Category Archives: Property Business Network

Real Estate Business

Real Estate Business – Why Choose One Agency?


My real estate business… I’m often asked what inspired me to start One Agency. In truth, it was my wife Annie. They say behind every great man there’s a woman.

While I’m not a great man, there’s a great woman behind me. After 35 years in the industry I was able to draw on my experiences to develop a new and innovative business model that would serve agents better now and into the future, being a more sustainable model.

Annie sparked my thinking back in 2006 when I’d just sold a major franchise business and started a boutique business. I experienced first-hand how the advantages of a major franchise could blend with a boutique business (which is essentially what One Agency is) and that operating costs were the critical factor that determined success or failure.

I honestly I thought that straight away agents would be knocking down my door to join, but the first 10 were like pulling teeth! My belief in the idea kept me going… Now we appear to be an overnight success after 6 years! 

It was hard in the beginning but once members started to join, there was no going back. I always thought that if one agent was interested there must be two, and if there were two there would be 10, and if 10 agents agree with me there must be 100, and so on, and why not? I would constantly say that to myself. With that belief firmly entrenched in my mind, I knew it would only be a matter of time and perseverance.

 

One Agency Christmas 2014

A Toast to the Festive Season from Paul Davies MD of One Agency

It’s that crazy time of year again as we run around in preparation for the festivation season, attending school concerts and braving the Christmas shopping queues.

I’m sure that you’re all busy making sure that your sales, rentals and businesses are managed through the holidays of this festive season.

We’ve had another extremely productive year here at One Agency and have almost doubled the number of members joining the group. With one new member from the Northern Territory, we are now in all States and Territories of Australia. 

Rita and Karin have been joined at Head Office this year by Therese, Emma and Darelle. Between them, they’ve managed the huge growth we’ve seen, and I thank them all for their contribution to our group. The One Agency brand is getting more and more exposure in the market place and we look forward to welcoming in more real estate professionals in 2015.

With enquiries pouring in from across the Tasman, we are also investigating establishing operations in New Zealand, to offer these real estate agents the same great opportunity as our Australian members.

Many of you will be pleased to hear that we’ve been working on the new One Agency website and it’s looking great. It will be a beautiful design, easy to navigate and have lots of excellent new features. Launch is due early in the New Year.

One Agency Real Estate Group Showing Rapid Growth

We held our second One Agency Conference of 2014 at The Westin in Sydney last week with rapid growth and a record number of attendees in excess of 100 people. Managing Director, Paul Davies says:

“I can’t tell you how delighted we were with our ‘ONE Big Conference’, how inspiring it was to us and also to our members. We are seeing a rapid rate of growth which shows that ONE Agency has come a long way over the past five years. Membership is increasing steadily and we are on track to again double our numbers this calendar year.”

Most attendees agreed that Dr Fred Grosse was the highlight of the day. For those of you who couldn’t make it, we will be sharing the audio recordings of Dr. Grosse’s sessions very soon. The One Agency Member Panel boasted Anita Ellis-Case, Stephan Siegfried, Andrew Reeves, Vince Salvatore and Scott Crossman as contributors. This is always an extremely popular segment as members discuss their experience, videos and marketing ideas and share stories of their journey since joining the group.

One of our members said that they felt it was great value for money having seen Dr Fred Grosse on several previous occasions, at a much higher cost and his presentation at our conference was the best. Here’s some other feedback from our members:

Real Estate Business Sold

Real Estate Transactions Are 9.8% Higher Than A Year Ago

Real estate transactions are up as Australians have proven their preference for bricks and mortar as a sound investment, pouring their money into the property market and lifting its value to a staggering $5.6 trillion.

This is in direct comparison to superannuation funds which are worth about $1.8 trillion and our share market which is worth about $1.6 trillion.

New figures from RP Data reveal buyer demand for property has levelled out, but property purchasing is still at a high. Transaction levels are 9.8 per cent higher than a year ago with 351,738 houses and 140,277 units bought in the year to July.

The latest market report identified Darwin as having the property market with the highest long-term capital gain of any capital city. Its median house price rose by 8.2 per cent per year for the past ten years while its unit values went up by 8.3 per cent.

