The Rawson Property Group’s residential rental division, now in its fourth year, has appointed a new National Manager, Shaun Groves. He is based in the Rawson Property Group’s Johannesburg regional office, but will be at the service of all Rawson Rentals franchises countrywide.
Groves comes to the Rawson Property Group with a training in business (he has a bachelor’s degree in Business Management from the UK’s Oxford Brooks University) and with ten years’ experience in property, for the last four of which he managed a rental division for one of South Africa’s major property groups. During this time he expanded their rental network by approximately 50%.
Discussing his new position in the Rawson Property Group, Groves said that now is a highly appropriate time for any property-related operation to be focusing on rental franchise growth.
“Although the situation obviously differs from area to area, in general it can be said that residential landlords have seen a 22% growth in their rentals over the last three years. In certain of the high demand suburban areas we are seeing buy-to-let investors able to enjoy a positive cash flow (i.e. with their rents higher than their monthly bond payments) from day one. This is a highly unusual situation in South Africa where traditionally it has taken two to three years for returns to be that good. Buy-to-let investors are consequently coming back to the market at a fast rate.”
“I believe that the Rawson Property Group will greatly expand its number of rental franchises because its business model is, I am convinced, about as good as one can get. It allows all rental franchisees to benefit from and leverage off the extensive network of already established sales franchises and its ‘one-click’ software greatly simplifies all the administrative, legal and documentation work associated with renting. This, in turn, frees up the franchisee and his team to focus on giving service and growing their business.”
Groves said that future expansion would come from three main sources. These he listed as:
1. The conversion of successful independent rental agencies to the Rawson brand – in the process almost always adding significantly to their turnover and ability to generate profits.
2. The diversification of existing Rawson Property Group sales franchises into sales and rental operations, the two often complementing each other in a highly satisfactory way; and
3. The recruiting of some of the best agents, both sales and rental, operating in South Africa today to becoming Rawson Rentals agents.
