Ray White’s 16th call-a-thon hit a spooky new level this week with 11,550 appraisals booked across Australasia during the Halloween-themed appraisal drive, 100 per cent powered by NurtureCloud, the group’s cutting-edge prop tech platform.
Ray White livestreams its Real Estate of Origin event three times a year to create friendly rivalry and banter between the states and New Zealand.
Ray White Head of Recognition and Performance Bianca Denham (pictured below as Maleficent) said appraisals are the lifeblood of real estate.
“Real Estate of Origin is perennially relevant and it will set your business up for 2025. The opportunities that come out of this will ensure you are in a strong place to hit the ground running in the new year,” Ms Denham said.
“We’re so happy this time to see a record number of offices participating with 376 registered offices (up from 308 in June) and more than 2,600 members are participating today.”
“This is our biggest participation ever with more businesses than ever deciding to play along.”
“We’ve seen agents generate a month worth of appraisals in just one day. It’s invaluable for your business.”
Ray White New Zealand won the 16th REOO with 4,297 appraisals, followed by Ray White Queensland who came in second with 4,286.
Ray White Manukau claimed bragging rights this year booking a whopping 2,028 appraisals, and Ray White Mangare finished in second place on 449 appraisals.
Ray White Ray White Manukau | Manurewa | Mangere Bridge | Mangere took out the number one multi-office business with 2,592 appraisals.
The top agent winner was the unstoppable Charlie Brothers of Ray White Manukau who booked 366 appraisals.
Ray White Chief Strategy Officer Mark McLeod said every Real Estate of Origin the network recorded a spike in calls and appraisals in NurtureCloud and then a jump in sales.
“We end up doing four times that of a normal day,” Mr McLeod said.
“The impact in 2023 was we booked a staggering 22,995 appraisals across three events. From those appraisals, we won over 1,500 listings – an approximately 200 per cent increase from the average Tuesday churn.”
“This is a huge day which is so important. This Real Estate of Origin sets us up for a great start to 2025 and to be out of the blocks ahead of our competition.”
Mr McLeod also spoke about the importance of “winning Saturday”.
He said Saturday was like a shopping mall and “all our customers are coming through so if we aren’t active on Saturday then how are we looking in the eyes of our customers?”
“Saturday is an opportunity to be open the whole day, while other agents are not. Some agents are starting to do a morning open home and then opening up the property again in the afternoon, to capture more buyers,” he said.
“Our job is to control Saturdays. Momentum is created by the connections that you make through a geographical area. The data shows us that when agents start to highlight an area, their business starts to grow. Once agents make more than 50 sales per year, they start to break the barrier in their area.”
“We have seen so many of our agents starting to understand that volume creates momentum. The day where you have to create the most momentum is on a Saturday.”
“There is a cohort of Chairman’s Elite’s agents who do 20 open homes on a Saturday.”
Ray White managing director Dan White said, on the Real Estate of Origin livestream, that fundamentally, the skill of communicating with customers and asking the right questions was so important.
“There’s a phrase, ‘you never learn anything while talking’ so when we’re talking with customers, how do we make sure we’re listening? How do we make sure we’re asking good, open questions and listening for that answer?” he said.
“Often we come into these things with pre-prepared lists of questions and we sort of rush through them – customers don’t respond to that.
“How do we make sure we’re getting in there, listening as much as we can and responding to those answers each time? At the end of the day, we want to hear from them. We want to understand what their issues are.
“The best and simplest way to have a conversation with someone is asking the word, ‘why’? It’s such a great word to use when customers, even if they’re pushing back and say they don’t want this or that, why is that? What are you seeing about in the marketplace? Why do you love your home? Why are you looking?
“It’s such a powerful language we can use, and I hope we use this opportunity. We’ve got so much more data now to connect. We’ve got information to talk about, but make sure we don’t miss the opportunity of connecting with them and really listening to what they have to say.
“Shout out to all the leaders who got their teams together and shout out to everyone for keeping the energy up and keeping people committed to this key part of what we do. It’s a credit to everyone involved, keeping this real estate of origin as young and as fresh as it was on day one. So shout out to everyone.”
In New Zealand, Ray White Manukau director of sales Richie Lewis said REOO had a huge impact on both their individual agents and the business.
“REOO presents an awesome opportunity to ignite energy and momentum around a high-impact prospecting event,” Mr Lewis said.
“For us, it’s more than just an event; it’s a catalyst that fuels culture and drives ‘now’ and future business.
“It’s a win-win for individual agents, our offices and our group.”
Ray White Innes Road principal Adam Rogers said days like today help his team build capacity for such a simple task.
“We can achieve so much in such a short time,” he said.
“If we can put this into practice by building it into each day we can achieve even more.”
Ray White Metro director Richard Withy said he and his team loved REOO.