Sydney still had the highest capital gains in the past year with dwelling values up by a hard-to-beat 14.3 per cent. Sydney’s median house price was also the highest in the country at $750,000. 

One Agency Lindi Kim Sing

One Agent Loves The Freedom Offered By One Agency

Lindi Kim Sing first heard of One Agency when attending a Lee Woodwards Real Estate Academy training session. 

She noticed a number of One Agency Members, Tina Lee, Tony Quattroville, plus members from various Central Coast offices and on one of the days, she sat and chatted with them over lunch. 

“I liked the clever brand name of One Agency and we got talking about it, but using a franchise wasn’t a consideration for me at the time, as didn’t want to be tied up with the restrictions that it might have involved.”

Although One Agency isn’t a traditional franchise, Lindi was concerned about the potential restrictive nature of joining a real estate brand. She considered going out on her own even going into partnership with another local agent.  

In the end, it was a date that was the deciding factor for Lindi in setting up with One Agency and she joined on the 1st July 2014.

Prior to that Lindi had worked briefly with LJ Hooker in Balmain and for four years with Coopers Agency. Before setting up her business, One Agency Lindi Kim Sing in the inner-west of Sydney, Lindi spent three months working out where she would position herself in the market. She realised that the boutique agencies in her area are no longer boutique in their approach and so she found her point of difference and wrote a book called “House Proud”, which she uses alongside her pre-listing kit.

One Agency fundraising for the Great Illawarra Walk

ONE Big Helping Hand – Local Community Fundraising

Whether your motives are humanitarian or professional, getting involved in the local community at a volunteer level offers a variety of benefits.

There are two types of community involvement that real estate agents typically gravitate toward. The first is donating money to a cause, which is admirable and a boon to the charity recipient yet it involves very little effort beyond writing a cheque. Then there is hands-on volunteerism: the getting your hands dirty, joining in nitty-gritty of community involvement.

Both types of charitable donation are great but the latter is hands down better for your real estate business. The type of giving back that puts you face-to-face with groups of people who may turn into clients is good for business.

So charitable involvement or donation in the real estate world isn’t completely altruistic?

It may well start out as a selfless desire to give to others, but side benefits of community involvement include the fact that it’s a fabulous way to generate leads, get your name linked to the local community and increase your brand reach and public persona.

One Agency Real Estate Business

One Great Business Opportunity for 2014

The holidays are becoming a distant memory for most of us and the shiny goals we set for 2014 may also be fading fast!

If you’ve been looking for a great business opportunity and thinking of setting up your own real estate business but are concerned it’ll be too hard to do it alone, why not consider what Paul Davies, Managing Director of One Agency has to say about setting up for yourself.

“I only wish one agency had been around twenty years ago when I was setting up businesses because honestly it’s a no brainer. The business of the future is simple light-weight, effective and economical that’s what One Agency represents. I was a franchisee for twenty years and there were lots of restrictions. Why? Who likes them? At One Agency there’s no restrictions, you do business the way you like to do business, it’s what you’re good at. Make it enjoyable and make it profitable. The future is yours to choose.”

Housing Affordability

Tom Panos – Real Estate Myths Debunked

In this blog, taken from Real Estate Business Online, Tom Panos busts some common myths about real estate:

Myth #1: The most successful real estate salespeople are born, not made
Fact:
Incorrect. Yes, a good agent may have a tendency and inclination to be a savvier negotiator with better people skills, but these are things that can be learnt and nurtured. Research shows that at a maximum, people are operating at 50 per cent of capability which means the majority of human beings are not realising their potential.

Myth #2: Agents that write $1m in gross commission do a lot of cold calling
Fact:
There is no evidence that seven figure agents do cold calling. Seven figure agents run an attraction business that is built on momentum; their prospecting is best defined as either “warm” or “smart” calling. They simply are nurturing contacts they already have. In marketing this is called “lead nurturing”. At one stage they did have to do cold calling, but most of these agents have got to a level where they are having more calls come in than calls go out.

One Agency Christmas Wreath

Christmas Cheer after a Fantastic Year for One Agency

Christmas is almost here after an extremely busy and productive year at One Agency.

