AFTER 25 years of flying the yellow flag for Ray White, real estate agents Cherrie Tobin and Peter Ison are set to paint the town in Richardson and Wrench red from Monday.
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Ms Tobin said the decision to change brand allegiance had been a possibility for several years, ever since another Ray White Rural office opened in Bathurst, creating confusion for many clients and customers.
“There has been confusion over the past three years, but there will be no mistaking who we are when we adopt our new red R&W logo,” Ms Tobin said.
“For our customers there will be no difference at all, apart from a change of colour and logo.”
Two of the best known faces in Bathurst real estate, Peter Ison has been in the industry for 39 years and Cherrie Tobin for 29 years. Their successful real estate partnership has spanned 25 years.
“Between us we probably sell 100 properties a year. That’s a lot of real estate,” Mr Ison said.
“Some homes we have sold three or four times.”
He added that he remembers selling his first blocks of land at Eglinton for $2500. He said today you would pay $170,000 for the same blocks.
“Over the past 20 years we have seen residential homes climb from $200,000 to $750,000,” Ms Tobin said. “That $200,000 was very much in the executive price range.”
Ms Tobin said she has been interested in real estate from a young age. In fact, she bought her first block of land for $400 when she was just 17.
At the time she was making $18.60 per week and borrowed the money from a work colleague. She ended up selling it for $2000.
In all, Ms Tobin has purchased and lived in 11 properties.
Mr Ison and Ms Tobin had three staff when they started their business. Now they have 17.
Mr Ison said it was when the population of Bathurst hit 30,000 the demand for real estate increased dramatically. It also led to a bigger marketplace, however, he said there is still plenty of business to go around.
One of the biggest real estate booms took place in 2000 with the introduction of the GST.
Mr Ison said in a matter of two years the cost of buying land in Bathurst had doubled from $60,000 to $120,000.
“The thing that allows growth to happen is the availability of land,” Mr Ison said. “There is vacant land all around Bathurst.
“Bathurst also has good infrastructure, great schools, a university and is in a desirable location,” he said.
Mr Ison and Ms Tobin built their agency from scratch and through hard work and determination to always do the right thing by their clients, have consistently been among Ray White’s top 10 regional agencies.
Mr Ison said they are now ready to put their energy into building the Bathurst office of R&W, the oldest real estate network in Australia.