Raine & Horne is thrilled to introduce ‘From Homesteads to High-Rises: 140 Years of Raine & Horne’ an epic masterwork detailing the history of the super brand over 150+ pages.

This outstanding publication chronicles the enduring legacy of Raine & Horne, commemorating 140 years of unwavering success, dedication, and innovation within the real estate industry.

This enormous project was brought to life through the support and leadership of Angus Raine, the Executive Chairman of Raine & Horne. 

Mindy Powell-Hodges, Head of Network, Raine & Horne, noted, “Angus’s dedication and guidance have played a pivotal role in bringing the magnificent story of our company to life.”

Initially scheduled for release closer to Raine & Horne’s 140th anniversary on 23 May 2023, the book’s completion was temporarily postponed due to the untimely death of Max Raine in February 2023, a significant figure whose contributions to the super brand have been seamlessly woven into the narrative.

A legacy of resilience, innovation, and positive partnerships

‘From Homesteads to High-Rises: Celebrating 140 Years of Raine & Horne’ takes readers on an extraordinary journey through the iconic Australian business and real estate enterprise, which began its remarkable journey on 23 May 1883,” Mr Raine said. 

“To provide context, Raine & Horne boasts a history predating prominent financial services giant Commonwealth Bank and renowned retailers Coles and Myer. The origins of our firm trace back even further than Qantas, the flying kangaroo, which only took flight after World War 1.”

Mr Raine continued, “In 2023, we celebrate an incredible milestone – 140 years in business. As one of the oldest privately-owned firms in the southern hemisphere and Australia’s oldest family-owned real estate company, Raine & Horne occupies a unique place in corporate history. 

“Our company’s resilience has enabled us to overcome numerous challenges, including economic downturns, world wars, and pandemics, solidifying our position as a global industry leader.”

Today, Raine & Horne’s influence extends across residential, commercial, and rural property markets, financial services and international territories. The firm remains a formidable force in the real estate industry, with over 3,000 employees in Australasia, the Pacific, the Middle East, and Asia.

The Raine & Horne name is synonymous with real estate in Australia and is credited with a long list of industry-first innovations. This includes being the first real estate franchise network in Australia to use Facebook to market properties, and one of the few businesses to start taking advantage of burgeoning Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies as early as 2017.

Mr Raine said, “We invest in a diverse talent pool to ensure rapid decision-making in today’s fast-paced real estate market. Moreover, we have consistently embraced cutting-edge technology, such as digitalisation and AI, to maintain our market leadership.

“Whilst we are celebrating this significant milestone, we are not resting on our laurels and we continue to grow with over 25 new office openings by years end, as well as the continual launch of industry-first products and services.

“We are also confident that readers will enjoy the captivating story of business and real estate triumph outlined in ‘From Homesteads to High-Rises: Celebrating 140 Years of Raine & Horne’ that would not have been possible without the dedicated efforts of the hundreds of principals and thousands of staff members in our international network.”

The design journey of ‘From Homesteads to High-Rises: 140 Years of Raine & Horne’

Mr Raine expressed his gratitude to the internal Marketing team as well as publishing ace, Sam Grimmer, whose expertise and patience was instrumental in curating the visual story.

Mr Grimmer was tasked with creating a contemporary design style and visual language for the book that harmonised with Raine & Horne’s brand identity while also being ideally suited for a lengthy and expansive document, such as a coffee table book. 

“Raine & Horne’s rich history offered a vast archive of historical and contemporary images. As is often said, “a picture speaks a thousand words”, and we have used around 300 images, so combined with 40,000 words, we are telling a pretty big story!” Mr Grimmer said. 

“There’s nothing worse for a book’s audience than finding an intriguing historical picture with no explanation, so we’ve used captioning throughout the book to contextualise the imagery and tie it back to Raine & Horne’s history.”

From a technical perspective, a significant challenge in the production of “From Homesteads to High-Rises: 140 Years of Raine & Horne” was repairing and retouching a considerable number of newspaper clippings and pictorial images that were rich and essential but very old and often somewhat faded and damaged by the march of time.

Mr Grimmer noted, “Books of this kind take time to get right, and there was plenty of back and forth to reach the desired result, but from Angus Raine, through to the marketing and creative teams, all the support staff in between, there was a common desire to leverage everyone’s specific expertise to make a lasting and special contribution to the long history of Raine & Horne.”