CASE STUDY: Heritage Real Estate
Heritage Real Estate is a real estate agency that specialises in distinctive properties. HRE accepts listings of properties from throughout Australia and using the particular characteristics of that property, identifies its potential market and takes appropriate steps to sell the property. One would not expect to find a 'renovated terrace house in Richmond' amongst its listings. One would find 'the most outstanding example of Victorian terrace in Richmond', or 'property which played significant role in the white settlement of Australia', or 'a property with the only known natural occurrence of wimoy grass'. HRE sells to many different types of buyers, ranging from large mining companies, to individuals. To deal with this kind of property, the agency has implemented a section which specialises in identification, evaluation, and recording of the properties.
The following is an edited transcript of interviews held with staff at HRE.
Q: What is the purpose of the system that you are proposing?
Q: What is a 'distinctive' property?
Q: How would data collected on properties assist your marketing efforts?
Q: What kind of data will be needed for this analysis?
Q: Its obvious that you need to keep information on properties and buyers. I don't see how this will help with identifying new markets. Would you give me more detail?
Q: What happens to properties that are not listed?
Q: Do you retain the sole rights for the sale of the property?
Q: Will the system need to record sales information?
Q: How do you see that collecting information on the sales of properties can assist you?
Q: How do you hope to expand these categories?
Q: How do you plan to evaluate each category?
Q: Do you see the system supporting the tracking of sales?
Q: What kind of data do you think the system retain on properties?
Q: What kind of information on buyers do you intend to keep?