We’ve seen tremendous growth in the business and 2014 is already shaping up as we continue to welcome new members into our group.

We ran two very successful conferences in July and November at Brighton Le Sands which had record attendance and a great deal of knowledge sharing among our members. One of the big advantages of joining One Agency is the mutually supportive culture of our group and I’m pleased to say that this goes from strength to strength as we grow. 

Tom Panos presented at both conferences, he gave us many useful tools to help build and grow both our businesses and our lives. If you’d like a recap of his presentations or if you didn’t make it to the conferences you can watch some videos we made of him here.

Vince Salvatore

One Great Agent – Vince Salvatore Q&A

Each month we interview ONE of our members to discover their story and have them share their experience with us.

Under the spotlight this month is Vince Salvatore from One Agency The Parks in South Western Sydney.

Vince has worked in real estate for more than 11 years and joined One Agency just 6 weeks ago, we welcome Vince to One Agency and asked him to share his experience with us.

What do you love about your work in real estate? What drives you?
I love selling real estate, it’s very rewarding, especially when you get to meet so many lovely people that are looking for that right next home or their very first investment property or indeed first home buying.

What attracted you to the One Agency business model?
After contemplating working for myself again I didn’t really want to start from scratch with an office with high rent, multiple staff to man it and chasing a management portfolio too. The One Agency model works perfectly, as I have begun with a small office at home, no staff concerns, for now and knowing that I can be of even more service to my clients plus the rewards stay purely in-house.

How is the brand working for you?
Love it, love it love it!  People are commenting on it’s fantastic modern look , it looks professional and it’s really getting noticed.

Would you recommend One Agency to others? 
Absolutely.. All the above reasons just for starters. The flexibility of doing things your own way, being professional about it and knowing it’s your baby…..no one can spoil it, mark it, damage your reputation…….only you can. That’s a great motivator right there.

What do you think keeps your prospective vendors awake at night when they are considering listing their property? Ultimately it comes down to …WHO CAN I TRUST? That’s really the only question. If you have, and continue building a respected name & reputation for yourself, you are the ONE agent they will call.

News from One Agency Real Estate Group

One Agency News from Head Office – October 2013

We’re excited to announce that we now have more than 100 One Agency agents in Australia and are growing bigger every day – it’s a great to see our brand out there in competition with the big franchises.

We’d like to offer ONE big congratulations to our 3 businesses in the Illawarra just south of Sydney on the coast who recently featured 16 full pages in the local newspaper, the Illawarra Mercury –  One Agency Denison-Pender & Moore, One Agency Zeidler Hayman and One Agency Sally Absalom. They came only second to Ray White who have been long established in the region and have 9 large offices. 

The One Agency Head Office has recently moved to new premises in Brookvale – the  ‘Lifestyle Working Building’ . It’s a benchmark ‘green’ building that provides considerable energy and environmental savings whilst offering us fresh air, sunlight, creative spaces, health facilities and a great community to work within. Located at 117 Old Pittwater Rd, Brookvale, adjoining Warringah Mall, we’re loving our new home.

Real Estate Business

Real Estate Business – Why One Agency? Paul Davies shares his vision.

I’m often asked what inspired me to start One Agency. In truth, it was my wife Annie. 

They say behind every great man there’s a woman. While I’m not a great man, there’s a great woman behind me. 

Annie sparked my thinking back in 2006 when I’d just sold a major franchise business and started a boutique business. I experienced first-hand how the advantages of a major franchise could blend with a boutique business (which is essentially what One Agency is) and that operating costs were the critical factor that determined success or failure.

After 35 years in the industry I was able to draw on my experiences to develop a new and innovative business model that would serve agents better now and into the future, being a more sustainable model.

I honestly I thought that straight away agents would be knocking down my door to join, but the first 10 were like pulling teeth! My belief in the idea kept me going… Now we appear to be an overnight success after 6 years! 

News from One Agency Real Estate Group

One Agency News from Head Office – September 2013

It’s been a busy month at One Agency HQ with a host of new members joining.

We are pleased to announce that we now have more than 100 agents in the One Agency Group!

