The Ray White Group has continued to grow its office base throughout New Zealand, with 132 franchise offices with 82 of these offices undertaking property management services to the community. During the past 12 months alone the Ray White property management business has grown to manage a total portfolio of 15,300 properties. We have a strong underlying belief that property management creates wealth to a traditional agency practice.

As an industry leader for property management throughout New Zealand, our company is seeking an individual who has extensive knowledge and understanding of property management and has the ambition to grow the objectives of the Ray White Group by assisting franchise owners and property managers in gaining knowledge on best practise, systems and procedures and enhancing our client and customer relationships.

Please see the attached advertisement for the position of Property Management Business Performance. Applications for the position close on 20 June 2012.

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Paula Raine from Ray White Christchurch Commercial has recently been acknowledged at the South Island awards as the number one salesperson in the region for the first quarter of 2012 and also as the first national Alan White Premier member for the Ray White Group in New Zealand for 2012.

Paula joined Ray White Commercial in 1999 and has had an extensive career of successful sales of both commercial and industrial property. Paula has also been recognised for a number of successful leasing appointments throughout the Christchurch area. In 2009 Paula and her husband Adrian Raine, who are the owners of the Ray White Christchurch Commercial business, were awarded with the prestigious International Leaders of the Year award for Ray White Commercial.

Carey Smith, New Zealand Chief Executive of Ray White, said “Paula’s sales in 2012 have been exceptional. Her ability to be able to adapt to the changing market environment in Christchurch has been outstanding. All agents in Christchurch have been surrounded by new conditions and it’s those who have been able to understand today’s position and also the future needs of clients who are continuing to achieve success.”

For further details on Paula please see her personal profile here.

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The Real Estate Agents Authority in March this year introduced continuing education which for 2012 covers important issues, including disclosure, confidentiality, professional conduct, legislation review and case studies.

Ray White has now presented to just over 1,000 of its members the first part of continuing education covering important points as part of the verified training material. The four sets of regulations including the Real Estate Agents Act, licensing regulations, complaints and discipline and duties of licensees have all been covered. In addition Ray White has produced a legislation handbook for all its members in association with Thomson Reuters that consolidates into one easy to follow volume the requirements under the Professional Code of Conduct and real estate agents license.

Ray White has available 38 sessions for its members that will be conducted throughout New Zealand to ensure the quality of presentation and material is of the highest standard.

All licensees who undertake real estate work are required to complete 10 hours of verified training and 10 hours of non verified training through an approved provider. All Ray White members are provided the continuing education verified training free of charge.

Patricia Love, our group National Training Facilitator, said that it is important the delivery and content of training is of the highest quality. “Being able to set standards in respect of our presentation and just importantly engage our members in discussion is just one of the real benefits of being an approved provider endorsed by the Real Estate Agents Authority.”

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Ray White New Zealand is proud to present our digital marketing packages which have been released to our network specifically to target online buyers on websites throughout the world. In addition, Ray White has added in Google search and the display campaigns allow our clients to showcase and promote their property directly to specified target segments on each website within the campaign.

It effectively enables our clients to reach a whole new world of buyers beyond current traditional online and media promotions. Ray White creates the ad and in partnership with realestate.co.nz, Trade Me Property and raywhite.com, properties are then enabled into National, South East Asia or International packages which on average can expect for the international package in excess of 2 million international impressions.

The Ray White international digital package houses nine countries and over 100 premium online sites, including Ebay, Yahoo, Forbes, American Express, Realtor, Sydney Morning Herald, BBC and Right Move.

We have a complete question and answer section in our digital marketing packages which are now available through each Ray White office throughout New Zealand.

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Please click here for CEO Comments that are now posted for May 6, 2012

Past comments are filed here under Previous Comments.

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At the recent first quarter awards for Ray White New Zealand held in Auckland Steen Nielsen, who is a current Elite member, and Ricky Cave were recognised as the first Premier members for 2013 alongside Paula Raine from Christchurch Commercial.

Steen Nielsen and Ricky Cave have relocated from the Christchurch market after the devastating events of 2011 to Ray White Remuera in the Eastern Suburbs of Auckland. In taking up their positions in Auckland, they have both had exceptional results through dedication, persistence and hard work.

Steen Nielsen said in receiving his award that although the move to Remuera for him and his family was challenging, “It has been terrific in respect of coming to the Remuera office and the assistance that I have been given from the business owner Megan Jaffe.”

Ricky Cave who was part of the Ray White Opawa team also moved to Auckland in late 2011. Ricky has a high level of enthusiasm and passion which characterises his genuine nature. Ricky said that he has brought his enthusiasm to the Remuera market and that has been well received.

