about us
DESCRIPTION
A brief outline of what we doTRANSCRIPT
Welcome Take a comfy seat, relax and grab some coffee or wine. This document is designed to give you an overview of The Grant Team and the Ray White Lower North Shore business. It will only take 15 minutes to read through and also features important information on how to maximise your sale price.
Section Guide One About your agent
Two Services
Three Marketing
Four Sales History
Five Past Clients
Six Your section
About Your Agent The Grant team has become one of Australia’s most successful teams and Ray White Lower North Shore one of Australia’s most successful agencies. The following information gives you some background on how they work.
The Grant Team Brand The husband and wife team of Danny and Diane Grant have been selling in and around the Willoughby area for the past 7 years amassing records sales and selling some of the areas most sought after homes. As The Grant team, they are a registered business working under the large umbrella of Ray White Lower North Shore. The benefit of this partnership is allowing clients to have access to a broader network of buyers that come from being associated with such a large office. It would take a new business 20 to 30 years to grow to the same size before they have the equivalent effectiveness of buyer exposure. So when working with The Grant Team, you have the best of both worlds.
GRANT EAM
Selling with the Grant Team An incredibly effective team, each team member has a role that plays to their strengths. Danny personally manages each sale and gives direct progress feedback to you and all interested buyers. He also facilitates marketing buyer negotiation and sales strategies. Diane has worked alongside Danny for 7 years and manages the marketing elements of the campaign and works with your Solicitor or Conveyancer to ensure all legals are taken care of from start to finish. In addition, Diane also attends open houses and offers another negotiation angle for buyers who prefer to deal with a female agent. Alon Beran also works within the Grant Team. He has worked in Real Estate for over 5 years and lived on the North Shore all his life. His role is to assist with buyer management and open houses.
The Numbers The Danny & Diane believe in full disclosure of their results. The following results demonstrate how they are performing in the current market. Auction success rate: 84% (Properties sold at or before Auction) Average days on market: 32 (Amount of days live on market till sold sticker goes up) List to sell ratio: 100% (% of Homes they have marketed this year and successfully sold) Recovery rate: 8.1% (Average % of increase in our negotiations from first offer) Figures based on sales from January 1 to 1
July 2009.
The Process
When you are selecting an agent to sell your home it is important to understand the separation of valuation and cost from the agent’s ability and process they apply to a sale.
The most important conversation you will have with your agent is what process they intend to initiate on your sale. A flipant ‘we’ll get that price for you’ statement is not a process, only an empty promise.
Danny and Diane will take you through a detailed step-by-step process they call ‘the staircase to price’. They will demonstrate an effective and intelligent strategy that has achieved their previous client’s premium prices.
Renowned For Their Pricing Accuracy In the changing market climate, establishing an accurate price for your home is crucial to your sale outcome and profit. Danny and Diane have long been regarded as accurate valuers of local homes. This is a result of extensive market knowledge, experience, understanding of current buying trends, an interest in latest home design and above all, being upfront and real. Choosing an agent that can only tell you the highest price over an agent with the right sale process is a false economy. Over-quoting your home means the right buyers won’t see it and the longer a home is on the market, the less buyers expect to pay. Even a price reduction after just a few weeks can be too late and disastrous in the current market climate. Getting the price right from day one is imperative. We will give you a figure you can rely on and suggest a guide that will lead to a premium price. The Grant Team quoting process has been tried, tested and proven. The right agent with the right process will get you sold for the best price, not the agent with the hollow promise of a price.
The Real Estate Academy Danny and Diane’s success in the real estate industry has lead to them to be invited to share what they have learned with agents across Australasia. Their involvement in the Real Estate Academy has seen Danny coach and train with some of Australia’s top and up and coming agents. With the motivation of helping lift the professionalism and skill of agents in the industry, Danny is also a sought after industry speaker, having presented across Australia and New Zealand. Both Danny and Diane are working with the Academy to create new training courses on subjects such as How to run brilliant Auctions and Surviving your first 12 months in real estate. Danny and Diane’s belief is that new agents should have better access to training before they commence selling someone’s largest asset.
A Part of your Community Danny & Diane are proud to be involved with local families on another level other than helping them move. They are the major sponsors of the ‘St Thomas primary school Art and Craft Show held every October. Their involvement as major sponsors is to not only contribute much needed funds but also to help the organisers make the show as popular and profitable as it can be. We also provide our head Auctioneer for the night to sell the students art work and raise more money. They also sponsor the St Thomas School Netball teams that compete every week at the Willoughby Leisure Centre. Given Danny & Diane get stuck in traffic between open houses every Saturday with all the families going to Netball they feel they may as well support the girls instead of driving past every week.