With 12 new members and 17 individual agents joining us in the last month, we are Australia’s fastest growing brand. If you want to find out more, contact us in complete confidentiality.
Tel 1300 79 23 88.

We’d like to offer ONE big congratulations to Peter and Dean Harper at One Agency Harper Property in Tasmania who won the Best Small Agency of the Year at the Real Estate Institute of Tasmania annual awards last week.

Dean and Peter have worked tirelessly at building their business and are going great guns in their marketing campaigns – follow them on Facebook.

News from One Agency Real Estate Group

One Agency News from Head Office August 2013

If you missed our conference on July 4th, we are pleased to offer an overview of Tom Panos’ presentation, split over 3 videos:

Sales Scripts & Dialogues | Attracting Business & Marketing | How to be the Best Version of You 

We’re excited to announce that by popular demand from all who attended, Tom Panos has agreed to come and speak at our next conference on 28th November 2013 at the Novotel Brighton Beach.

His last presentation was both inspirational and motivational and we look forward to hearing more from him, so don’t miss out and add the 28th November to your diary now. We recommend that you book seats in advance as numbers have more than doubled at each event we’ve held so far.

We are also thrilled to announce that the business is growing at record speed: we’ve received 9 licenses in 9 days!  We are please to welcome Michael Potter in Canberra South, ACT and Tracey Goodwin in Main Beach, QLD. Also joining us in the ACT is Scott Crossman.

Vanessa Denison Pender One Agency

One Great Agent – Vanessa Denison-Pender

Each month we interview ONE of our members to discover their story and have them share their experience with us.

Under the spotlight this month is Vanessa Denison-Pender from One Agency Denison-Pender Property,  specialising in properties located from Stanwell Park to Woonona in the northern area of the Illawarra, NSW.

Vanessa has been in real estate for 10 years and she established her One Agency office just under 12 months ago, after being very active agents in the local area with leading franchises such as Ray White and McGrath.

What do you love about your work in real estate? What drives you?
I love real estate because you get to work with real people in real life situations, people needing homes for their families, downsizing their needs, accommodating the elderly, buying and renting investment properties etc. etc and so it goes on.  I love being part of my local community. 

What attracted you to the One Agency business model?
The simplicity of the model and knowing that I’ve been doing it so long now that it really was time to do it for myself.  The One Agency model is a perfect vehicle that allows established agents to take the next step and the people are so nice too!

How is the brand working for you?
It’s a great brand that people seem to be recognising as a new ‘boutique’ style of agency.  We keep a simple, hands-on approach.  Being business owners attention to detail and client care is our guiding principle.

Would you recommend One Agency to others?
Absolutely, if you’re thinking ‘I can do this for myself’ it’s probably time to do it. Back yourself and get on with it.  It’s a bit scary, but worth it.  You get to have a great business and even better lifestyle.  Instead of giving away 50% of your hard earned commission and selling twice as many homes, you can sell less and still earn the same amount!  As my partner says, ‘it’s a no brainer’.

What do you think keeps your prospective vendors awake at night when they are considering listing their property?
Will my agent give my property the service I’m looking for or just treat me a just another sale? How important is my business to them?

News from One Agency Real Estate Group

One Agency News from Head Office July 2013

In One Agency News for July 2013, it’s been a busy month for us here at Head Office, with our conference at Brighton Le Sands on the 4th July.

We were lucky to have Tom Panos come and speak and his presentation was fantastic, everyone took a lot of great ideas and inspiration away with them. Tom is a motivating force to be reckoned with, you can access his FREE Success Tools here.

The day was a great success with other presentations from Travis Williams, CEO of Box & Dice and our own Annie Davies showing our new range of promotional products. There will be a new product catalogue out in late August.

Our new products include:

–          Corporate Branded Ladies Scarves
–          Corporate Branded Mens Ties
–          Wine Bags 
–          One Agency Branded Ribbons 
–          One Step Ahead Running Singlets for both men and women

Email Head Office to order by clicking here.

The day closed after an excellent exchange of ideas in the ‘Sharing & Learning’ session and had a very social conclusion in the bar at the Novotel Brighton Beach. We hope you found the new location more convenient in its proximity to Sydney airport.

