This year RE/MAX of Southern Africa is celebrating its 20th year of operation in the southern African region.
With a footprint in 10 countries - South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Angola, Lesotho, Mauritius and the Seychelles – RE/MAX of Southern Africa has grown considerably in the past two decades, despite the tough trading conditions that have dominated the last few years.
This is according to Adrian Goslett, CEO of RE/MAX of Southern Africa, who says that the southern African franchise is regarded as the pioneer of the RE/MAX international expansion as it was the first country franchise to be sold outside of North America.
Peter and Val Gilmour, together with their partners, originally purchased the RE/MAX Franchise Rights for Southern Africa in 1995 and grew the brand successfully until the region was purchased by RE/MAX International in 2000.
In 2009, RE/MAX International announced that the Southern African Franchise Operations were re-acquired by the original founders of RE/MAX in Southern Africa, Peter and Val Gilmour, under a new Master Franchise Agreement.
Adrian Goslett, CEO of RE/MAX of Southern Africa, points out that despite the fact that recessionary economic conditions had a considerable negative impact on the real estate industry around the globe post 2008, RE/MAX of Southern Africa continued to grow, attracting new agents and acquiring new franchises.
“We were one of the leading countries within the RE/MAX global structure in terms of growth, with over 15 new franchises opened during 2009,” says Goslett, who points out that many real estate professionals are drawn to the brand because of the support network it offers its agents. This includes access to extensive local and international training from the RE/MAX Global Learning Centre, as well as many other technological tools and resources, such as the Referral Maker CRM programme and the online customisable marketing toolkit, Design Centre.
“It is benefits such as these which have enabled our passionate and professional network of real estate professionals to perform well above industry norms, despite the challenging economic climate,” says Goslett.
RE/MAX of Southern Africa’s success and growth was recognised internationally when it was recognised as the top RE/MAX region in the world for 2012 at the group’s Las Vegas convention in March 2013.
Since then, RE/MAX of Southern Africa has continued to achieve some record sales figures. Goslett points to September 2014 as a prime example, where the group achieved a new record of R2-billion worth of sales in one month. This was the first time ever in the 20-year history of the company that such a high monthly sales figure was recorded. The record was broken again a few months later in December 2014.
Goslett says that RE/MAX of Southern Africa can proudly lay claim to being the number one real estate brand in terms of:
number of agents nationally
home sales by any real estate agency
real estate agency website traffic (ranked by Alexa.com)
highest national market share of residential property sales
RE/MAX of Southern Africa is the largest real estate company in the country and is almost twice as large as its nearest competition with over 2 200 agents and sales in excess of R22 billion achieved for 2014.
Looking forward to the next 20 years, Goslett says the RE/MAX of Southern Africa group has big goals to achieve and looks forward to doubling its agent numbers, as well as working towards securing a greater piece of the property pie.
“The recent empowerment deal announced by RE/MAX of Southern Africa where Z Capital Properties, a prominent black empowerment company, purchased a 45% ownership interest in the group, will go a long way to ensuring our growth and sustainability in the African property market in the years ahead,” Goslett concludes.