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INGLIS RURAL PROPERTY Having recently won the
by Inglis
As the events of COVID-19 unfolded around Australia and the world in 2020, all workplaces faced challenges. The Rural Property team at Inglis was no different. A progressive attitude to embrace change and technology put the company in good stead to deal with the changing nature of business. The company ethos to adapt, change and pivot has positioned all divisions well during the pandemic. The company’s longevity and ability to stay relevant over 150 years is paramount to its ongoing success. The Rural Property division is a department that was particularly well positioned to adopt change following integration of new computer systems and operating from the ‘cloud’. The Rural Property team hail from country areas all over New South Wales, accordingly a decision was made early to base team members at their hometowns respectively and work remotely. This was a precautionary decision to limit the chances of any team member being sidelined from work and potentially impacting the whole team. Rural Property Sales Manager Sam Triggs returned to Wagga Wagga and set up a home office, which meant he was closer to his clients and much easier to stay isolated, as farmers know all too well many self-isolate every day when they go to work on the farm. Richie Inglis returned to Mudgee and based himself there, working under the careful eye of Jamie Inglis. Zoe Philip set up a home office at Young where she had been working one-to-two days a week already. A focused effort to increase communication daily via Zoom video conferences was adopted and all the team members had reasonable internet access to facilitate file sharing and access to necessary operating systems.
In an interesting twist, it meant the team were sometimes geographically closer to their clients and the projects they were working on, which saved some travel time.
We asked the team to give us some insights in the year that has been 2020 and how their work life changed and evolved.
Sam Triggs Inglis Rural Property Sales Manager
Triggs explained that whilst COVID-19 has had a terrible impact across many aspects of the economy and numerous businesses and asset classes, agriculture has been the rare shining light. Rural Property transactions have continued with many viewing rural land as a ‘safe haven’ and considered a secure asset class to invest money. “Fortunately, Inglis has invested a lot in technology which made it easy to log-on remotely to our operating systems,’’ Triggs said. “I chose to work in a cottage on our family property and basically setup a routine/structure each day where it would replicate the office environment. I would commute to Sydney once a fortnight to visit the office but realistically worked remotely for two months. Fortunately, Inglis has invested a lot in technology and which made it surprisingly very
Jamie Inglis
Jamie who is primarily based in Mudgee in the Central West of New South Wales and commutes to all parts of the State visiting farms and Sydney to see the team, had his son and Inglis Rural Property Sales Consultant, Richie Inglis working from home during the early stages of the campaign.
“There are few companies in Australia that have an ongoing trading history of over 150 years’’ Jamie says. “William Inglis and Son has continued to evolve through the events of history and remained progressive. In easy to log-on remotely to our operating systems. We were entrusted with the sale of a large aggregation of farms on behalf of Westchester Group of Australia, referred to as ‘The Southern Riverina Aggregation’ so proximity to those assets and meeting with Westchester at their head office in Wagga Wagga worked well. In this instance the demand far outstripped supply with these assets being hotly contested by local farming families and corporate investors seeking scale. The entire aggregation, over 10,000 acres, was sold to 7 separate buyers. The upside was that I spent more time one the family farm than just the odd one or two days, having been primarily based in Sydney for the last 15 years. I adopted one of my brothers kelpies to keep me company, I’ve always struggled with keeping a dog in the city!”
Pictured:
Inglis Rural Property Director
Kilburnie Homestead
keeping with the greater Inglis brand, throughout this pandemic the team found new ways of moving forward while staying true to the values of the business and to its clients. While an unusual year, there have been some positives for rural Australia. The drought breaking and strong commodity prices have put agriculture in the spotlight when numerous parts of the economy are struggling. As a result, the country and crops across the state look magnificent which has brought relief to many farming operations across the Eastern seaboard.’’
Zoë Philip Inglis Rural Property Marketing Coordinator
COVID-19 posed a new kind of challenge, however the use of a collaboration platform and technology for file sharing has allowed the team to transition to working remotely. Through accessing and sharing files instantaneously and remaining connected and constantly videoing in from various locations, the team remained up-todate and motivated. “We are a close-knit team so despite the changes to our processes and the separation we remained adaptive and creative in an effort to stay connected as a group but also with our vendors and buyers,’’ Philip said. “I have been working from a property in Young, a regional town in southern New South Wales. I have enjoyed the transition - There is something fitting about creating a rural marketing campaign whilst working from a farm”.
Who would have thought that when he joined the firm in January 2020, the year would be memorable for more than one reason? “During this year I have been back and forth between our family property near Mudgee and Sydney,’’ Richie said. “It gave me the opportunity to work alongside Jamie and bounce sales negotiations off him, he was a great sounding board for the projects I was managing. Working from Mudgee has also allowed dad and I to secure some quality listings in the area with a healthy pipeline for late-2020/early-2021. The rural lifestyle market has really taken off during COVID-19 which has seen the team complete several transactions at Canyonleigh in the Southern Highlands region and some quality listings at Mudgee. It seems that people are realising they can work their jobs from places other than metropolitan regions and the health scare of the pandemic has motivated many people to look for a rural home that remains commutable to capital cities.”
Recent Rural Sales
Basinghall Farm – SOLD
Nagambie, Victoria (680 acres)
Kilburnie Homestead – UNDER CONTRACT
Southern Riverina Aggregation - UNDER CONTRACT
Wagga Wagga, New South Wales (2,571 acres)
Luskin Park – SOLD
Luskintyre, New South Wales (113 acres)
Mount Falcon Station – SOLD
Tooma, New South Wales (6,890 acres)
Dunns Plains – SOLD
Rockley, New South Wales (6,446 acres)
Gilgal, Winona and O’Connors – SOLD
Cootamundra, New South Wales (8,941 acres)
