Highland building on culture and success in a challenging market

A word from David Highland

2025 marks Highland’s 18th year in real estate, and our journey has been nothing short of transformative. From a single office in the Sutherland Shire, we’re now proud to operate across eight offices; Cronulla, Sutherland, Double Bay, the Inner West, the Southern Highlands, the Gold Coast, and most recently, the Northern Rivers. Our Taren Point showroom continues to showcase our growing development pipeline, representing projects across Australia’s east coast. Our Calico Marina is home to Pippis by the Grounds, oversees 100 berths, and the Highland Marine brokerage.

The last three years have been the most impactful in terms of our growth. I believe this is due to our strategic partnerships and identifying key markets. I would define the Highland network as a large independent boutique group. We’re effectively a syndicated partnership model. We’re not franchised, we’re independently owned, and we have key people that manage and lead our respective offices. Obviously, we’ve got some outstanding performers and culturally some great people who’ve joined us through that period. Most recently Jane and Sam Schuman have joined our Highland Double Bay Malouf office.

This year’s been a standout, but as a group we continue to achieve outstanding results, securing several record-breaking deals across our key suburbs. It’s proven to be a really challenging market across all price points, across all offices throughout winter and amid constant speculation as to whether they will or won’t cut rates, we’ve still transacted more than $650 million in real estate throughout winter. As a group we operate within price points of $500,000 right up to $100 million, and we’re proud of every one of those transactions.

With almost 30 years of real estate experience behind me, I believe we will look back and realise the bottom of the market was in quarter one this year. We are on the way up. Economic conditions are continuing to improve, more buyers are returning to the market and investor confidence is steadily strengthening. This recent rate cut is fuel on the fire.

We’re looking at the last four months of the real estate calendar as a huge opportunity to capitalise on a much stronger real estate environment. Our inspection numbers are growing week on week, our sales transactions are increasing month on month and we’re seeing some quality stock coming on the market. We’re expecting a dynamic finish to 2025.

Our network is reaching more buyers than ever before with our new Highland digital and implementation of AI into our digital network. Our expert in-house digital marketing team is now tailoring digital campaigns to match buyers to the right audiences. Additionally leveraging our database of over 450,000 clients, we have seen a lot of our sales this year come from off-market transactions. More sellers are trusting our agents to find buyers exclusively from within our Highland network.

Our culture is one of the driving forces that makes Highland unique in real estate and solidifies our brand as a leading independent network. We have been extremely focused on fostering a team environment that is supportive, driven and agile, so we can always put our best foot forward at an industry level.

Looking ahead, we want Highland to be recognised not just as one of Australia’s leading real estate networks, but as one of the most innovative. Our culture-first approach, coupled with a commitment to technology and strategic growth, is what will define us for the future.