Hobsonville right on ‘Point’ to make 20 year milestone

Business owner of Harcourts’ Hobsonville Realty, David Cattanach, will celebrate 20 years as a Harcourts Franchise owner today.

David started in real estate in 1983 with Collins Real Estate working for Stephen Collins(one of the founders of Harcourts Real Estate) at his Riccarton branch. In just under three years David and his family moved to Auckland with Harcourts and ended up managing the then Takapuna branch for the company.

From there David worked out of the Auckland Regional Office helping Peter Taylor, the Auckland manager set up the Auckland region with new offices.

This job came to a natural end and David left Harcourts for a short stint to manage a branch for the then Challenge Real Estate at Epsom.

One day he received a phone call and it was Stephen Collins.

“Stephen told me they were franchising the Harcourts business and wanted me to come back as they were now looking for business owners – and here I am,” says David.

Harcourts Group Ltd COO and Shareholder Jo Clifford says the Hobsonville Realty has been a good performer winning many awards over the years.

“David and the Hobsonville team have won numerous awards over its lifetime winning the Group Five Award (Earnings Divided by Sales People) FIVE times in a row.  This is a national award and very prestigious.”

“David runs a very professional business and because of that vendors always receive the best service available. Selling a house today is more technical than it used to be and David certainly does everything he can to make it easier for vendors,” says Jo.

David says becoming a multi office franchise has been a highlight of his career and adds, “In 2003 when the market was on fire; our franchise completed over a million dollars in commission for a few months within that year.”

“When you get that sort of result you are eternally thankful for you team, the systems you have around you and your client’s commitment.”

“Four months ago we won the property management contract to rent out all the old air force properties in Hobsonville.  It’s wins like that which keep the desire going to grow your business and deliver quality options to your clients,” says David.

Looking forward David and the team agree they are in an exciting environment in the property market right now. 

“Hobsonville office is 4 minutes from the new Hobsonville Point development which will see 2000 homes being built on vacant land, 2 schools, a retail centre, and a supermarket.  This puts our little corner of Auckland in a good place for an extremely bright future.”

In summary, having offices strategically positioned at Westgate, Hobsonville and Greenhithe with long serving staff many of who have worked for David for over 10 years, together with a strong auction focus and amazing technology provided by Harcourts Group, we will see this franchise sell many houses in the coming years.