Industry Focus

REAL ESTATE SERVICES didn't offer a model where people could run property management on their own." To remedy this, 12 months ago Ray White decided to establish a secondary arm of the business to specialise in property management. Living Here, as the fledgling business is called, set up three offices in Queensland. It is powered by the Ray White group but has its own brand identity. Franchisees of the new group can offer an all-encompassing investor service— buy, rent, manage and sell—without the high sales targets. It's predominantly a succession strategy plan for existing Ray White franchisees, whereby they can convert all their existing agreements and relationships from Ray White to Living Here. "So it means they can stay in the industry, have a purposeful business and an income stream, but have more time for themselves and still be part of our group, with all the training, recognition programs and brand identity that brings," Camphin says. Living Here franchisees have full access to Ray White resources, including training, business development, strategy planning, marketing and a high-end technology platform that provides all the IT requirements of running a business. The backing of Ray White also means the business can offer services such as mortgage brokering, concierge, connection services, online rental payments, insurance —the list goes on. "An independent usually can't offer these things," says Camphin, "because they simply don't have the resources or the experience that a group like Ray White does." Camphin says the new brand has been very well received. In fact, Living Here and Ray White have been approached by franchisees from other real estate groups that don't have the facilities to offer this service, as well as independent property management businesses that want to be part of something bigger. While the Living Here brand stands on its own, the values are consistent with Ray White's. Camphin wants to continue to expand the new business across the country. He's aiming to establish a minimum of 30 new businesses in Queensland over the next 12 months. "Our ambition is to build a really solid, high-standard property management franchise group. It's not about the numbers, it's about the quality and the people. "The ambition is there, the resources are there and the demand is there. It's an industry first, really, to have a franchise group do this. And we have 100 per cent backing from the White family—they love the concept." Living Here franchisees have full access to Ray White resources, including training, business development and strategy planning. Real estate franchisees typically have to keep their sales business in overdrive. Ray White, for example, expects franchisees to hold a minimum of 20 per cent market share in their area. But, according to Peter Camphin, CEO of Ray White Queensland and Living Here, running a high-profile, vibrant sales business, year in, year out, can be extremely demanding and exhausting. "Eighty per cent of your energy is spent on driving the sales team," he says, "so it's unusual to see people running these teams for 20 to 30 years." Often, after 10 or 15 years in the business, and despite having a substantial rent roll, a franchisee will simply start losing the energy and the desire to continue to push sales along. "If performance drops significantly, the option is to either sell their business or, inevitably, they have to exit the group," Camphin says. For Ray White, the loss of those businesses over the years has meant the loss of tens of thousands of landlords. "The wastage from the group is difficult to accept. The franchisees had to go because they wanted to change the way they ran their business and we didn't have the facilities to adapt to that—we Living Here: a property management alternative Ray White knew it would need to adapt to keep its existing client base, so it established an industry first in property management, an associated business called Living Here WORDS: JACKIE NEVILL 8 Industry Focus

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