Harris Real Estate has taken out the prestigious Residential Agency of the Year award at the REA Group Annual Excellence Awards, cementing their position as one of Australia’s leading real estate groups.
The South Australian based agency was recognised for their hyper-local campaigns and comprehensive in-house training program, which includes more than 300 courses.
“It’s great to be recognised,” Harris Real Estate Director Phil Harris said.
“External awards are great, but ultimately the external award is a reflection of all of the hard work that we’re doing inside the organisation to build a place of really strong culture and strong training platforms.”
The past 12 months have seen significant growth for Harris Real Estate, with staff numbers increasing from 200 to 320 through mergers and acquisitions.
“We’ve been able to do that because we’ve put so much effort and work into our training and systems and culture,” Mr Harris said.
The agency has focused on creating systems and high-level training that enables its agents to perform above industry averages.
“We’ve created a platform now on really high levels of training and operational systems that has allowed our guys to do above average industry volume,” Mr Harris said.
“For a private company selling three and a half thousand homes and managing 5,000 properties, that’s well and truly above what an industry normal is.”
“That’s a reflection of the systems, process, training and culture that’s in place to allow individuals to drive at a higher rate.”
Looking ahead, Mr Harris plans to focus on consolidation and strengthening existing infrastructure.
“The next 12 months will be similar – we’ll continue to grow, not at the same rapid rate, but it’s really just taking the existing platform that we’ve got and having a much stronger year of consolidation,” he said.
“We’ll be finalising and completing some of those infrastructure projects that we’ve put in place to underpin the business.”
The REA Excellence Awards recognise the best performers across the Australian property industry, with Harris Real Estate edging out other major networks including Ray White and McGrath.
“It was heavily contested with some other really worthy potential winners,” Mr Harris said.
“Had Ray White or McGrath won, I would have said they were both very worthy of that.
“So it was great to probably just sneak across the line.”
