Laing + Simmons to bring trust accounting and other admin tasks in-house as part of shared services offering

Real estate group Laing + Simmons has has launched a shared services model to its real estate franchisees as part of new growth plans.

General manager Leanne Pilkington says its back of house service offering to franchisees covers trust accounting, salaries and wages, human resources, employment contracts, assistance with recruitment and training.

The idea is to free up estate agents so they can focus on the job of selling real estate and move their businesses to the next level, while also attracting fresh talent.

“Our growth plan involves not simply increasing the number of Laing+Simmons offices. We want to take that next step with our franchisees so their businesses can grow at an individual level too, and we offer the services and the flexibility for them to achieve this," she says.

The new back office functions follows Laing & Simmons being acquired by Canberra-based Independent Property Group last year, led by chief executive and real estate agent John Runko.

Runko told Property Observer the shared service model offering had just been launched in Sydney with a separate entity looking after all the admin and accounting functions.

The Independent Property Group sits under the umbrella of the Dexar Group, which also owns Peter Blackshaw Real Estate, Clarify Financial Group, Six Fingers Creative Marketing and the Academy of Real Estate.

"Dexar is the corporate entity that sits over all the other businesses. It does not trade and is not a retail or public brand," says Runko.

Runko told BRW the new shared services model has been implemented because real estate agents are great at selling but poor at business administration and managing multi-million dollar trust accounts.

“We want to find someone who is a good agent and let them concentrate on being a good agent,” he said.