Both Ricky and Steen were also recognised as Auckland city side top sales and top growth producers for the quarter.

Photo: Left Steen Nielsen, middle Ricky Cave, right Carey Smith

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The April results for the Ray White Group saw a 34% increase on April 2011, however there was a slight decrease of 8% on March 2012. The results across the country saw the Northland zone up almost 95%, Auckland increased by 64%, the Central and Lower North Island by 5%, the Upper South Island results were consistent with last year, while Canterbury was up 41% and the Lower South Island was the only area to show a decrease, being 29%.

The Group’s controlled listings lifted by 19% in the month of April and this was mainly due to an increase in auctions, which are now at a record level. The Group added an additional four offices in April, being Ray White Bishopdale in Canterbury and in the Northland zone the Diane Quinn group of offices joined Ray White, being Paihia, Kaikohe and Kawakawa.

The top office for the month was City Apartments, who completed 87 sales. The Ponsonby office was number two and individually they had a record month with in excess of $25 million in turnover. Ray White Waiheke Island featured as our number three office in the nation, with Ellerslie and Te Atatu having sales which resulted in them being recognised at number four and number five office respectively. The top businesses in each of the zones were Whangarei, Auckland City Apartments, Papamoa, Napier, Richmond in the Upper South Island, Christchurch Metro and Queenstown.

The Ray White Group also increased its number of salespeople and the total number of offices is now 131. Annualised turnover is expected to now be over $5 billion andour property management portfolio has again increased and now stands at 15,800.

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The property management team at Ray White Tokoroa in the central North Island have been awarded the quarterly property management award for Outstanding Service exemplary to Ray White by volunteering to learn sign language. The portfolio has a high number of deaf clients who without their sign language can only express their intentions by writing everything down.

Whilst the business owners Jenny and Dave Lamberton, were away on holiday, the team took it upon themselves to attend sign language classes after hours, showing their initiative, dedication and commitment to client service. Jenny Lamberton said “I was just so impressed at what they chose to do whilst we were away, I feel it is above and beyond the call of duty and shows extreme dedication to customer service. Dave and I could not be more proud of our Award Winning Property Management Team.”

Photo – left to right is Carla Pentecost – Property Management administrator, Abbie Harker Ferguson – Property Manager, Angela Nuku - Property Manager.

Bas Smith from Ray White Queenstown along with team members Hayden Key, Jess Simson and Matt Wood recently completed the Godzone Adventure race in held in Queenstown between 7^th – 14^th April.  Their team was called Team RnR Sport.

This is a multi-day, non-stop expedition-style adventure race covering approximately 450km that involved navigation, trekking, mountain biking and kayaking over a vast array of different landscapes. Teams had to pass through a series of mandatory checkpoints along the course, which saw them travelling day and night with the decision to rest and sleep being left solely to the discretion of the teams themselves. The maximum time give to complete the race was 5½ days. Making the challenge just that little bit tougher was the fact that the race was an “unsupported” event, so not only was there no assistance at transition points but teams also had to cook for and feed themselves over the 5 days.

Bas reports that he and his fellow members of Team RnR Sport started the race slow and steady and after two days of racing they felt good, had not gotten lost and were in good shape so they picked up the pace and began moving up through the field.

Only 4 of the 36 teams entered completed the full course. Team RnR Sport came in 3^rd and was the only non professional team in the top group of 4. This is an amazing achievement, particularly given the team had not raced together before and it was Jess’ first multi day race.

 Team RnR Sports stats for this race are quite something:

• 5 days non-stop racing (107 hours)
• 4 hours sleep
• 522km travelled
• 12,182m of ascent
• 3^rd place

The Ray White offices in Papamoa and Mt Maunganui launched a promotional campaign known as ‘The Event’ in late March.

The promotion provides an opportunity for vendors to showcase their properties through print media, digital media and radio in the lead up to an auction event being held on 27th April at Classic Flyers. A strong response from vendors and buyers has endorsed this campaign and will see a total of 24 properties going to auction on the 27th. The auction will be held in three ‘lots’ with 12 properties per lot. The first 12 properties will go to auction commencing midday, with the day expected to conclude at approximately 5pm.

Greg Purcell, business owner of Ray White Papamoa and Mt Maunganui, said that the public is now more educated in the real estate process and as a consequence vendors have seized the opportunity to participate in this unique marketing promotion and are seeing higher levels of interest as a result of the increased exposure. “We wanted to give vendors something special. In doing that, we have had a special response – visitor numbers are up and vendors are happy.”