In the hyper-competitive arena of Sydney prestige real estate, staying at the top requires an uncompromising level of execution – and sometimes a willingness to disrupt a winning formula before the market forces your hand.
For more than two decades, Alexander Phillips has built one of the country’s highest-volume residential sales businesses from Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, where multimillion-dollar transactions are routine and competition for listings is fierce.
His team now writes more than $1 billion in property transactions each year.
Yet, after years operating under the PPD Real Estate banner, Alexander has made one of the biggest moves of his career, leaving the business to establish Ray White Phillips & Co in Woollahra.
For an agent who says he deals with more than 400 clients annually, changing brands is far more significant than swapping the name above the door.
Alexander says the decision was driven by where he believes the industry is heading, particularly as technology, data and network scale play an increasingly important role in how agents identify buyers and compete for listings.
Staying ahead of the technology curve
For decades, prestige agents built their businesses largely through local reputation, relationships, traditional advertising and carefully cultivated databases, but the mechanics of finding and communicating with buyers are changing.
Alexander says ensuring his business had access to the technology and infrastructure required for that next phase was a major factor behind the move.
“In the real estate world that we wanted to make sure that we remain relevant and at the top of our game,” he says.
“We need to merge in with who we feel are the market leaders in not just their network and platforms, but they’re throwing a lot of money into the business to ensure the tools keep being getting better … and that’s how we get better results for our clients.
“So [the move] was mainly due to making sure we stay relevant and ahead of game.”
The new partnership gives Alexander and his team access to Ray White’s broader technology ecosystem, including NurtureCloud, its proprietary platform used by agents to manage databases, identify potential buyers and connect people with properties.
For Alexander, the significance extends beyond making an existing business more efficient; he expects technology to change both how buyers search for homes and how vendors decide who should sell them.
“I think the way buyers search for property will change and the way vendors make decisions on which agents they use is going to change,” he says.
“We want to make sure that we’ve got all the tools to ensure that we are at the top of their list for vendors and also that we’re attracting the best buyers for vendors when we’re selling their houses.”
There was no single tipping point that convinced Alexander it was time to change course. Instead, he says the decision came from continually reassessing the business and looking at how emerging technology could be used to keep it competitive.
“It’s something that is always evolving,” Alexander says, adding that the technology is not yet being used “as well as it could be right now”.
“But it’s going to only get better and better,” he says, predicting its use across the industry will continue to grow.
Machine efficiency meets old-school negotiation
Alexander’s path through real estate began 24 years ago as a courier delivering real estate magazines before he worked his way through the industry.
A fourth-generation salesman whose family operated car dealerships for decades, he has since built a business around high transaction volumes, repeat clients and an intensely focused sales operation.
But despite the emphasis he places on technology, Alexander remains clear about its limitations.
Asked what parts of the transaction technology will never be able to replace, his answer is succinct.
“Houses and interactions with buyers and upselling property,” Alexander says.
It points to the balance he sees emerging inside modern agencies: technology handling more of the process behind the scenes while agents concentrate on the parts of a transaction that still depend on relationships, judgement and negotiation.
Ray White managing director Dan White said the group would provide its corporate resources and specialist teams to support the new business.
“We are extremely proud to support Alexander and his team in the next phase of an incredible journey,” White said.
“It’s a great credit to all of our members that he chose us as his partner for the future. We are excited to bring the full depth of our corporate team and real estate specialists to support Alexander in all aspects of his business, to ensure he is even more successful in the years ahead.
“They are an incredibly hard working and focussed team and we expect them to get the most of everything the group has to offer.”
Keeping the team together
For Alexander, one condition of the move was particularly important: his team had to come with him.
While he initially explored the options himself, he brought his staff into the process before making the final commitment, taking them to Ray White’s head office to meet the group’s leadership and examine its technology and systems.
“About the move, I sort of went out and spoke to a lot of different agencies and franchises, and I made the decision myself,” Alexander says.
“But I did get them involved in meeting Dan White before I signed off on to make sure they felt comfortable. We went into head office and got a feel for their NurtureCloud business and everything else.
“So they were fully on board with it.”
For someone whose name now sits above the door, Alexander is quick to frame the new operation as a collective rather than an individual venture.
“It’s not about me,” he says.”It’s about the entire team, so that’s super important. I wouldn’t have done it without them coming along.”
Nor does joining a major network mean Alexander intends to embark on an aggressive office expansion.
The business will remain based in Woollahra, with its attention firmly on the Eastern Suburbs and surrounding markets.
“I am super focused on the Eastern Suburbs,” Alexander says. “Just because it’s our core marketplace, and I will stick to the one office at the moment.”
The long game
After more than two decades in real estate and with his team now transacting more than $1 billion in property annually, Alexander is not treating the new business as an opportunity to slow down.
Asked whether he sets a specific annual sales target, he says maintaining momentum matters more than chasing a predetermined figure.
“No, no target,” Alexander says. “It’s just about evolving and just making sure that we keep keep doing the billion dollars a year and hopefully do do a bit more than that.”
After more than a decade at the top of industry rankings, Alexander says the prospect of maintaining that position still motivates him.
“It does,” Alexander says. “It’s eleven years. I don’t think I’d do that many, but if we can do another ten, that would be amazing. I’d love to do twenty years, if possible.”
But his definition of success five years from now is less about sales figures or rankings than the people around him.
For now, Alexander says success would mean keeping his team together, seeing them flourish and building an office where people want to stay.
“I want to make sure that we build a great community within our office and great culture that no one leaves … we do attract the best people.”