We sat down with Nick Pearson, Regional Director of Tyson Properties Western Cape to hear what he has to say about current opportunities in the market, growth in challenging times and we get his take on “flat fee” real estate companies. Watch the short clip below for more.
What opportunities await in the current market?
There’s definitely great opportunity out there in the marketplace, with a lot of growth taking place within the R 500 000 to R 2 500 000 price bracket. We have a great emerging market in South Africa of first-time buyers and in terms of accessing the market this is the price bracket where they are seemingly most comfortable. To add further encouragement banks are taking great initiative and really encouraging their clients to purchase property by offering in certain cases 105% bonds and even 110% bonds to first time buyers.
At the high end of the market there’s also very exciting opportunities starting to develop in Constantia. The larger plots will soon be allowed to be sub-divided into three smaller plots. This presents a fantastic opportunity for developers to invest and potentially make some very good returns in the Constantia area.
What is your take on flat fee real estate companies?
There has been a massive misconception in the marketplace that “flat fee” real estate companies are something new, this is just not true. They have in fact been around in South Africa for decades.
The only thing that is new is that they now have a corporate look and feel and a strong presence online. They certainly have not had any major impact in terms of market share. In countries such as America where the “flat fee” real estate model has existed for a long time online; their market share has peaked at around 10 – 12%. Taking this into consideration I do suspect that over the course of time, local “flat fee” companies’ market share should marginally increase in South Africa as well.
However, the pressing question we must ask is, “what does the future of real estate look like?” And is that a flat fee-based model? The answer is absolutely not, the future of real estate is going to be centred around the agent, in an agent-centric environment. This requires a fresh approach in all aspects, real estate companies would need to direct their marketing towards the agent and not only toward the brand that they work for.
They say the strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack, I truly believe that companies who spotlight their agents and back them with all available resources in terms of the technological advancements that have taken place in the real estate industry, is what will drive the real estate industry forward.
In this challenging market, why did you decide to open your biggest office yet?
Our goal is not to grow bigger faster but rather to grow better faster, this has always been the focus of Tyson Properties Western Cape. In saying this we soon realized that there was a massive demand for us to open a real estate office in the Southern Suburbs area.
Subsequently, we built our biggest office yet at The Alphen Estate in the heart of the Southern Suburbs. It is a very exciting time for us in the area and we have got an incredible team of agents who have been able to produce record-breaking sales in the area.
Nick Pearson presenting the Tyson Properties Western Cape Manifesto
What was the Tyson Properties Manifesto meeting about?
We recently launched the Tyson Properties Manifesto in the Western Cape. We are a company on a mission and we have a vision for what the future of real estate looks like. Launching the Tyson Properties Manifesto was a wonderful opportunity for me to share what our targets are, what our goals are and how we are going to go about achieving them. It was also our opportunity to introduce our new marketing and accounts team to the rest of the group.
We also took the opportunity to spotlight the technical advancements, highlighting the new video concepts which we will be releasing in the future, as well as our social media strategies with our new blog letstalkcapetown.co.za at the centre of our strategy.
We had over 120 agents from our three franchises in the Western Cape in attendance. It made me realize how incredibly fortunate and blessed we are as an organization to have such special staff.
In closing, none of this would be possible without the continued support from the communities of the Western Cape. We are truly grateful for all your support and we are striving to be the best real estate company serving you in whatever way we can.
Nick Pearson – Regional Director – Tyson Properties Western Cape.
