For Jamie Mugavin, the move from property valuer to buyer’s agent came after years of seeing what could happen when people bought without enough guidance.
Over a decade as a certified practising valuer in Melbourne, Jamie completed more than 8,000 valuations, many across the city’s inner suburbs. Property had already been part of his life long before that, with his mum spending 25 years in real estate.
But it was the work he saw later in his valuation career that stayed with him.
Some of the most memorable cases involved buyers who had chosen the wrong type of property, only for Jamie to return years later to complete a refinancing valuation and find that the asset had barely grown in value, or had fallen.
For him, the issue often traced back to the original purchase.
“They’d made poor decisions and didn’t have the right guidance when purchasing,” he says.
At the same time, friends and family were increasingly asking him for help when buying and selling property. The two experiences gradually came together.
Jamie saw an opportunity to use his valuation background on the buying side, helping people understand not only what a property might be worth, but also the risks attached to it and whether it had the fundamentals they were looking for.
That thinking led him into buyer advocacy and, in 2024, to Maymont Property. Today, the business operates across Melbourne, Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
Jamie is based in Hawthorn and works mainly across Melbourne’s inner to middle rings, alongside Louis and Sarah, with Logan based in Queensland.
The clients vary from first-home buyers through to investors and developers, and so do the reasons they seek help. Some want access to more properties, including off-market opportunities. Others are uncertain about value, worried about paying too much or simply short on time.
For Jamie, though, much of the value sits in the due diligence. That means assessing price, planning considerations, development issues and any other risks that may affect the property before moving into negotiation or auction bidding.
A recent purchase in Glen Iris put that approach to work. The clients had a budget above $4 million and were prepared to pay about $3.8 million to $3.9 million for a property they strongly wanted. Jamie’s analysis suggested they did not need to go that far. Despite the clients being nervous about missing out, he advised them to hold their position.
The property was secured for $3.65 million. Jamie says his valuation experience and conversations with the selling agent gave him confidence that the figure sat within market value and was enough to secure the property.
It also reflects the type of adviser he wants to be. At a time when property businesses can place heavy emphasis on technology and social media, Jamie says he still prefers a more personal approach: meeting people, explaining the information clearly and giving advice that is not simply designed to get a transaction done.
Three to five years from now, he is less interested in putting a number on the size of the business than in what people say about the way it operates.
“I think just being a decent person and being a trusted advisor is something that I really want to be known for,” he says.
For Jamie, that means focusing on the buyer in front of him now, helping them make a decision they understand and feel comfortable with, and trusting the business growth to follow.