“There will be a tailwind that hasn’t arrived yet –...

“There will be a tailwind that hasn’t arrived yet – international money and immigrants”


Jellis Craig real estate agency buys Greg Hocking

Australian Financial Review

Premium Melbourne real estate agency Jellis Craig has acquired boutique operator Greg Hocking Real Estate in a move that will push its revenue this year to more than $100 million and lay the groundwork for it to spin out a mass-market brand.

Staffing numbers at Jellis Craig, headed by former Macquarie banker Nick Dowling, will rise by about 100 to 850 after the acquisition of the 10-office franchise network founded by Melbourne veteran Greg Hocking, and give the combined group 37 offices.

The deal, which is due to settle this month under terms that have not been disclosed, is the latest of a series of acquisitions by Jellis Craig. The company has grown from 160 people when Mr Dowling became chief executive in 2011 into what he says is Melbourne’s largest by revenue, if not by number of offices – mass brands such as Ray White and LJ Hooker have more.

Jellis Craig, which started in Melbourne’s inner eastern suburbs in 1991, has expanded into the city’s northern and Bayside suburbs, but wanted to tap Greg Hocking’s established network to make the most of the “tailwind” that would at some point lift a residential market already expected to rise as much as 20 per cent this year, Mr Dowling said.

“There will be a tailwind that hasn’t arrived yet – international money and immigrants,” he told The Australian Financial Review.

“Williamstown is a big grand fit for us. That stretch on the waterfront of the inner west has a lot of upside.”

In addition to the Williamstown office and a flagship Albert Park office, the franchise network founded by industry veteran Greg Hocking – an earlier founder of the unrelated Hockingstuart brand – has a presence in Elsternwick, South Yarra, Beaumaris, Cheltenham, Altona, Footscray, Yarraville and Caroline Springs.

Some of the offices will be rebranded as Jellis Craig and others will stay under their current brand for now and become the basis of a second business Jellis Craig wants to develop over the next “two to five years” that will focus on a lower-priced mainstream market, Mr Dowling said.