February 2017

32 BUILD / February 2017 , Innovating in Real Estate & Property Services Few real estate agencies offer their clients such a fully-integrated service to equal that which is offered by Dixon Kestles & Co Pty, Ltd. Incorporating residential, commercial and owners’ corporation propertymanagement, consulting, sales and leasing, this SouthMelbourne-based firmprovides a specialised range of services that is unrivalled in the industry, and especially in Australia. Dixon Kestles & Co Pty, Ltd. are perhaps a bit different to most other real estate organisations on the market, particularly in Australia. While most other real estate companies are tailored towards one particular aspect – either residential or commercial – depending on their day-to- day activity, Dixon Kestles is predominantly a management company, with a number of titles under its wing that include Strata Management, that oversees dealings in both residential and commercial properties. As can be expected from this broad base, Dixon Kestles maintains a robust and highly sophisticated management network that encompasses between 6,500 and 7,000 properties in total. In addition to this, the company’s day-to-day activities are more associated with the sale and leasing of commercial assets, which includes industrial as well as retail properties. The smallest component of the business, meanwhile, is in residential sales, but it nonetheless maintains an important position in the company, as all of the staff that are involved in the sale and leasing of properties have come from a residential background. This makes them highly adept at dealing with any residential component that might arise from a particular case. Today, Dixon Kestles enjoys the rare distinction of a history dating back to the 1880s, accentuating its uniqueness in the industry. The company itself is entering its 41st year, as it was the incorporation of G.F. Dixon, J. Harden and Tuckett Malone in 1975 that first positioned Dixon Kestles as a high-profile agency in the Australian real estate market. Subsequent to this, the acquisition of Douglas Davis in 1989, followed by Machin, Shepard and Paltos in 1990, further enhanced the company’s stature. John Pratt was one of the two Founding Directors of Dixon Kestles when it emerged from this period of acquisition and consolidation. He goes on to emphasise the company’s evolving role in Australia’s changing real estate market. As he describes it, “one major area of change is in regard to the prices of properties. As we have been leasing properties over such an extended period of time, we have seen prices for office space, for example, rise from $8.50 per square foot to $400- 450 per square foot; there have likewise been increases in retail and industrial rents, as well.” ”I suppose that the other significant area of change that we have experienced is a notable transition from manual systems within the office towards full computerisation,” John continues, as he explores the ways in which Dixon Kestles’ adoption of new technologies have made a significant positive impact on the business and its ability to process leases and manage its properties. “Our office systems have certainly changed dramatically. When we were first established in the 70s, we were doing everything manually, even receiving the rents, which would take significant amounts of time to process; once they had been received, each and every one had to be transposed multiple times into statements before they were issued, and this took three weeks of every month for our two staff in this department to complete the previous month’s intake.” Considering that in those days, Dixon Kestles were processing in the realm of $60,000-$70,000 in rental values a year, this amounted to a staggering workload, which has become far simpler in the decades since, with the advent of computerisation allowing the processing team to be able to cope with millions of dollars’ worth of rentals in a matter of mere hours. This major renovation, without which Dixon Kestles would not be as successful as it is today, is also aided by new digital filing systems. John mentions that the office went paperless in the year 2000, and that since then, all information pertaining to rentals and leases has been stored on hard drives. While these are changes that can be observed across the industry, to some extent, Dixon Kestles goes one step further by adopting systems that they themselves have piloted, through its own on-board team of software developers. As Dixon Kestles’ systems continue to evolve to further assist in the processing of millions of dollars’ worth of leased properties across the territory of Victoria and other parts of Australia, John describes the company’s ongoing strategy, in the context of its business aims, as such: “we want to uphold a certain attitude when it 1612BU02 “We treat the owner’s property as if it was our own. We advise our clients on the basis of what we would do if we were in their exact situation.”