The rooftop ballroom at Aloft Hotel overlooking Perth city skyline, Optus Stadium and the Swan River was a fitting venue on Saturday night to applaud the pinnacle of Elders Real Estate achievements for the past 12 months.
State leaders Drew Cary, real estate executive western zone and Jim Sangalli, real estate executive WA rural, MC'd the evening and general manager real estate Tom Russo flew in from Adelaide, South Australia, head office to thank staff and their partners for their efforts and dedication in helping the real estate portfolio achieve some outstanding results for the company nationally.
"We set an ambitious goal for 2017 and you delivered, helping grow real estate revenue by 15 per cent," Mr Russo said.
"In total, $4.6 billion worth of assets were transacted by Elders staff.
"Our corporate rent roll currently stands at almost 9000 properties, or 56,000 properties when you take in franchises.
"Broadacre sales revenue grew enormously and we were entrusted to transact a number of the most signficant WA holdings, including Yathroo and St Leonards," Mr Russo said.
“Corporately, we are working hard to grow our iconic brand for the benefit of our team and clients, including an aggressive digital strategy that has resulted in us being recognised as a leading influencer in the online real estate space in Australia.
“We have launched a contemporary brand refresh for our residential agency business and have undertaken extensive lead generation campaigns which have created more than 112 million unique digital impressions for our brand.
“And we are soon to launch a new real estate dedicated website which looks quite amazing and will provide a great digital shop front for our business.”
Mr Russo said the company had employed 400 new real estate people in the past 12 months, making a total of 1200 staff in the real estate space.
Ninety training sessions had been held involving 1800 attendees plus a very successful masterclass for franchisees.
Major winners on the night were Digby Shepherd and Terry Bright, Bunbury, joint recipients of the award for excellence, Will Morris, Merredin, top residential sales performer and third nationally, Jeff Douglas, top rural sales performer and Jeni Dawson, Albany, outstanding new talent.
Elders Northam was named real estate branch of the year.
