Any Ipswich-based salesperson from the past 40 years is bound to have come across the Boettcher name.
The family started selling cars and property in 1977. They’ve 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.
“I actually started with a list of about 12 different business names, but then I wanted to leverage my name to create the brand,” Adam explains.
“Plus, people want to deal with the business owner, so it made sense.”
Adam already had more than a decade of experience selling property in the region.
He entered the profession via another local franchise – the Ipswich Jets rugby league team – where he coached for a long stretch. A mate at the club 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,” Adam says.
But approaching 2021, Adam wanted more and felt the time was ripe for a move.
“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?'” he says.
“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.
“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’.”
Adam felt as though UrbanX could do a lot of the backend heavy lifting for him, so he gave them the go-ahead.
“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,” he says.
Within one month, Adam swung open the doors on Boettchers.
“It’s just a massive thing – while the financial rewards will be great, it’s the convenience that’s the biggest thing for me,” he says.
Adam also discovered another way to help Boettchers become profitable from day one.
“We’ve leased a small work hub, not a traditional shopfront office,” he says.
“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.”
Adam says 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 offices are gone,” he says.
“Run lean and concentrate on profitability. Being bigger doesn’t equate to profit – it just equates to more overheads.”
