (09) 376 2186 or email Simon Damerell  simon.damerell@raywhite.com 

To request a market review for your area, please leave a comment or contact your local Ray White office.

It was early on a Saturday morning that I went down to the news agency in Mt Albert to collect what was one of the first New Zealand Herald real estate sections in tabloid.  But what made this day more remarkable was the fact that our company had officially changed its name to the public through a White Out statement of 30 pages to now be known as Ray White Real Estate. Exactly 10 years ago we became Ray White.  There was a period of history before this that involved two brands; United and Ray White United.  But it really wasn’t until we were brave enough to run with Ray White that we started to get traction.  It was our sales team who drove the change to Ray White.  It gave them consistency in their presentations; it gave them the ability to draw from a greater history; and most importantly it offered a future to our salespeople when they were talking with vendors. 

At that time we had 71 offices and we were turning over just under $600 million a year.  Today we produce 10 times that turnover and our business has doubled adding 70 offices and 650 salespeople.   It is one of those moments where we can quietly reflect on our success as it is just a line in the sand.  The next 10 years we have so much to look forward to as the real estate industry redefines itself into a value and service offering that will be recognised in the community to be of greater need. 

Thank you to our foundation members and to all those who continue to entrust Ray White with their future career.  The best years are ahead of us.

Ray White Group Chairman Brian White has spent almost half a century at the coalface of the Australian property industry. He reflects on some of the changes affecting Australian real estate during the past 10 years – one of the most turbulent decades in history for Australian property.

The return of optimism to Australian property markets as this decade comes to a close brings a contrast to the same position 10 years earlier when all the talk was ‘how long will this property surge continue?’

Ten years ago the Sydney property market was more buoyant than it had been for a decade. The Sydney Olympics were soon to begin and the question was – with the completion of the Olympic Games, would Sydney still be able to maintain the same level of values as those that had been established as the 20th century came to a close?

It was Sydney that was driving the nation, in sharp contrast to the New South Wales property market of recent times. The 10 year period from the commencement of the 21st century saw some remarkable surges in markets that had always seemed to be relatively secondary in the Australian context.

Sea change became a new word in the property landscape, which opened up vast new areas of Australia’s coastline and gave credibility to the markets which had previously been lacking. Now real estate agents in so many of these centres became to seeing interstate buyers and people from other regions arrive in town keen to purchase. Anything with water views or close to water beach amenities suddenly was being re-rated upwards.

Perhaps the biggest beneficiary of all of this was Queensland with its vast coastline and seemingly endless opportunities for a new lifestyle based upon the philosophy that it was no longer critical to live in the major cities. Other markets to benefit from this included Western Australia and NSW. The strength of these new momentums changed a lot of the relative values. Suddenly, Melbourne was no longer dearer than Brisbane – the situation that always existed before.

Areas in Sydney became lacklustre when compared to the coastal based centres of NSW. As prices in Australia increased at varying rates all of this was to be challenged by the global financial crisis. As always, those markets that surged in value were the first to be repriced and reassessed.

Suddenly members of the community had greater affinity for original locales. The first properties to be sold were the ‘lifestyle’ ones, resulting in a large number of properties coming on the market. Markets such as Adelaide and Melbourne – which had seen relatively little surge during the golden years – came into their own. They became the more successful markets in recent years.

The battered Sydney market received an enormous injection of confidence, particularly from the first home owners grant, and as the first decade of the 21st century ended it was better balanced and more active than it had been for years.

Not only were the first home owner markets in a state of recovery but strength was returning to the more expensive properties bordering Sydney Harbour, which began to have their best results for quite some time.

In addition, new trends emerged. Suddenly it was important for people to be living close to work and other amenities with many examples of families living in apartment buildings, which were previously regarded as ‘non-family’ abodes.

For some, it has become preferable to live in a two bedroom flat at Bondi Beach rather than the big homes that have been built on large blocks in Sydney’s Western suburbs, even though the apartment at Bondi Beach may only comprise two bedrooms for a family of four. (Recent reports suggest that Australians have been building the world’s largest average sized home.)

It’s also clear as this decade comes to an end that Australia has avoided a dramatic downturn in prices that has been experienced in many other parts of developed economies. The current support for the mid to up market properties is quite significant and will form the basis for a strong 2010.

It’s all very well to have a strong first home owners market but at the end of the day it’s the upmarket that will ‘pull through’ in setting levels of confidence that percolate right through market structures.