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PUBLISHED 6 NOV 2009
The international Harcourts real estate group is now represented in the southern suburbs of Johannesburg following the conversion of top local agencies Homenet Delta and Homenet Olympic to the powerful new brand...
The international Harcourts real estate group is now represented in the southern suburbs of Johannesburg following the conversion of top local agencies Homenet Delta and Homenet Olympic to the powerful new brand.
This transition follows last year’s partnership deal between Harcourts International and South Africa’s Homenet group, which was then renamed Harcourts Africa and is steadily re-branding all its offices around the country.
However, both Harcourts offices in the southern suburbs will continue to be headed up by their current highly-experienced principals – Colin Rodrigues at Harcourts Delta and Carlos Moreira at Harcourts Olympic.
Rodrigues, who has high expectations of the new group, says: ”Harcourts has many factors working in its favour which make for a winning formula. Its e-marketing capabilities, Property Manager programme and online training facilities
are particularly impressive and mean that we can now market properties on a truly international platform, create and synchronise all our marketing efforts in-house or brush up on how to obtain mandates or present offers at the touch of a button.”
Moreira also says the international group’s willingness to expand into SA while other companies were contracting their operations was “key to moving past the recession” and adds that Harcourts will give SA property much more exposure ahead of 2010.
“In addition, the Harcourts operating standards will undoubtedly raise the local industry bar significantly.”
Harcourts Africa CEO Martin Schultheiss concurs, saying the Harcourts value proposition is currently creating such excitement in the SA real estate industry that it is driving a huge volume of enquiries from other agency principals.
“This has meant that in addition to rebranding scores of the old Homenet offices that formed the basis of the new group, we have added more than 20 brand new offices since the start of the year - and become the fastest-growing group in the country.”
Harcourts is also the fastest-growing real estate group in Australia and the biggest in New Zealand. It also operates in China, Fiji, Indonesia, Singapore and Zambia and has been rated by world real estate authority Stefan Swanepoel as one of the top five international real estate brands.
Globally, the group currently has more than 600 offices employing 4000 sales consultants, and sells more than $19,5bn worth of property every year.
ISSUED BY HARCOURTS AFRICA