By: Skye Manson
After establishing firm foundations in Boorowa and surrounding districts, Flemings Property Services is cementing itself as a key player in the sophisticated rural real estate sector with the success of its specialist agency: Flemings Rural.
Led by Flemings director, Richie Fleming, Flemings Rural has amassed $100 million in sales over the last three years for the transaction of anything from large-scale farming and agricultural enterprises to productive lifestyle holdings and all properties in between.
He’s confident this trajectory will only grow as the unique Flemings Rural philosophy seeps its way into the rural communities surrounding its five offices in Boorowa, Harden, Cootamundra, Young and Cowra.
“All the Flemings businesses have grown over the last five to six years in terms of residential and property management and we thought we’d leverage off the good hard work that’s been done in that expansion and those communities and include a specialist rural offering.
“Flemings has its way of doing things which we believe is very good and we want to bring that into the rural market as well.”
Flemings Rural offers specialists genuinely embedded in the community.
The agency is run by a young team, all living locally, with experience in farming and agriculture, an ability to laugh and a penchant for innovative marketing that sees the people and places in its network prosper and grow.
This is Flemings Rural’s point of difference.
“We’ve defined the Flemings Rural difference as being; understanding the sellers objectives; relying on our experience and network; and our unique understanding of the areas where we operate,” says Flemings Property Services managing director, Justin Fleming.
But, he says it’s more than that, “also a big one for us is our strategy with service and marketing. We have already serviced rural clients well and we will continue to put great emphasis on that. If this doesn’t separate us from our competitors, then we see it as an opportunity to at least enable us to go toe-to-toe.”
The evolution of Flemings Rural took 12 months of preparation, branding and team restructuring and was a natural way forward for the business.
“We decided to establish Flemings Rural because rural property was a service we were already doing well and we knew that to give us the best opportunity of competing in a market with some really sophisticated agencies we needed to put our Rural service up in lights to pinpoint the fact that we have a specialist offering,” says Justin.
“Rural agency has become a really specialist field, it’s not just about photos and marketing now, it comes with a lot of knowledge and understanding about people’s enterprise. We saw an opportunity to have rural agents who were knowledgeable and sophisticated and who offered marketing expertise right here on the ground, where our clients live..”
Additionally, it made sense for the new arm to be headed up by Richie Fleming who brings a set of skills and experience rarely seen in rural and regional Australia; he grew up on a farm in Ireland, he loves agriculture and has worked in marketing for some of the biggest companies in the world including Tesco, Woolworths, Optus and OPSM.
“We have worked really hard at up-skilling ourselves as rural agents because it’s more nuanced than residential sales,” says Richie. “Our approach includes hard work, honesty, reliability and good communication. I think if you have those four things then it makes for a very good working relationship with vendors and perspective purchasers. We want to show that our clients don’t have to go out of town to get that expertise, it’s right here on their doorstep.”
There’s obvious synergies of placing Richie at the helm of Flemings Rural not least his passion for anything agriculture and farming as well as the fact that he’s well known by locals for his Irish charm.
“I relate to farmers much easier and that’s purely because of my background. I grew up in a small country village in Ireland and spent my summers working on the farm feeding cattle, making hay and cleaning out the sheds,” he says. “You know you’re out in the open, you’re meeting and working with farmers and that is something I’m very passionate about.”
Another pillar of the Flemings Rural ethos is to bring integrity to all it does – and this has not come about by chance. Since the inception of Flemings Property Services in 2018, managing director Justin Fleming has diligently surrounded himself with colleagues of good character matching his own sense of decency.
“We’ve had people join the ranks who’ve brought bucket loads of experience and skills but it has been their character which has, in our view, made them right for the job. So we’ve gone about putting people of good character throughout the Flemings network and we think that has proved very successful and Flemings Rural can now capitalise on that local integrity,” says Justin.
When it comes to the locals, generosity is also really important to the Flemings Rural team not only in financial contributions (it supports 25 local organisations and partners with eight charities) but also in the giving of time and energy which it firmly believes helps to build the spirit and liveability of regional towns.
“One of our other values is community. I think we support the community because we live here and we love the areas where we live,” says Richie who often quips that Boorowa is the Australian equivalent of his much loved home town of The Swan in Ireland.
It’s a win-win for everyone says Justin and one reason why they often see a return of old clients.
“By virtue of the fact that we enjoy living in these towns and we like the people and businesses, we want those places to do well and be well. We see that when you support your community, your community supports you and that feels good. It means we can continue to grow our business and support the people that work in it as well as being active people in our community, both in business and in life.”
