MAIN IMAGE: Samuel Seeff – chairman of the Seeff Property Group
Seeff Property Group
The Seeff Property Group recently launched a whopping R1 million prize competition as it celebrates its 60-year anniversary this year.
Seeff is the oldest and most established real estate agency in the country. Speaking at the group’s recent annual conference, Samuel Seeff, chairman, said that few companies in South Africa make it to 60 years, let alone real estate agencies.
The agency has grown from a small office in Wynberg, Cape Town, in 1964 to one of the top real estate companies in the country. Soon after its first office opened, it branched out to the City Bowl in the same area, where it still has an office today, and thereafter to the Winelands, Hermanus, and countrywide.
Under Samuel’s leadership, the company really took off and expanded. Today, it employs 1,200 agents in 200 branches across SADC, Mauritius, and Dubai, and is now looking to expand into Europe.
Seeff has served three generations of property sellers and buyers and has grown from a multi-million-rand turnover to a multi-billion-rand turnover now. It has been part of the South African property market’s growth story into a world-class sector.
Seeff is also associated with high-profile sales and some of the highest prices achieved, from breaching the R20 million price mark for a house on the Atlantic Seaboard (Cape Town) to making the first two sales over R100 million. It is also a pioneer in development sales, selling out several developments and achieving billions of Rands in sales.
Innovation has always been a driving force, and the brand is associated with many industry-firsts. It was the first to open multiple branches and launched the first industry body, training and accreditation of agents in the 1960s. In 2010, it launched the first Seta-accredited training academy, and in 1999, the first mortgage origination, something which is today integral to all real estate transactions.
Following the significant impact of the Global Financial Crisis on homeowners, Seeff was the first agency to launch an express sales product (Seeff Express Sales) in 2011 to enable distressed owners to quickly sell their homes and still benefit from bank assistance programmes.
Seeff is now again the first agency to launch a competition with an R1 million prize open to any immovable property owner who chooses Seeff to handle the sale of their property on a sole mandate basis subject to certain terms and conditions available on the Seeff.com website.
