Growing a Company From Scratch With Jonathan Bell

Written by Acme Mag

For Jonathan Bell, setting up Housemark the right way from the start was integral to his rapid business growth. As the founder and managing director of South East Queensland’s fastest-growing property management company, Jonathan has maintained a consistent vision.

This vision came from noticing a gap in the market, and then through innovation and culture, Jonathan has made sure Housemark have executed this vision. This is how in four short years, Housemark has grown from zero to more than 2,500 rentals managed under their brand.

Acme: From what we can tell, it seems what you were really setting out to do with the company was creating a better method for property management. How did you go about finding a gap in the market? 

Jonathan: When I worked at previous real estate agencies, it was clear that every rent role was owned by a sales principal. It’s very common. They’re a selling principal, they’re selling all this stock and then they’ve got these investors who want someone to manage these properties, that’s when these principals go, ‘oh, we should have our own service for property management.’ No one’s really gone in first thinking ‘we need to provide a really good quality property management business.’ 

Instead, it’s been treated as this add-on service, like an afterthought. I realised quickly that property management is really the most important part of an investor’s property journey, it’s managing a multimillion-dollar asset. There should be a company that specialises in managing that asset. That’s why we purely do property management and no sales. It’s our biggest point of difference.

Acme: That’s a really clever approach. So, how do you go about turning the ‘unpopular kid’ into the ‘cool kid’?

Jonathan: The simplest thing is by having a clear focus on your vision.

I always say if a sales principal spent 40 hours a week on property management, there is no way their property management business wouldn’t absolutely improve quickly. It’s because it’s not prioritised that property management has ended up with this reputation. 

Every single decision we make at Housemark goes back to how we can provide a better solution for our landlords and our tenants.

If you come from a sales principal’s perspective, they have a different mission. We don’t make any income from sales so there has to be a focus on our service. If our landlord wants to keep this property forever then how do we get our tenants wanting to continue to rent through our properties so we can rent properties quicker than other agencies?

We have to represent our landlord, but we don’t get paid unless our tenant pays rent so there’s an equal focus on both. We try and do things differently.

Acme: Right – so is this how you were able to grow so quickly? It was 2,500 rentals in four years, from our understanding. 

Jonathan: Yeah, we worked really hard but we had such a crystal clear vision. We didn’t deviate and there were so many opportunities to deviate, do different things and focus on different avenues. Instead we just had to go back to our single focus; to provide the best property management service in the country. That’s been our focus for four years.

Acme: So speaking of just sticking to it and continuously building, how have you built your office culture over time? This seems to be a pretty important factor at Housemark. 

Jonathan: Culture was really important when trying to rejuvenate the industry and find quality, talented people who want to be in property management. We put a clear focus on finding and nurturing really good people.

We know that so often property managers get treated poorly, whether by the team, landlords or tenants. It’s often a thankless job. Coming to Housemark, we wanted it to be clear that our leadership’s vision is how we support you and provide you the best service. What do you need from us as a leadership team to provide that best service? And that’s really what we focus on. It was very rare for a property manager to feel that.

Acme: And has that influenced your internal structure?

Jonathan: Yeah, we’ve really built the job roles around the property manager. If a property manager wants to do end-to-end, let them do end-to-end. If they want all the support, provide them the support. That model we have has the best success. We do have property managers who focus more on entry, exits, routines and then others who prefer end-to-end, but then we give them a lot fewer properties. Offering flexibility has really helped. 

Acme: So it’s really about working with and accommodating your team, to a certain extent. Does this extend to other elements of the business, like your office space? 

Jonathan: Yeah, we’ve actually moved office and we moved into an old house, rather than a traditional office. It makes it a very comfortable place to work. It feels like a home. We even let our team work two days from home at their choice. Three days in the office, two days from home.

We have a team breakfast twice a week where we all just talk about challenges and how we can overcome them. And from a leadership point of view, we never point the finger. So if a landlord calls me or someone in the leadership team and says, ‘we’re not happy with the service.’ Most people would often go straight to blaming the property manager. We go to them and ask for their side and say, ‘hey, what’s been happening with this property? Has anything happened with the landlord? How can we help in this situation?’ Which is a big thing for property managers. Like, they work hard all day, the landlords are never happy, the tenants are never happy, and then they come in and their boss isn’t happy. That’s like the triple whammy. We really try to make sure we’ve created a real supportive environment. 

That’s really the culture we try to build for a work-life balance. We never expect our property managers to work past five.

Acme: It’s really about building a business people feel like fits into their lives then, isn’t it?

Jonathan: Exactly. We had the idea of building towards being the Google of property management. We want that vibe where people want to be here and work here. It’s a super innovative environment. 

A lot of people walk into our office and go, ‘wow, this is so different. It’s high energy, everyone’s positive, super friendly.’ For most property management businesses, our culture is unheard of.

Acme: Housemark is still young. Like we’ve said, only four. But where do you see the business going over the next five to 10 years? What does growth look like for you?

Jonathan: When I spoke at AREC, I said that I wouldn’t be surprised in the next five years if we have an international office. I’d love in the next twelve months to be interstate and then overseas in the next five. I’ve always said my vision is that for every house in Australia, if someone is renting their house out, they say, ‘oh, we’d better get Housemark to have a look at it.’

I want it to be a known brand and if you’re entering the market to rent out your home, you think of a Housemark agent.

Want to learn more about how vision influences the success of a business? Check out our interview with Harris Real Estate’s Phil Harris.