Harcourts continues to grow in South Africa

MEDIA RELEASE

Harcourts continues to grow in South Africa

29 May 2009: Since the rebranding of the Homenet Group to Harcourts South Africa commenced in April this year the Harcourts group has grown on average by one office every three days, according to Aaron Hodson, Head of International Growth for Harcourts International Ltd.

“The response by the industry has been enormous, with the interest among South African offices and real estate professionals to join Harcourts quite overwhelming. Therefore the company is well on its way to achieving its goal of being the largest real estate group in South Africa, with 250 offices being the target in the next three years,”says Mr Hodson, who helped broker last year’s joint venture between Homenet Group and Harcourts International, a move described at the time as Harcourts’ “most significant step since its establishment in Australia in 1997”.

He says Harcourts South Africa is currently rated as having the best value proposition in the South African real estate industry, as demonstrated by the group’s record growth and business owners’satisfaction of Harcourts’ world-class operating systems and brand.

Harcourts South Africa CEO Martin Schultheiss says their outstanding success in the tough South African market has been due to the strength of Harcourts’international brand, its technology, training, values and ‘The Harcourts Promise’ which guides how business is conducted.

“Above all of that though is the sense of belonging to a community of positive people who have a wonderful culture and truly care about the success of their people,” he says.

When the joint venture was announced last year, Homenet was already one of the top five real estate organisations in South Africa with over 130 offices throughout the Republic.

At the time Mr Schultheiss said Homenet prided itself on being an organisation that embraced change and was committed to providing its offices with relevant marketing and management support, enabling them to compete within the ever changing and competitive real estate market while providing exceptional and effective service to their clients.

He described the joint venture as the group’s next step forward. “In order to continue to offer our clients world class service, we saw the need for our organisation to join with Harcourts, a world leader in technology, marketing, tools and systems, as the next step forward. Now we are able to offer our clients international exposure for their property, and our team the very latest in international real estate training and systems,” Mr Schultheiss said.

Established in 1888 Harcourts is New Zealand’s largest real estate group, with around 180 offices nationwide, more than 1500 residential, rural, lifestyle, commercial and business sales consultants and a growing property management team. Harcourts is also the fastest growing real estate group in Australia, with more than 260 offices across the country established to date. In addition Harcourts is in Fiji, Indonesia, Singapore, China, South Africa and Zambia.

ENDS

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