LJ Hooker Te Awamutu receive top ranking among international offices

The team from LJ Hooker Te Awamutu celebrated their achievement with drinks and tapas at Fahrenheit on Friday afternoon. Photo / Supplied

Despite the challenges posed by Covid-19, LJ Hooker Te Awamutu has seen a "boom" in sales and have been recognised for their work and ranked within the top 20 offices internationally in the company.

"This would have to be our best ranking, to make the top 20 out of 450 offices is impressive, I am absolutely thrilled for our team and office with this result, a reflection of the hard effort the team put in," says LJ Hooker Te Awamutu branch manager Tanya Hollobon.

To celebrate, the team went to Fahrenheit on Friday afternoon for drinks and nibbles.

The LJ Hooker Te Awamutu team is made up of 11 salespeople, two property managers and supported by experienced administrators.

"Now is a great time to be in the industry, Covid has had the opposite effect to what we thought it would have. We thought it might have slowed down, instead the markets gone crazy, we're in a boom," says LJ Hooker Te Awamutu real estate salesperson Nadine Wells.

"It's nice to be recognised for all our hard work, we have a really great team," says Nadine.

Reports from REINZ for August, in Te Awamutu, show that the average days a property is on the market before selling was just 28 with a median price of $620,000.

"There's plenty of activity out there at the moment, we are seeing large numbers through the open homes and strong interest in properties coming to the market," says Tanya.

Tanya says their property managers are also very busy at the moment seeing a spike in their rent role.

"We've really increased our rent role in the last few months, especially after the lockdown. With the new compliance requirements for landlords we are seeing private landlords coming across to have their rental properties managed now," says Tanya.

LJ Hooker Te Awamutu is owned by Ken and Heather Hagan,who purchased the franchise in 2000.

Ken has been named LJ Hooker New Zealand Franchise Owner of the Year previously as well as top rural salesperson for New Zealand and a finalist for the REINZ Rural Salesperson of the Year within Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Gisborne regions.

He was also made an admiral at the International Awards ceremony in Melbourne in 2008. This means he has achieved the very top level of business performance within the LJ Hooker network.

In previous years the business has also been awarded the Best Business Growth award and the award for Top Community Relationship.