On getting into real estate
I purchased my first home at the age of 22 and it was an awful experience. I swore to myself on settlement day that I would get into the industry and make my mark.
It was a lot of hard work. I worked for free at a rival agency for three months before I was given an opportunity as their weekend receptionist.
From there, I was fortunate enough to score a position at LJ Hooker Nerang as an assistant trainee property manager in 2008. I completed my full Real Estate Licence in nine months whilst working full-time.
In my first year I was named LJ Hooker International Best New Talent Finalist, Queensland Finalist Trainee of the Year, LJ Hooker Nerang Employee of the Year and one of the REIQ’s up and coming stars – not bad for a young women nine months in to her career.
The happiest moment in my career
This is going to sound so cheesy but I have them daily. I love coming to work, talking to the team, clients and other industry professionals. Real estate just ticks all the boxes for me!
But yes, there a few I would like to mention that hold a very special place in my heart. In my first year receiving such accolades for my hard work was so exciting! I was being recognised for doing what I love.
In 2010, I received my first promotion to customer service manager. During my time is this role I developed systems and procedures which led the office to win many awards, including LJ Hooker International Customer Experience office three years in a row.
I was also invited to be on the Customer Experience Advisory Board for LJ Hooker Corporate and was fortunate enough to keynote on my strategies numerous times.
I set myself a goal in 2009 that one day I would compete in Auction Idol. Auction Idol is a competition for rookie auctioneers to compete against each other in a packed in room auction setting. In 2017 and two promotions later I did it – and I won! It was the most amazing experience.
I have been so very fortunate in my 11-plus years to collect a fair few acknowledgements for my passion to real estate. Most recently the REIQ Corporate Support Person of the Year and Finalist for the REB Women’s Diversity Office Regional & Wellness Regional.
As I start my third promotion as office manager, I am really excited about being given the opportunity to work with the office as a whole. Taking into account all of my lessons learned during my career to further implement systems and procedures that not only benefit our team, but our clients and the industry in general.
The most memorable moment
I have had my hand in a few leases and sales over the years, but the most memorable would have to be the listing I saved that was going to be withdrawn with our agency after a lengthy campaign.
The property was a $700k-plus home that had been on the market for nearly 100 days. The seller wasn’t happy with their marketing campaign or the level of activity with the property. As the customer service manager my role is to try to save business from walking.
I made the call and invited the vendor into the office. I sat with him for more than an hour going over all of the statistics, inspections, marketing and feedback. I managed to save the listing, sign him up on another 90-day exclusive, get a $35k price drop and it we sold it two weeks later. Not only that, he gave his other two properties to sell which were both over $770k.
These kinds of interactions with clients are frequent in my role, even though I am not a sales person as such, I love the hunt and closing the deal just as much as the rest of the team.
Best advice she’s received
The best piece of advice I have ever received was to “sell complexity and deliver simplicity”. I really love sentence, it has served me so well in my career and with clients.
As I mentioned above, it is about positioning your worth and expertise as such high value, that they can’t live or do a transaction without you.
Basically, you point out the problem and you become the solution – simple. This is a message that needs to be delivered with confidence but also with humility and empathy, for it to be pulled off effectively.
Biggest challenge
I am seeing a downward pressure on commissions and an increase in the expectation that the agency will pay for marketing expenses.
With these pressures in the marketplace already in existence the added pressures of the cost of prop-tech and agency expenses is leading to a very stressful environment for some industry professionals out there.
I believe we need to be taking a very objective look about the way we operate as an industry. We need to evaluate prop-tech before just plugging it in. What I mean by that is, we need to have individuals in our offices that before we use prop-tech (a lot of which I believe is awesome) that we have ruled out the possibility that our current systems don’t deliver the same or a similar result.
Any prop-tech we plug in, should not take away from what we do as agents, it should enable us to do more of what we are good at, which is talking to people. The more confident we become with talking to people, the easier we will be able to manage their objections in regards to commission and marketing.
Change for good?
I personally would like to see a standard set across the industry in regards to a few factors. I feel it is important for any industry professional to have a minimum knowledge base. What I mean by this is that anyone who operates under an agency has met a minimum level of legislation criteria under their industry body.
Yes, we all need our accreditations under our real estate bodies in each state, but I feel it is important that we don’t just get a registration or licence and don’t keep up-to-date with any new changes to legislation.
Another example is in our office, administrators are all registered. This means that they are well-equipped to handle anything that comes their way, and we also ensure our agency training is up-to-date across all departments.
We are fortunate enough to have training most weeks in our dedicated AV room. The training spans legislation, scripts and dialogues, market conditions, human resources and utilising our technology to create business opportunities.
‘Elite’ agent means
An elite agent is an individual who is intuitive, confident, kind, a good listener and thinks outside the box. They don’t sweat the small stuff or let market conditions get them down, they have a plan.
#WeAreRealEstate is a series of short interviews with 140 agents all over Australia exploring the industry’s hopes, concerns, future challenges, and what it really means to be an Elite Agent.
