How to Leave Your Mark on the Industry Through Innovation

Steve Osborn

Managing Director, Identity Marketing

Confession time: If you haven’t already guessed, I’m a real estate nerd. I get excited when I see someone innovating in the real estate space through meaningful ways. Housemark Director Jonathan Bell ticked all of these boxes. For me, he’s been one of the standout interviews for me for 2023 – and I suspect that piece will make its way into our best articles of 2023 magazine, which is scheduled to be released at the end of this year. This is why.

Clarity of Vision

It’s easy to chase revenue and get distracted going in different directions. Housemark has chosen to specialise in property management, which is a choice, because most people choose to make property management an add on. By focusing all of his energy into building a great property management business he’s been clear about what to focus on and what to ignore.

Real Company Culture

Ugh, I hate hearing companies write about their company culture on their website, it’s like a comedian saying ‘I’m funny,’ only their audience can put that label on themselves. So why are real estate companies doing it? What I loved about Housemark is they’re happy to move from the norms, property manager only work 9-5 Monday to Friday, out of hours work is not expected, they focus on supporting staff instead of blaming team members for mistakes which makes a safe environment for people to try new things and staff are trusted to work from home 2 days a week. On top of all this, property managers are not forced to sit through award nights where the sales people are the heroes because they don’t do sales.

Transformation Built on Understanding

Innovation shouldn’t always mean ‘building technology’. Real estate sales have run Effective Business Units (EBU’s) for a long time, this is the first time I’ve seen someone innovate on this format incredibly well and bring it into the property management space, not only does it make people more efficient but it create a career path for admin support, junior agents and senior agents in a structured format. 

Next Level Customer Service

Custom service isn’t always about doing things faster. It’s often doing them smarter. By having landlords invest in smart locks it brings the cost of maintenance down with less travel time required and fixes a lot of issues that arise around missing keys. 

I started out saying I like to see meaningful innovation, so how does this tick the boxes? Staff enjoy coming to work, they have more work-life balance and a structured career path, landlords are happier because the company has innovated to solve problems before they become problems and bring costs down. Being clear on the vision has allowed Housemark to grow mostly organically from 0-2,500 rentals under management in four short years, with only a few small rent roll acquisitions ranging from 10-50 properties. They’re doing something special here, it’s a company you should be paying attention to. 

Care to read what else Steve has to say? Check out his latest piece here.