The South African real estate industry has now arrived at a position where most business dealings with its members are far more pleasant and efficient than they were previously and where it can attract highly competent employees and entrepreneurs, says Nancy Todd, the Rawson Property Group’s Business Development Manager for the Western Cape.
“This was predicted by leading spokespeople several years back but it has now at last become an undeniable reality,” said Todd.
The chief reason for the ‘huge improvement’ now discernible throughout the estate agency world, she said, has been the insistence that all agents must now be qualified. They have to achieve the NQF4 educational levels, whilst principals must pass the NQF5 examinations.
“These lengthy, comprehensive study and mentoring courses” said Todd, “have ensured that every agent “out there” is genuinely able to work on behalf of his or her clients. The old salesmanship/gift of the gab talents which in previous eras were thought to be all that an agent needed now take second place to professionalism and knowledge of the facts.”
Clients, said Todd, have become aware of this change and are beginning to express their appreciation.
Also contributing to the improved atmosphere in the real estate sector, she said, has been the growing expertise of the clients themselves.
“They now come to us having done considerable preliminary investigation,” she said. “This means that they are far better informed and equipped to make the right decisions, which, in turn, make the agent’s life a great deal easier than it was formerly.”
The clients’ growing expertise, she said, can in part be attributed to their increasing familiarity with information technology search engines and the fact that the estate agencies themselves now use IT as a primary marketing tool.
“This, in turn, has streamlined and shortened the whole property hunt experience,” said Todd. “Clients now, sometimes with the help of their agent, on the screen go through all the properties in which they might be interested and eliminate those which do not attract them.”
Estate agents today, although still dealing in a tight market, are now on a slightly easier wicket, said Todd, because the total number employed by the industry in South Africa has dropped from over 90,000 to around 25,000. This, she said, gives every agent a potentially bigger slice of the pie.
The greatly improved image of property marketers in general, she added, has resulted in estate agency careers being more attractive to bright, well qualified entrepreneurs. Among those who have recently joined or set up Rawson franchises, she said, have been MBAs, business science, commerce, law and arts graduates, many of whom could quite feasibly have gone into other careers.
The across-the-board adoption of franchising in place of the former branch networks, said Todd, has also helped transform the industry because franchising suits the bolder, more independent operator who wants to control his own business and work out his own future.