Number 1 Ray White Established for over 33 years and Ray Whites number 1 north Shore agency, Ray White Lower North Shore is responsible for some of Australia’s highest sales including the highest Australian sale achieved at Auction. Their service area runs from Balmoral, across to Wollstonecraft and up to Lindfield covering all suburbs in between. A staggering 42% of buyers in your local area come from Neutral Bay and Cremorne and their office is located right in the heart of those suburbs! With a staff of over 50 real estate professionals, the success and community acceptance of the office is evidenced by an extremely low turnover of staff, with some agents working with the company for over 18 years, and many clients selling through the office multiple times. Ray White Lower North Shore has sold the equivalent of one property a day for 33 years.
An International Brand Ray White is a household name in Australia and New Zealand and is the largest real estate network in Australasia, selling over 25 Billion dollars worth of property last year. They are able to offer their clients significant benefits. Every property they list has the advantage of an extensive worldwide database of buyers, and that’s something that no other agency can match. This invaluable local, national and international exposure ensures that they find the right buyer and secure the maximum possible price for your home. Nationally, they have over 950 offices making them the largest in Australia with the largest amount of agents and largest national database of buyers.
Services The Grant Team and Ray White Lower North Shore offer a broad range of specialty services, the following are some standouts.
Premium Shoppers Within the thousands of their registered database buyers, Danny and Diane have what they call ‘premium shoppers’. These are buyers that they work closely with because they believe they have the ability to pay premium prices and buy quickly. They are finance ready, well educated on the market and have a respected relationship with them based on their ability to only show them homes that suit their pre-nominated buying criteria. Buyers respect agents that don’t waste their time. Because Danny and Diane only show these buyers homes they feel would suit them, buyers treat these private property viewings very seriously and are more likely to submit an offer on your home. So rest assured, if Danny and Diane have a ‘premium shopper’ for your home, you have a greater chance of a speedy sale at a great price before you spend a cent on marketing.
Buyer Database With their wide North Shore coverage, Ray White Lower North Shore meet over 1500 buyers each week selling properties priced from $200,000 to $30 million. They have agents capable of selling in all price ranges including Kingsley Yates, the North Shores number one prestige agent. This is an exposure no other agency can match. Our office makes sales every week, purely based on our database marketing. All agents work under the one roof and meet twice weekly to discuss current and future campaigns. Their sophisticated database software is self- managed, sending out thousands of emails automatically every week. Every home they list automatically seeks out specific buyers looking in your home’s value range and sends a direct email and SMS to those buyers. In less than 2 minutes they can notify hundreds of suitable buyers about your home.
Feedback Service Throughout the sale of your home, it is important that the lines of communication between you and your agent are always open so you are constantly kept abreast of what is happening day by day. 24 hours is a long time in real estate and poor communication can result in your sale slipping away without you even knowing. Similarly, if your agent isn’t communicating with the interested buyers, they won’t even know the sale is slipping away. Danny & Diane will be in touch with you constantly throughout each week by phone, email, sms and in person as well as submit an extensive written report to you at the end of each week. They also keep in touch with your buyers ensuring they know their thoughts and position. At the back of this document are examples of weekly reports you will receive should you sell through The Grant Team.
Auction
When considering selling your home by auction, you also need to ensure you select an agent that has a clear understanding and proven process around managing an Auction sale. Of course, they should also have a strong history of high success rate and auction clearance.
Danny and Diane sell the majority of their properties by auction and have maintained an Auction clearance rate above 80% for many years, including an unequalled record of 100% auction clearance rate for 2006.
Their success at auction has lead them to create a course to help other real estate agents around the country improve their skills at managing an auction called “Running Brilliant Auctions”. The course is run right across the country and is sold out every time it is held.
Rest assured, if you sell by auction with Danny and Diane, you will be in very safe, expert hands.
Concierge With Ray White Concierge, moving house doesn’t need to be a headache. With just one phone call, we’ll take care of everything. They will arrange all client utility connections and disconnections, home loans and even free 30 day insurance cover. With just one phone call, they can make the long moving ‘to do list’ disappear.
The Loan Market
The Loan Market Group is one of Australia’s largest mortgage broking companies helping thousands of customers every year get their home loan faster. The Loan Market works closely with Ray White and has brokers with access to over 400 loans to suit a range of borrower types and situations. They can often negotiate directly with your existing bank and achieve a better rate for you.
It never hurts to get a second opinion on your home loan. Ask Danny or Diane about their personal experience of getting their own home loan with the Loan Market.
Home Styling One thing you will notice about Grant Team properties is they are all presented a class above many others in the crowded marketplace. Many agents skip the important step of helping owners get their home ready for sale and those that do show some interest often refer you to someone externally who doesn’t understand who your target buyer is. Danny and Diane take an active role in this important stage. To assist in your presentation, Danny and Diane will create a room by room written report on what to do and what not to do. This can be as simple as moving some furniture around and de-cluttering. If a further step is needed with furniture recommended to be hired to help show off your home, Danny and Diane have one of Sydney’s most exclusive stylists, Bree Oliver. They will work along side Bree and provide an obligation free quote and ensure that the furniture is appropriate for your target buyer.
