Well we are officially launched now! NAI Harcourts’ operations are up and running across New Zealand and in Adelaide in Australia. We have three new websites up and we have gained a significant amount of press across the markets heralding our arrival.

In New Zealand we are now operating in nine cities and regional centers and a further 25 locations across the country. I am delighted to say that the launch of this business has attracted significant positive comment in the media and in the market in general. Including very positively several approaches from established businesses interested to learn more about us and whether there are opportunities to join us. Following the launch presentations which took place in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch we held a commercial leadership group meeting at which we discussed our future plans and thanked the group of business leaders who successfully guided us to the launch in NZ. Thanks go to Rob McCormack, Howard Buchanan, Rosa Carter-Holt, Rex Hadley, Tim Turner, Martin Cooper, Andrew North, and Matt Ryan. I am also delighted to announce in the period since the launch the addition to the group of the former RAY White Parnell office in Auckland and wish James Lee and his team every success with NAI Harcourts.

In Adelaide on the 2nd of August we launched NAI Harcourts at a cocktail function attended by Steve Atherton of NAI Global and David Whitbread, Chairman of HIL and NAI Harcourts. The function, organised by Terry Goodwin’s team and supported by the Directors of Brock’s in Adelaide as well as the Brock Harcourts leadership team including Greg Moulton, ensured a very positive evening and launch for the business in Adelaide. Terry Goodwin was able to announce on the evening that Langford’s Hotel group would be joining the NAI Harcourts team as part of the plans to expand the business in SA.

I look forward to announcing further openings as we will be going live in Melbourne and Perth very soon.

As a measure of our progress it is telling that I visited Zhengzhou in central China with our foundation franchise partners from Adelaide, Gold Coast, Melbourne and Perth last month as part of an Asia Pacific Business Chamber Delegation to China, to promote investment between the two nations.

In addition to attending the trade and investment fair, we were granted a special opportunity to address 300 civic and business leaders from the Henan Province, (population 100 million) to specifically introduce Australian property investment opportunities.

I would like to acknowledge the efforts of Ross Mercorillo from NAI Harcourts Melbourne who engineered the opportunity for us to be there and I look forward to reporting on our progress in future articles.

-Chris Nicholl

Chris Nicholl is Chief Executive Officer of NAI Harcourts, a joint venture between NAI Global and Harcourts Group to expand commercial real estate services in Australia and New Zealand.