When Oliver Lavers started out in real estate 12 years ago he had no Plan B.
Now, after 10 years working with Gavin Rubinstein, he’s been named partner and director at The Rubinstein Group’s Rose Bay office.
“It has always been a goal of mine to own an office one day,” Oliver notes.
“I didn’t exactly know what that looked like and I never thought, when I first started in real estate, it would lead me to where I am now.
“I’m really excited for this next chapter and I look forward to helping grow TRG and the team.”
But speak to TRG Founder, Gavin Rubinstein, and he says Oliver is being incredibly modest about his achievements, which includes being named the Ray White NSW/ACT Top City Salesperson by settled commission this year and being named Number 5 internationally by settled commission.
“He’s been doing outstanding things and some of the results he has been getting, on a consistent basis, are really quite phenomenal,” Gavin notes.
“From a numbers point of view, he will finish up this half-year on what he did the whole of last year.
“It really shows the growth and trajectory he is on.”
But there was a time Oliver wondered if he’d make it in real estate at all.
The first to admit he preferred dance and drama to English, maths and science at school, Oliver says he worked at Hoyts Cinemas when he first moved from Canberra to Sydney, before heading across to the casino, Star City.
But one day, as he watched a colleague cleaning, he knew he wanted to zero in on a career where he could learn, grow and the only limitation would be the effort he put in.
“So that’s when I got into real estate,” Oliver recalls.
“A lot of people had told me I’d be good at it, and I was living with a housemate in Mascot who said, ‘You could come and join the sales team’.
“They were the general manager at a company in Randwick. So I joined the sales team.
“But I had no Plan B because I was fully committed to real estate and wanted to see how far I could take it.”
After two years in real estate, Oliver joined Gavin’s team as a sales associate and lead generator at Double Bay.
“He was the second person I ever employed,” Gavin recalls.
“I had Jerome Srot, who’s my partner in property management and then we hired Ollie several years ago to join my team as my sales associate.
“Now, years later, it’s a super proud moment to have him onboard (as partner).
“It’s come full circle.”
As well as thanking Gavin for the faith he showed in hiring him and the exposure he’s provided, Oliver says going from novice agent to partner has taken a lot of hard work.
A big believer in the ethos that activity breeds activity, he says it was the hard yards he put in a decade ago that has really set him up for success today.
“It’s the work I was doing nine to 10 years ago that has stood me in good stead,” Oliver says.
“It was calling hundreds of people every day and developing those relationships and not just being a cold caller but actually being a real human on the phone and hearing what’s going on in people’s lives.
“When I was starting, I’d come to work having to make 100 cold calls and now it’s like I’m calling my friends because I’ve developed such great relationships in the area.
“Even some people that I’ve never met before, we’ve got such great relationships over the phone that I know what’s going on in their lives and they know what’s going on in my life.
“I feel like I’m calling friends every day, just keeping in touch.”
Oliver says in the beginning he’d try to imitate everything Gavin did but, as he’s evolved as an agent, he has been able to take the best of what his mentor has taught him and still be 100 per cent, genuinely, himself.
“When I realised that I can actually be my own person in this world, in the Eastern Suburbs, that’s when it really clicked for me,” he reveals.
After four years as a stand alone agent, Oliver says he knows that if he remains true to his values of being genuine, building trust and maintaining his activity levels, the rest will follow.
“As long as I’m doing the activity and the consistency of the calls, and being myself, which is a genuine person who likes dealing with people, that’s what matters,” he says.
Oliver also notes that while he’s proud of becoming a partner, the new title on his business card won’t change his day-to-day life.
He notes that he’s striving as hard as ever to build his profile in the Eastern Suburbs and he’s certainly not looking to rest on his laurels.
“The best part is that I’ve got such energy and such drive to go even further,” Oliver reflects.
But now that he is a partner and in a director role, Oliver is hoping to give more back to the industry that has given so much to him.
“Real estate’s been great to me and I’ll give back to others whether it’s in my office or outside my office,” he says.
“I’m happy to give back because people have been so good to me for my journey.”
Oliver says his next goal is to create his own team – one that is fast, efficient and settles for nothing but the best results and service standards.
“I would like to create a team like I had when I was working with Gav,” he says.
“That’s the dream team that I’m trying to recreate, the team where I was associate, Cae Thomas was an associate, we had Remi and then there was Gav and then there was Jerome.
“It was so efficient and fast that we could be running 20 listings and it didn’t feel like we were.
“I’ve got an amazing EA now, Tess, who’s absolutely fantastic, I’ve got a new guy on my team called Lucas who has got the right attitude and respect, and I’m looking for another person just to fill that hole and have that fourth wheel on the car, to have that same efficiency and speed, so there’s no loose ends.
“That’s what I’m looking for to take us to the next level.”
Gavin says he’s proud and excited to have Oliver as a partner in TRG.
“It was four years ago now that the original guys came across with me from the Double Bay office and I always said, ‘If you add value, if you become irreplaceable and if you perform at a high level consistently, you’ll get a piece of the pie’,” he says.
“And I always honour my word. But he’s worked for and earned absolutely everything that he’s got today.
“There’s no one more deserving and I think it’s just the beginning for him and it’s just the beginning for us.”