Group of Trades After working with many tradespeople over the years, Danny and Diane have been able to establish a reliable core group of trades that they make available to their clients. It can be very hard to find reliable people for different work around your home, and as an added no cost service, they can obtain quotes and manage any work to be undertaken to prepare your home for sale or simply pass on their details for your direct contact. Given Danny and Diane give a lot of work to these tradespeople and have narrowed them down from many others; they have competitive rates and are more importantly reliable. The group of trades includes painters, cleaners, floor sanders, carpenters, house washers, garden landscapers, builders and general handymen.
Storing the Clutter Getting your property ready for open home inspections can be a daunting task. Danny and Diane can help de-clutter your home to ensureyou get the highest sale price. They deliver their ‘Zippy shell’ to your home, you fill it with your excess clutter then they collect it and store it away for the duration of your sale. Once they have conducted their styling report and worked out what needs to be stored, you don’t have to work out where to put it all, it will all be taken care of and you can take a couple of days to fill the ‘zippy shell’ at your leisure as it stays parked out the front of your home till its taken away. You get 2 months free self storage where your items will be housed securely till you are ready to make your next big move. Whether you sell with Danny and Diane or not, this service is still available to you. If you are interested in this service, ask for more details when you meet with them.
Marketing The style, look and feel of The Grant Team marketing is of the highest standard, the following are some keys areas that will have a huge bearing on the quality of your marketing.
The Photography Danny and Diane place a huge emphasis on the professional images of your home. If the sales images taken of your home don’t look good enough for Vogue or any other lifestyle magazine it’s certainly not worthy of your sale campaign. Much like those magazines, Danny and Diane also demand perfection for their property photos to attract a large amount of buyers. If your images are not of the highest standard, it won’t attract as many buyers or create that initial excitement and anticipation in a buyer’s heart. For many years they have worked with a large photographic company called ‘Imageination’. They photograph Sydney’s highest valued homes and have access to some of the best photography equipment that reproduces the most superb images. When you meet Danny and Diane, they will explain the work these photographers do at your home and in their studio. They will also present some imagery from past sales including their renowned dusk images.
The World Wide Web Fast becoming the number one source for buyers to find their home, it is imperative that your home is featured on the best sites for web traffic. With Danny and Diane, your home will be featured on domain.com, realestate.com, justlisted.com, raywhite.com, rwlns.com (theiroffice site) and grantteam.com.au (Grant Team’s own personal website). domain.com and realestate.com will be your number one and two most visited sites, followed by rwlns.com. This local site is the number 1 independent site on the North Shore. With the widest coverage of any North Shore business, they quite naturally attract a lot of web traffic as well. As a national site, raywhite.com is always among the most searched Australian real estate sites. You are nothing as a brand until you have national coverage, the interstate and overseas buyers are becoming increasingly important in campaigns for paying premium prices.
Localised Marketing More than 75% of your buyers will come from out of the immediate area therefore only a few simple, local promotional elements are needed to attract this smaller pool of buyers. Gone are the days where buyers look in a real estate agents shop window, buyers follow properties, not real estate agents. The Internet has now become a Real estate agents shop window to the world, but there are also a few other useful direct distribution methods that the Grant Team use to great success. Their property signboards are large and feature an internal or back yard image so buyers driving past can actually see what is behind the façade, as often the best features of the home are at the rear. They also use direct mail cards to local residents that showcase your home, and additionally direct mailing to those selling in the area. Every, quality, local buyer will be exposed to your home.
e-magazine The Ray White e-magazine is uniquely distributed to both our local and international email database of over 500,000 valued contacts located throughout the world. E marketing is proving to be one of our most valuable tools for generating quality enquiry. The top 10 countries included on our email database are: Australia New Zealand United States Hong Kong European Union United Kingdom Singapore Indonesia China Japan
The Print Media While the web is growing to be one of the preferred methods for buyers to search for a home, the various print media publications are still an important part of casting a wider net to attract more buyers to open houses. You cannot match the stimulation of physically seeing beautiful property images in a magazine or paper. Some buyers are not compelled to view a property until seeing it multiple times across different promotional mediums. Even the most dedicated buyers don’t know exactly what they are attracted to in a home, and their criteria can change week by week upon seeing different homes. You can’t always rely on one medium to attract a buyer. Successive weeks of through multiple promotional outlets are important to attract as many buyers as possible and convert those that may exclude your home on the web, but later reconsider it after seeing it differently in the paper. When you meet with Danny and Diane they will discuss what print media publications they think are appropriate for your home based on recent success they have had with similar homes to yours.
