Anyone who’s bought or sold in Ipswich and Brisbane’s western corridor over the past 40 years will have come across the Boettcher name. The family started selling cars and property here in 1977 and have been a fixture on the local landscape ever since.

And while 36-year-old Adam Boettcher chose to establish his own real estate career away from the family business, there was little hesitation in calling his new agency Boettchers – launched this month.

“I actually started with a list of about 12 different business names, but then I wanted to leverage my name to create the brand. Plus, people want to deal with the business owner, so it made sense.”

Not that Adam wasn’t already recognised as one of Ipswich’s top agents, after spending over a decade selling property throughout the region.

He actually entered the profession via another great local franchise – the Ipswich Jets rugby league team where he coached for a long stretch. A mate at the Jets was launching a new agency in 2010 and asked Adam to come on board.

“I started there on day one and stayed for 11 years in different roles including as a director and a sales manager.”

But approaching 2021, Adam wanted more and felt the time was ripe for a move. He was working hard as a sales manager – but it was to benefit somebody else’s business, so Adam was keen to strike out on his own.

“As a sales manager I was looking after 12 agents and three PAs, plus trying to sell myself, and working 70 hours a week. My thought process was, ‘Well, I'm basically running the show here now, so why not go out and do it for myself?’

“I spoke with a mate – Matt Ireland – who set up his agency with UrbanX and that prompted me to call Dan Argent (UrbanX CEO) and get more information.”

It was a fortuitous meeting. One major problem that had previously stopped Adam from moving on was solved immediately by UrbanX.

“I'd worked in a traditional agency for so long and only knew about that one business system and I’d thought, ‘It's going to be difficult starting up. There’re all these things I need to arrange and it’s going to be time consuming and hurt my ability to list and sell.

“But then after talking with Dan about UrbanX and hearing what their processes were in getting you set up – it was obvious they do all the heavy lifting for you.

“So, I decided if I'm going to do it, it's not going be as time consuming or as difficult as I thought, and that prompted me to take it further.”

Adam gave UrbanX the go ahead… and within 1 month, he swung open the doors on Boettchers. “They worked pretty hard,” he said. Adam also liked the way UrbanX reduces his outgoings and boosts his take-home income.

“The UrbanX set up is easy to get your head around. I don’t have to worry about the backend stuff which is really labour intensive – so all your trust accounting, listing agreements and correspondence with solicitors – all of that sort of stuff takes away from an agent’s ability to do what’s dollar productive, and that’s list and sell.

“It’s just a massive thing – while the financial rewards will be great, it’s the convenience that’s the biggest thing for me.”

Adam also discovered another way to help Boettchers get profitable right from day one.

“We’ve leased a small work hub, not a traditional shopfront office.

“The office in 2021 is probably the least important thing in real estate – it’s just a waste of money. Nobody comes in the front door anymore. We had a massive 200sqm office at my previous company that cost the best part of $100,000 a year to have, and then we'd have two people come in if we're lucky.

“We had that shopfront for six or seven years, and I would still go and meet people two minutes away from the office and they’d say, ‘Where abouts are you based?’… it was completely redundant.”

Adam said Boettchers’ future will be one of bespoke service carried out by a small team of agents. He believes this is the future real estate. “The days of the big, bulky real estate office are gone. Run lean and concentrate on profitability. Being bigger doesn’t equate to profit – it just equates to more overheads.”

For more information, please visit www.urbanx.io

This is a sponsored feature article. 

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