McGrath Estate Agents: Innovation

Sydney, Australia: When John McGrath founded his own real estate agency in 1988, his somewhat humble home office beginnings provided little indication of what was to come. In less than 20 years, McGrath Estate Agents has grown its team to over 350 and sold more than $2.4 billion worth of residential real estate during the financial year ending 30 June, 2007. A well-respected company within the industry, it is an undisputed market leader in the highly competitive Sydney property market.

innovation
According to McGrath, one of the major contributing factors to his company’s remarkable success is a drive to build the world’s most customer-centric real estate group. He explains: “To achieve this, we need to be constantly updating and evolving in the ways we work, conduct our business, deal with customers and, above all, communicate.”

Innovation is a key component of the McGrath business, and in December 2006, the company once again cemented itself as an industry leader in real estate technology. In partnership with Apple, McGrath Estate Agents launched iPod property podcasting from its award-winning Web site - mcgrath.com.au. This was innovation with a capital “I”…or rather, a lower case “i”, utilising iPod and iTunes technologies

It was during a trip to the UK in 2006 that the untapped potential of the iPod in real estate became clear to McGrath. “I found myself spending quite a bit of time travelling on the Tube [London’s famous underground rail network],” he says. “One of the things that really struck me was the large number of travellers who had iPods, listening to music or watching videos while on the train.”

It was then that he conceived the idea of property podcasting.

For those who work with McGrath, it was no surprise that his newest idea was once again at the cutting edge of technology; and once he proposes an idea, his company wastes no time in making it happen.

Within two months of returning to Australia and discussing the value of podcasting with his leadership team, McGrath had steered his company towards a collaborative relationship with Apple. He had laid down the foundation of his podcasting strategy with the company’s creative partner – Image-ination – and the McGrath Web site had nearly 300 audio-visual podcasts available online for download via iTunes.

The structure of the McGrath property podcasts has been designed to provide as much information as possible in a format that does away with the high pressure selling tactics so often associated with real estate. Instead, a professionally scripted narrative of the property and its surroundings, accompanied by a range of complementary images and property details, provide a comprehensive property overview that is vastly superior to that which could be delivered in print or static Web format.