Explore Property leader Andrew Acton has announced changes to the group’s Townsville franchise with a new leadership team driving the brand forward.
Mr Acton will be taking over as principal of the Townsville agency on an interim basis while continuing his role leading the group, which has a presence across Queensland and an office in South West WA.
He said he is excited about the opportunity to return to day-to-day operations.
“It’s a really good opportunity for me to stay in touch with the operation of the business while also ensuring that we do what we do really well, which is open up doors and bring other people into leadership roles,” he said.
Mr Acton said the Townsville office had some of the “city’s best agents” in Karyn Voevodin, Emma Nancarrow, Brett Snell as well as Dean and Stephanie Dank
“We’ve had a very strong presence in Townsville since we started this company nine years ago,” he said.
“Townsville is where the brand was developed and first appeared in the market, and while we’ve grown offices elsewhere Townsville has always been and will always be a key position for us.”
Mr Acton said that “with change comes opportunities”.
“We will be announcing further Townsville agent and franchisee news in the near future,” Mr Acton said.
Mr Acton said his return to day-to-day operations came at an incredibly busy time in the Northern Queensland market.
“Markets like Townsville, Mackay and Cairns remain really buoyant,” he said.
“I just came out of our Mackay office and we had 230 private property inspections in the last seven days.”
Mr Acton said the Townsville market in particular had benefited from strong population growth during the pandemic.
“I think what Townsville has gone through in particular is pure population growth and a lot of infrastructure growth around the city,” he said.
He said there were strong economic fundamentals in Northern Queensland, including a resurgence in mining.
That perspective is backed up by a recent report from CommSec, which ranked Queensland the country’s number one economy.
The CommSec State of the State report cited Queensland’s strong population growth,
CommSec Chief Economist Craig James said Queensland’s economy was recording growth across a diverse range of metrics.
“… Queensland is currently supported by solid mining, energy and tourism sectors as well as solid internal migration,” Mr James said.
“Queensland has a strong report card, ranking first on relative population growth and relative unemployment, and is second ranked on three of the other eight economic indicators.”
In fact, the state was now outperforming the national average on five indicators, Mr James said.
“When looking at annual growth rates to get a guide on economic momentum, Queensland had annual rates that exceeded the national average on five of the eight indicators,” he said.
Mr Acton said interstate buyers were still attracted to Queensland’s market.
“To a lot of people, regional Queensland still represents really good value,” he said.
Mr Acton said that regardless of what happened next in the Townsville market, the Explore Property team was well-placed to assist sellers.
“I’m not obsessed about the market because we remain regardless of the market,” Mr Acton said.
“We deal in the realities of the market.”
