Ray White’s legendary Real Estate of Origin appraisal drive reached a new level of friendly rivalry, banter, and competition yesterday with a “regional rumble” in Victoria outstripping the capital cities in terms of numbers of new appraisals for the leading group.
The tri-annual drive was powered by a “slugfest among rural Victoria offices” which helped propel the appraisals to more than 6400 in less than four hours across Australia and New Zealand, according to Ray White CEO of Growth, Mark “Macca” McLeod who facilitated the session like a late-night TV talk-show host chatting to everyone across Australia and New Zealand.
Despite the lockdown in Sydney, the lively online zoom session was fun, fast, and highly animated with live crosses to offices across the group’s huge network in Australasia.
Ray White Victoria/Tasmania took line honours with 2115 new appraisals, followed by Ray White New Zealand with 1937 and Ray White Queensland at 1329.
At an office level, Ray White Romsey in country Victoria won the bragging rights with a whopping 375 appraisals alone, followed by Ray White Mildura with 320 and Ray White Aspley in Queensland with 265.
“Today has been exceptional and shows the breadth and scale of the Ray White Group. No one other single group could drum up 6400 plus appraisals in one afternoon. We have the geographic spread and even though our largest market in Sydney is in lockdown, appraisals are all about making connections and phone calls which can be done from home,” Mr McLeod said.
“We are 100 per cent in the people business and agents ultimately need to make calls and connect with their clients.
“We saw an epic battle between Ray White Mildura and Ray White Romsey in regional Victoria which exceeded all my expectations. Those two offices certainly punched above their weight and I love their spirit and sense of competition.
“The call-a-thon gives our members the perfect chance to pick up the phone and talk directly to their valued clients about the strength of the property market and the value of their homes, all in one day.”
Ray White Managing Director Dan White, who zoomed in from home amid the Sydney lockdown, said he was in awe of the energy buzzing through the online four-hour session.
“It’s amazing what happens when people get together with one core purpose. Days like this don’t happen by luck or chance, and it’s so exciting to see so many of our business owners get behind the initiative, especially despite the challenges in Sydney right now.
“No matter what’s going on in the market, there’s nothing better than being close to the customer and offering a great service, that’s what today is all about.”
Ray White Romsey Debra Watchman was so proud of her “small team with a big heart” who all have a passion for the Macedon Ranges region.
“The regional challenge certainly upped the ante but we were ready for the drive, and we knew what we had in store and cold calling clients is one of our strengths and many agents simply don’t do it,” Ms Watchman said.
“This is our sixth year in the region, and I have a lot of great catch-ups, meet and greets to have now. We now know who are the decision-makers in the households and I am meeting with a lot of developers who I have been meaning to catch up with too.”
Romsey, like many regional centres, is benefitting from the post-COVID lure where many buyers are looking for a tree change after suffering “cabin fever” last year.
Likewise, Ray White Mildura Principal Damian Portaro said he was a big fan of Real Estate of Origin.
“Making calls and winning appraisals is in our DNA. We’ll keep the calls going every Tuesday for two hours – as we did last year – and the winner from my office will receive a weekly prize,” Mr Portaro said.
“We prepped for today by categorising our database and my two assistants and I went hard on the phones. The regional rumble all started with a little friendly rivalry between Cameron Smits from Swan Hill and I and then it got just bigger!”
The real-time call-a-thon saw the residential, commercial and rural networks log in, participate and connect with their databases across Australia and New Zealand.
Ray White Chief Economist Nerida Conisbee produces a monthly Ray White Now document that offers invaluable real-time data and insights for all Ray White members to share with their clients.
The Real Estate of Origin gives the leading group’s members a golden opportunity to go one step further by having those critical one-on-one conversations and using the state by state economic foundation as a base.
“Today, our business owners have more than 6400 extra appraisals to conduct for prospective vendors, that’s a mammoth effort in less than four hours in each time zone and I’m keen to track our listings data after this drive. Ray White keeps levelling up for its members,” she said.