LJ Hooker breaks through 700 estate agency office banner
Four new estate agency office openings in Queensland has taken the LJ Hooker network to past 700 offices throughout Australasia, an ambition first set in 1986.
The South East Queensland district has been the hub of LJ Hooker activity in recent weeks.
LJ Hooker Lutwyche was the 699th office, followed by LJ Hooker Holland Park, LJ Hooker Highgate Hill, and at 702, LJ Hooker Bracken Ridge.
The agency's deputy chair, L. Janusz Hooker flew into Queensland this week to the opening LJ Hooker Bracken Ridge in Brisbane.
“We are targeting expansion of our network in Queensland, especially Brisbane," Mr Hooker said.
"The state capital will directly benefit from the employment, commercial and infrastructure growth riven by the huge resources activity in the Bowen, Surat, and Galilee Basins."
“Property continues to be one of the best performing assets for Australians,” said Mr Hooker.
Its not just new office activity, but existing offices have opened new doors too.
On the Gold Coast, LJ Hooker Palm Beach owners Neil and Robyn Shorrock opened new premises in the Pavilions Building on Fifth Avenue for their long-time customers.
“LJ Hooker Palm Beach has a special place in LJ Hooker’s history,” Neil Shorrock noted as it was LJ Hooker’s first Queensland office, opening in 1957 two years before the Gold Coast was proclaimed a city.
The Shorrocks bought the real estate business in 1981.
The book on the man behind the LJ Hooker real estate chain, Sir Leslie Hooker was written by his granddaughter, Natalia Hooker in 2011.
While most Australians are familiar with the group and its “nobody does it better” slogan, few know the man behind its foundation was actually Leslie Joseph “LJ” Tingyou.
His deed-poll name change to Hooker in 1925 was only revealed nine years after his death, in a 1985 article in the Sydney Morning Herald by its then property editor, Michael Laurence.
The article's publication surprised even his long-term colleagues and closest friends.
Believing the story of her grandfather deserved to be told, Natalia spent six years researching the project during visits from her home in Europe.
Sir Leslie Joseph Hooker was born in Canterbury, NSW, in 1903 and died in 1976.
His birth certificate lists only his mother, Ellen "Nellie" Tingyou.
Natalia suggests Leslie, who was part-Chinese, was forced to hide his identity because of the White Australia policy.
The story of the agency dates back to 1925 when Leslie, the assistant purser on a Burns Philp ship left the sea to enter business as a partner in a building firm operating from the E.S. & A. Bank building on the corner of Pitt Street and Martin Place.
In 1928 Leslie opened a real estate office at Maroubra Junction.
In 1935 he opened a city office at 26 O'Connell Street; a year later the firm acquired Woods and Co, with an office at South Kensington. In the same year, an office at Randwick was opened.
In 1938, LJ Hooker acquired H.L. Cross and Co at 98 Pitt Street. That year, too, the auction department of the firm was created. The first auction was conducted at 939 Arden Street, Coogee, and the property was sold for 950 pounds.
Offices were opened at Bondi and Bondi Junction shortly before the business went public in 1947, with an issued capital in its first year of 110,000 pounds.
Sir Leslie, who died in 1976, was knighted in 1973.
Its current residential sales team comprises over 7,000 sales professionals, property managers and support team members. In 1986 as Australia's largest real estate chain, LJ Hooker had 360 agencies and plans to double its operations.
By its late 1980s receivership under George Herscu's ownership there were 450 LJH franchisees with about 2,500 staff.
In 2009, when the grandson of the founder paid $82 million to Suncorp Metway to buy back the family business, using a consortium of private cash and his own funds, there were 500-plus franchisees in the network.
