In what is considered to be one of the major changes in the real estate industry across New Zealand, the Ray White Group will welcome the Leaders Real Estate Group, who have a network of offices across the Lower North Island and are currently rebranding to Ray White.
The Leaders Group extends across Wellington, Kapiti Mana, Horowhenua, Hutt Valley, Wairarapa, and the Hawkes Bay. In total, there are 15 offices and 7 branches supporting 280 salespeople.
Over the past 30 years, the Leaders Real Estate Group has been the Wellington region’s highest annual performer in terms of completed real estate transactions.
Being part of the real estate industry since 1987, the agencies in the Wellington City, Hutt Valley and Wairarapa regions operate under the stewardship of real estate identities, Rob Garlick and Carl Perkins, and have been successfully operating as part of Leaders since its inception. Roger and Margaret Tucker head up the businesses in Levin and Waikanae, and the Porirua and Paraparaumu businesses are led by Graham Barr and Graham Browne, respectively.
The rebranding is ongoing, with offices in the Hawkes Bay and Wairarapa already displaying the Ray White colours. The balance of the Leaders network will be onboarded during February 2017.
Mr Garlick – who founded Leaders Real Estate – said the group are very excited to be joining Ray White. “We’re particularly excited about Ray White’s world-class customer experience process and we’re looking forward to getting this on board – it will not only assist in continuing to increase business, but it will give a moral and cultural lift throughout all our businesses,” he said.
“We believe we have the best agents in the region and under Ray White, we hope to see even more talented people join us. We hold the highest standard of customer service and plan to combine this with the technology and resources a brand like Ray White provides to increase our market share even further and enhance our local involvement with the community,” Mr Perkins added.
Carey Smith, Ray White New Zealand Chief Executive, said that the Leaders Group have similar values to Ray White with integrity, family and being proud of every transaction at the core of what they do.
The Leaders Group will continue to rely on proven results and are using the tagline “The New Leaders in Real Estate” to provide a unique statement around the blend of cultures, given that Leaders are the largest suburban based teams in the region and how they will combine, and be able to use, the Ray White systems and processes together with the strength of the international Ray White network to provide highly successful outcomes for customers and clients.
All Leaders offices will continue with their community engagement. This is particularly evident with the Leaders for Education, which is a longstanding initiative whereby the Leaders agents nominate a school or education facility and donate proceeds from each sale. Other offices in the Leaders Group engage with Ronald McDonald House, together with individual community programmes including local sports clubs and services such as Coastguard and the Wellington Free Ambulance service.