“For us it drives activity and calls and that flows through to appraisal and listing growth over the next three – four months,” Mr Withy said.
“It’s nice to bring the whole team together outside of the office and have some exciting prizes to drive the calls also.”
In New South Wales, Ray White Elevate Group director Michael Simpson and his team have never missed a Real Estate of Origin since joining the group.
Mr Simpson and brother Andrew along with local experts Alfio Musumeci, Carl Mirabella, and Taskin Satici recently combined their inner west Sydney businesses to form the Ray White Elevate Group.
“We recently amalgamated with a huge inner west real estate business. There are now four offices working together,” Mr Simpson said.
“We all love NurtureCloud and it is creating an epic database for everyone.”
This was Ray White Bateau Bay principal Paul Witney’s first Real Estate of Origin after joining the group only a few months ago.
He set his team of four and himself a target of 30 appraisals for the day.
“It’s been quite an exciting day! We wouldn’t usually do this in a couple of hours so it’s been great,” Mr Witney said.
“It’s been nice to come to the city and get out of our day to day. We are already talking about what to do for the next event.
“My top tip for booking appraisals is using the opportunity to give them a spring update to open up the conversation. Things have changed in the market so I’ve been working on giving people a fresh update.”
The Ray White Upper North Shore group took a different approach to this Real Estate of Origin. Going all out with a Halloween theme, they had their 33-strong associate team gather together for the day.
Instead of awarding the winner with the most appraisals, they focused on a team goal.
“If our team does the most calls all of our 33 associates are going on a ghost tour. Instead of focusing on one or two winners, we have a team goal so everyone here is still calling even when they’ve hit their individual goal,” associate development manager Ashley Van Deyk said (pictured above).
“All our associates know they have a focus to clear their delegate list, that’s our primary focus.”
In the office, Ray White Ferntree Gully agents hit the phones hard for Real Estate of Origin with 23 salespeople from the top Victorian office working towards their 70 appraisals target.
“Our office has a great call culture already. But appraisals have fallen off a cliff in Victoria; so a day like today is so important and critical,” sales agent Jack Rickard said.
“We had our best appraisal month three months ago, and then three months later we have just had our best commission month in a row so it’s worth putting in the effort.”
Ray White Ferntree Gully agent Cristine Jones (pictured above) found three up and coming listings that could have gone by the wayside if not for the call session and NurtureCloud.
She had been at her desk from the beginning of the day and went all the way to the end of the day without fail and said as an experienced agent she wanted to set an example.
Agent Tim Milaki got a special mention on the livestream from Ray White Victoria and Tasmania chief auctioneer Jeremy Tyrrell who visited the Ferntree Gully office.
He had completed 50 calls with just over an hour to go. His top tip was to transition the initial courtesy call into an easy conversation.
Ray White Croydon had already beaten their personal best by early yesterday but principal James Wilson said it was important to keep the energy up for his team.
“To keep up the energy I made sure to talk about it a lot in the monthly meetings to get a lot of buy-in. I’ve also put treats out, given the day a Halloween theme and brought in a bit of friendly competition.
“We all know what we need to do but having a day like this where the whole group gets involved is a great reminder of the basics.
“My approach this time has been to go in a bit more friendly and give them an update on the spring market.
“We have to do more work with buyers in the current market and that can be a challenge but our office has grasped it pretty well.”
In Queensland, The Ray White Burleigh Group is one of the leading offices nationally embracing NurtureCloud.
Speaking from the North Burleigh Surf Club where the team gathered for a day of calls, head of performance and chief auctioneer David McMahon said Real Estate of Origin was an addition to what they do on a daily basis.
“We’re trying to keep it simple. Today we want to gather the troops and rip into the calls so we’ve taken things off-site and are really focusing on quality appraisals with a goal of 200,” Mr McMahon said.
“We’re having some fun and making it competitive with a crown for the person with the highest number of appraisals.
“We want to flip the switch and change the mentality we’re coming in with compared to every other day when we’re just coming in to make calls. The whole office has committed to this including the leaders.”
Ray White Queensland Network Specialist (Recruitment and Recognition) Tiera Butkus said the sunshine state was determined to bring home the year strongly.
“Our network is determined to win! This is the best day of the year,” she said.
“REOO will set all of our members up for a successful 2025 on the world stage in an international awards year on the Gold Coast!”
Ray White Ascot Head of Performance Katie Cotton said she had 20 of her team attending the REOO at Victoria Park Golf Club and they were chasing 100 appraisals between them.
“The day is designed to be a bit of fun and it will set us up for January and the New Year.”
“REOO is such an important initiative and we love participating in it. It’s a fun day, fuelled by lollies and lols.”
Ray White Sherwood General Manager Troy Sheehan said that REOO was the envy of all the other real estate groups.
