Representation - why you need it.
Property 24 has 6 379 commercial/retail and industrial listings to rent and for sale in Cape Town (with about 20 to 30% duplicated listings) at present. A more accurate estimate is that a quarter of these listings are redundant and a better estimate is 4 784 listings. One can use the tools to specify location, size and cost, and use these to select a shopping list however there is a catch.
Based on our own internal lead tracking, about half of our tenants are sourced from the portals such as P24 and Private Property, with 10% from Boards on properties and the rest from the property practitioner's own sphere of influence.
About a third of the properties they source for these tenants (and also for buyers) are sourced by the property practitioners sitting down with the tenant/buyer and understanding the specifics of what they seek and then approaching owners whether they have an imminent vacancy on the way, or they seek to realise their investment and sell.
Also of interest is that not all brokerages place all the adverts on the portals (we only market about 50%), and merely place a representative sample to solicit interest, to then qualify the enquiry into a prospect in order to engage with the owners in their spheres to seek out the property that meets requirements.
Property Practitioners need time to understand the movement of tenants and buyers into suburbs, market rates to build and replace, going rates per m2 for rentals, capitalisation rates for disposals - so there is a case to appoint a skilled and experienced practitioner who can assist and guide clients