News from One Agency Real Estate Group

One Agency – News from Head Office June 2013

In this edition of News from One Agency Head Office, we’ve welcomed more agents into the fold over the past few months including Peter & Angie Robinson from Western Australia.

In Tasmania, Phillip Kelly is setting up a second business to cover the Hobart area in addition to the Southern Tasmanian regions of Sorell and Bellerive. Annette Pinkerton also joins us in Newcastle and made the move to set up her own business with One Agency earlier in June.

Annette has worked in real estate for the past 4 years with Century 21 and has a diverse background in finance, sales & marketing, people management and training across a broad range of industries. 

Although her real estate experience is recent, Annette has an impeccable sales history spanning 20 years and since entering the industry she’s received many awards. 

News from One Agency Real Estate Group

One Agency – News from Head Office May 2013

In news from One Agency Head Office: May has been a busy month so far with preparations for AREC on the Gold Coast on the 19th and 20th May 2013.

Come and say hello at One Agency Head Office and discover why One Agency is the fastest growing real estate brand in Australia. You’ll find us at Booth 55.

There is an excellent line-up of speakers including Chris Gardner – the real life inspiration behind the Academy Award nominated movie The Pursuit of Happyness

We’ve had more new members join us this month and will be announcing them over the coming weeks. This week we’d like to welcome Trevor Byrne and Peter Cutuli from One Agency Carnes Hill in Western Sydney.

Michael Lister One agency The Forest

ONE Great Agent: Michael Lister Q&A

Each month we interview ONE Great Agent – one of our members to discover their story and have them share their experience with us.

Under the spotlight this month is Michael Lister from One Agency The Forest in the Northern Beaches area of Sydney.

Michael has been in real estate since 2008 after 25 years in the motor trade where he was General Sales Manager for Ferrari. He joined One Agency in May 2010 with business partner Chris Naylor. 

What do you love about your work in real estate? What drives you?
In real estate, you have an opportunity that is unique in the business of selling. You create your own inventory by gaining the listing. In my opinion this part is the ‘sell’ because you are selling yourself to the potential vendor. The ‘negotiate’ is to the buyer and it is here that your skills as a true sales person comes to the fore. Anyone can stand there, taking offers, but a true sales person will work those offers, extracting everything possible to create the best outcome for their vendor. Once the right outcome has been achieved you can then hold your head high, knowing you have done the best job possible.

What attracted you to One Agency business model?
One Agency works best for Chris and I as it allows us to tailor our business to suit both our style and our community. This ‘un-chains’ us from the complex corporate structures that the franchises are laboured with. When we were setting up in business, we were approached by some big name franchises and the set up costs were horrific. We figured ‘why are we going to work so hard for somebody else’s benefit?’ and so we decided to go with the One Agency model which suited us much better and allowed us to steer our own ship.

How is the brand working for you?
It is working very well for us, allowing us to grow the business at a comfortable rate. The brand gives us the freedom to build our business without constraint.

Would you recommend One Agency to others?
We would and have recommended the One Agency brand but only to those who have self-drive and who don’t want to be pigeon holed. You need to be a self-starter to build any kind of business and have the determination to achieve goals.

One Agency Group Real Estate Agent Job security

Job Security in the Real Estate Industry?

Are you a real estate agent and feeling undervalued or uncertain with your job security in your role with your current employer?

Or are you a real estate business owner who is swamped by massive overheads that are eating into your profits?

I meet a lot of agents and business owners who are disenchanted with the actual profit they get to take home at the end of each working week. Many established agents bring great financial reward to their employers putting in hard graft only to see a big chunk of their commissions going towards funding the bosses European holidays or luxury cars.

Dealing with the inequities on the sales room floor is why so many (and often very talented agents) burn out and leave the profession. There can often be internal politics, fighting for listings, losing hard worked territories after re-structures or simply being overlooked and undervalued with the goal posts constantly moving.

As an agent you may think you’re secure but you’re completely at the mercy of the business owner. But that’s no fault of the business owner, I’ve been both and employee and an owner and I’ve made some obvious mistakes along the way. So I’m not pointing any fingers here. It’s just the way the real estate business is set up.