“After spending more than two decades in real estate in Melbourne, I know that everyone wishes they could get a day like this together but Ray White’s scale and focus makes it unstoppable. Ray White needs to be applauded for this consistent approach to appraisals.”
Ray White AKG Head of Investment Management Bec Turner said her team called every single one of their 2500 landlords during the REOO.
“I have three people here from my growth team at Victoria Park and we love REOO as it’s a brilliant time to give our owners an update about their investment and what’s happening in the market,” she said.
“Many of them are interested in buying another investment property, in fact many of them have already bought and are looking for a management appraisal.
“Some 70 per cent of our owners live interstate or even overseas. Our market has gone through massive growth. We will generate sales appraisals today from our calls.”
Steve Mutton from Ray White Robina, who rejoined the group a few months ago, said he was excited to have the chance to partake in the 16th Real Estate of Origin.
When he was with another agency, he said he felt nervous about Ray White’s appraisal drive days, with the group’s substantial energy behind it.
“We saw the results and we started heavily seeing the outcomes from days like today,” Mr Mutton said.
“This is not something that can be replicated within another network; the connectivity across the group internationally is incredible.
“We are making it a focus to get in front of people. Technology makes things a lot easier, but we are still really a face-to-face business.
“Between now and the end of January, it is the most important time to set up your business for 2025.
“All our teams are behind this and driving it. This is an amazing opportunity.”
Ray White Springfield director Phill Broom said REOO was crucial to making sure the One Group launched 100 properties on January 7.
“REOO is instrumental to our success and this will help us hit our target of 100 properties in the first week back in the New Year.”
Ray White Aspley’s Dwight Colbert is a consistent top performer at Real Estate of Origin.
He said it’s a great opportunity to get back in touch with people he hasn’t had a chance to connect with in a while.
“My advice is don’t overcomplicate things, make the call and then just get in front of them,” he said.
“But it’s important to have fun along the way, you’re going to get a lot of rejection so we try to overcome that fear.”
Mr Colbert and his team set themselves a goal of 40 to 50 appraisals leading to eight to 10 listings.
Ray White South Australia hosted a Real Estate of Origin event at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre (pictured above) with more than 175 salespeople from across the state attending.
Collectively, they set a goal of 600 appraisals, a 10 per cent rise in last year, and ended up booking 572 appraisals by the end of the day.
Proof that the simplest ideas can be the most effective, Ray White Port Adelaide | Largs Bay Chairman’s Elite agent Rick Schultz asked one of the security offices at the venue if she’d like an appraisal and she confirmed that she was planning to sell soon, so he booked in the appraisal!
Ray White Glenelg | Brighton sales manager Nick Benneke said his team were focused on getting stuck into their database.
“We’ve got 20 people here from our two businesses. This is our last big day pre-Christmas and a good opportunity to book appraisals before the break so we can go into 2025 in a strong position,” Mr Benneke said.
Selling principal Jaime Wood of Ray White Barossa Valley | Two Wells said his team were aiming for 10 appraisals per person.
“100 appraisals for our office in total would be amazing,” Mr Wood said.
“I’ve been operating my business for six years and in that time, I’ve only done one private treaty sale and I won’t do it again. All our stock is auctioned even though previously our area wasn’t a huge auction market.
“Scheduling our auctions during the week means we are free on Saturdays to focus on open homes which has helped build our presence in the region. We probably do an average of about eight open homes per Saturday.”
In Western Australia, Ray White sales performance specialist Patrick Derrig spent the day with several top teams in the state including the Ray White Cottesloe | Mosman Park business.
“Cottesloe is a team full of ‘big hitters’,” Mr Derrig said.
“Key offices who get involved in this drive, almost are the highest performing offices in the state.”
RWC Gateway business owner Jared Doyle said the team was getting behind their first REOO.
“Participating in events like REOO is a great opportunity to connect with your database and offer them a no obligation appraisal and discuss any other need they may have,” Mr Joyle said.
“It’s also a fun bonding thing to do with your team!”
Ray White Concierge had been in full training mode leading up to the big event today.
They love supporting our agents to scale up their calls and opportunities in NurtureCloud.
This was the biggest REOO they have had to date and powered with 4000 calls during the REOO and 426 appraisals from their team of 50 consultants.
Courtney Martin, General Manager from NurtureCloud, also joined the fun as a consultant on the phones, racking up appraisals.
As part of their live cross and dressed as a massive blow up pumpkin, Haesley Cush of Ray White Collective motivated the Concierge team with his energetic nature.
“I got the call to come and show my support for REOO but didn’t realise that I was going to be put in a pumpkin suit,” he said.
“Real Estate of Origin is a really important day for us as it allows us to create a lot of value for our clients. There was huge interest from people wanting to know the value of their home and is now becoming quite well received.”
