The White Report – May 2016

WHITE PAPER – MAY

What happened to the markets in May?

A month where there seemed to be more talk about the people and businesses within the industry, than about the performance of the market itself! We saw so much discussion around the future ownership and leadership structures of other agency groups – speculation on potential takeovers, mergers and alliances dominated industry media – all seeking to challenge our market leading position. Though no talk about Ray White on this topic. Being fourth-generation owned and led and committed as ever to our collective future, doesn’t leave much room for speculation.

Staying on the topic of family, this month, the Ray White Group is proud to be representing Australian family businesson the world stage, with Brian White attending the prestigious EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year Forum in Monaco. Brian will be taking part in a ‘pre-kickoff summit’ alongside some of the world’s leading family business representatives and we are extremely proud that Ray White will be part of the annual EY Family Business book for 2016. We look forward to sharing this milestone with our members.

Looking to our results, May is a month always circled in the calendar as it has a history of setting trading records. Yet with an election called in Australia and consistent press commentary querying the health of the property market, expectations were more cautious than in past years.

Whilst our headline of $3.87billion was strong, it was 4 percent lower than last year, and largely held up by a very strong result in New Zealand of $849million. 12 of our New Zealand offices recorded personal best months resulting in a 26 percent lift in comparison to sales volume 12 months ago.

In Australia, our result was down 13 percent on last year, though Queensland did post an increase,with 14 offices posting personal bests for the month and some outstanding results from some emerging businesses. And even though Victoria and NSW figures are a little softer than last year, they still represent consistent numbers compared to April.

The falling sales volume in NSW and Victoria is driven by a lack of stock available for sale in many parts of these states. Whilst there are many factors that make now a great time to be selling – headline prices remaining strong, interest rates remain low, and little competing stock on the market – many vendors are preferring to wait. Could it be till after the election?

Our other key metric, our net promoter score (NPS) that measures customer satisfaction with our service, remained consistently strong at 79 in May.

Our partners at Loan Market came in with over $1.1 billion in lodgements and just shy of $700 million worth of settlements in May. Victoria and NSW were again the frontrunners with $227 and $206 million settled respectively.

What’s new at Ray White?

The property industry’s campaign – www.negativegearingaffectsyou.com – which seeks to express our serious concern with the policies of the ALP – is enetering into its most critical phase leading into the Australian Federal election on July 2. We understand that some of our members and clients might disagree with our campaign, however we believe it is incumbent on us to express our concerns in order to look after the interests of our members and clients.

As mentioned last month, our group and a number of our members are finalists for the REB network awards which will be held later this month. Congratulations and good luck to our finalists, including: Ray White Batemans Bay for New Office of the Year, Ray White Aspley for Property Management Business of the Year (7 or more property managers), Matt Lancashire from Ray White New Farm for Metro Principal of the Year, Jessica McShane from Ray White Rural Temora for Regional Sales Agent of the Year, Amie Booth from Ray White Coorparoo for Property Management BDM of the Year and Sophie Read from Ray White Aspley for Office Administrator of the Year.

It’s also exciting to see a record 15 Loan Market finalists for the 2016 Australian Broking Awards. The Group is up for Major Brokerage of the Year, Innovator of the Year and Community Programme of the Year, and 12 brokers are up for individual awards.

Final preparations are in place for the Ray White Harvard Business School Leadership programme for our Ray White business owners. This will be held in July in Sydney with Professor Boris Grosberg – a world leading thinker on creating high performance business leadership and culture – hosting over 70 Ray White business leaders. Following Professor Grosberg will be the annual Ray White Cutting Edge Conference where we hope to make some exciting new product announcements.

Ray White Projects has recently released Union Place in Jannali – a project consisting of 88 units. Union Place is the first development of a significant size in the precinct and will be a landmark residential community and an iconic reinvention of the Jannali Inn, revitalizing the suburb.

Members of our network have been busy across the group, with Ray White Double Bay launching their brand new charity initiative Ray White Double Bay Cares in May, which will see $100 for every sale made go to Variety The Children’s Charity.

Ray White Marine enjoyed the SCIBS Boat Show on the Gold Coast, showcasing premium luxury yachts in the lead up to the Sydney International Boat Show in July.

As always, we welcome our brand new members to the group, with new offices in Springfield in Queensland and Coburg in Victoria and welcome to the new owners of Ray White Cabramatta, Carlingford, Cherrybrook in NSW and South Morang in Victoria.

We also welcome Mark Bullock, who has joined as Director of Asset Management and Advisory for Ray White Hotels. He brings the group deep knowledge of the accommodation sector and continues Ray White Hotel’s exciting momentum in this space.