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Harcourts Celebrates First 10 Years in Australia

New Zealand’s largest and Australia’s fastest growing real estate group, Harcourts International Ltd, is this month celebrating its first 10 years in Australia, since launching in Queensland in 1997.

Founded in New Zealand in 1888, Harcourts was expanded into Australia in 1997 by Mike and Irene Green, who moved with their family from Auckland where they had built up one of Harcourts’ most successful franchises of nine offices, Mike Green Real Estate.

As the only major Australasian real estate operation to have expanded from New Zealand into Australia, Harcourts’ Queensland operation began with four offices in Ashgrove, Surfers Paradise (still with the original owners), South Brisbane and Southport, and a State Support Office in Brisbane.

While new to Australia, Harcourts was established in Wellington in 1888 by John Bateman (JB) Harcourt with two sons, Gordon and Stanton, joining the real estate and auctioneering company in 1900. In 1985, a joint venture company, Harcourts Real Estate, was formed with Christchurch-based Collins Real Estate beginning an era of dynamic growth, culminating in the franchising of the operation in 1991.

In 1999, Executive Chairman, Stephen Collins handed over management of the organisation to Mike Green (Managing Director of Harcourts International, located in Queensland) and Paul Wright (Executive Director of Harcourts International, located in Christchurch). Both had been with Harcourts for over 20 years working through sales to management roles, and immediately turned their focus on international growth starting with a commitment to be in every state in Australia.

New South Wales was the second state to come on board in 2003 with close to 20 offices. In 2004 Harcourts formed a joint venture with boutique South Australian real estate company, Brock Real Estate, to become Brock Harcourts, of which there are currently 36 offices. In the same year, a joint venture with independent Tasmanian company, M & M Real Estate, was formed and Harcourts also took ownership of the Roy Weston Group of 61 offices in Western Australia, Northern Territory and Indonesia.

With three offices in Fiji, and last month’s announcement of its launch in Victoria with 25 offices in the MPRE Harcourts group, Harcourts now has just on 430 offices in New Zealand, Indonesia, Fiji and every state in Australia.
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Harcourts Celebrates First 10 Years in Australia cont…

“No other real estate group in Australasia has been as dynamic as Harcourts. We are very aware of our proud history with our succession of leaders over the last 119 years renowned forward thinkers enabling us to build up and consistently sustain our position as Number One in New Zealand, and the fastest growing in Australia. While we have worked hard as a brand to build our reputation for customer service excellence, we’re also the clear industry leader in technology, training and systems, and with over $17.5 billion in sales internationally last year, we have a formidable base to continue to build on,” said Managing Director, Mike Green.

Mr Green added, “As a team, we are extremely proud of the ground we have broken in Australia in just 10 years to reach this significant milestone, and the many satisfied clients we have created in that time. We are looking forward to achieving our goal of becoming the Number One real estate organisation in Australasia and South East Asia, which will include 10,000 sales consultants and 1,200 offices across our existing markets as well as Singapore, Malaysia, Korea and China where we are looking to make announcements in the near future. The next decade is going to be even more exciting. All I can add is ‘watch this space’."

ENDS

Gordon Campbell: On John Key’s Agenda For The Nation

There seemed to be three main components to John Key’s speech :

a) tax cuts largely paid for by a hike in GST
b) mining in national parks and on conservation land, while building more roads.
c) giving firms easier access to the r&d from Crown Research Institutes, so that business can continue to get the taxpayer to pick up the tab for the research that keeps them competitive.

After all, corporate welfare is always such a blessed thing – its only social welfare that corrodes enterprise and ambition. More>>