The H & H Story
CONTACT - NEW FARM OFFICECONTACT - HAWTHORNE OFFICE
It was 2009. We’d made the decision to sell the business and take a break from real estate.
Carried the last boxes of bits and pieces to the car.
We’d created a great business there, lots of wonderful memories.
Like the time Pete sold 42 Villiers St – the vendors were a family of 12 siblings, so meetings were interesting to say the least!
And it wasn’t just about the properties we sold and managed. It was the friendships we made along the way, the personal development of our team members, most of whom we’re still friends with today.
Tiffany, our Property Manager back in 2005 has gone on to create an international business in the Property Management area, becoming a finalist in this year’s Telstra Business Awards.
Many of our agents from that time on Brunswick St, New Farm, have become principals and created their own real estate brands – something we’re immensely proud of.
So we retired from real estate for a while.
It was sort of like a caterpillar metamorphosis – sometimes the old structure needs to end for the new one to emerge.
It took a few years for the new structure to emerge.
The first year after the closure of ‘Hutton Real Estate’ saw us putting out feet up in Byron Bay where yoga in the morning and fishing most afternoons became the order of the day with a bit of work in between.
It was completely unsustainable. We needed to work! We loved to work!
So step by step we grew closer to opening our own office again.
Working as a coach for a national brand, then as agents under an associate’s brand, gave us the impetus we needed to create our own brand again.
Our H & H brand was born in the first few months of 2015; our first listing – a penthouse apartment in Albion.
That one was a bit of a challenge – but isn’t it amazing how a challenge can also offer up an opportunity?
That opportunity came in the form of Banc – a prestigious development on Coronation Drive, Toowong. Our ad for the penthouse in Albion caught the eye of the development manager for the project, we got called to give a presentation, got the job and sold 14 of the apartments, average price $2.3M!!
We realised our value in a real estate transaction – finding the maximum price the market will bear for our vendors. Whether our vendors are selling an established home, or they’re developers who’ve come to us to sell their off-the-plan stock.
We do this by utilising all the skills we’ve mastered over the years. In fact Pete wrote a book about it – The Love Price – 5 Steps to Sell Your Home for More, Sooner.
Most of our clients discover us because their home is no longer serving the purpose they bought it for, AND they realise the difference in approach by a boutique agency versus a generic, franchise agency.
They see our authenticity.
We haven’t said all the superlatives and gushed, we’ve been honest, and we’ve talked about what’s great, and what’s not. They see the creativity behind our brand – that it’s not just another cookie-cutter organisation.
It’s those who are brave enough to have the hard conversations that usually succeed in life. And that’s how it is with our vendors. They prefer people who are upfront because it’s only then that you can make wise decisions.
We maximise the value of property by giving our vendors the right advice at the crucial moments, so their home doesn’t linger on the market (which drives price down).
Because of this, we get called into many different areas in Brisbane.
Our philosophy on that is – we don’t believe in neighbourhood specialists, we believe in marketing and selling experts.
Comparisons to your home are important, but we don’t believe similar properties sell for similar prices (we usually sell similar properties for more).
In a nutshell:
- We’re not going to use pester power to get your listing (and call you 500 times so that you think we’re great at follow up), we rely on you wanting our next-level skill-set. There’s a lot more to selling real estate for the maximum price the market will bear than pestering people when they’re trying to watch Downton Abbey
- We’re not going to suggest to home owners that you waste money on print advertising unless we absolutely believe it’s in your best interests
- We’re going to give you the facts, and present you with options, so you’re informed and can make choices fully armed with knowledge, not opinion (there are so many reasons this is crucial to choosing an agent)
- The agent you have the relationship with and sign with is the agent that sells your property – you don’t get a junior agent doing your opens and negotiating the price of your most valuable asset
- One of the reasons we got back on the saddle is because of the generic marketing that other agencies use – it’s ho hum, boring and does nothing to elevate your property
We are a team of creatives.
We are brave.
We do great work.
And we love what we do.
We look forward to meeting you one day (if we haven’t already).
PS: We won an award back in the day, it was the Australian Real Estate Agency of the Year, presented by Bentley Motors. We were thrilled to win it. But these days we don’t go in for awards. There are so many real estate awards, we just thought ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating’ – you’ll have to try us to know how good we are.
PPS: We have big plans. We’re growing – our property management services, our sales team, our premises, our locations. You’ll see new H & H offices over the next few years. Like we said above, we love what we do, we’re dynamic and excited every day to serve our clients which in turn attracts agents, landlords and vendors to our business.