When Paul Neshausen walked away from his corporate career, he didn’t have a backup plan. No roadmap, no leads, and, by his own admission, no clue what came next. He just knew one thing: he was done.
“I woke up one morning … I call it an epiphany. All my friends called it a midlife crisis,” he says. “I thought, you know what, I just can’t do this corporate gig anymore.”
At the time, he held senior management roles with all the executive trimmings, including titles, bonuses, golf memberships, international trips.
So, he quit. And for 12 months, did nothing. “It’s not much fun having no income,” he says. “We forgot that when you’re not earning any money, you’re not supposed to spend any either.”
When the dust settled, he asked himself a simple question: what do I actually enjoy? The answer was just as simple.
“Selling. Being face to face. I didn’t want to go back to corporate. I wanted to be my own boss. And I wanted no ceiling on my earnings.”
That realisation led him to real estate. He knew next to nothing about the industry, (“bugger all, to be honest”), but he backed himself. After all, he had years of experience in sales, a stint as a sales trainer, and an MBA focused on negotiation and governance.
Within weeks of starting, he got his first big test.
“It was my second month in real estate. I was sitting at my desk, feeling sorry for myself. It was pissing down with rain, not much going on, phone not ringing. Then I get a message from reception – there’s a gentleman out front who wants to buy a house and he wants to deal with a male agent.”
At first glance, the man didn’t inspire confidence. “He was in his 70s, dishevelled, hair messy, shirt hanging out,” Paul recalls.
“Honestly, I thought, I’m going to be the laughingstock of the office.”
No one else wanted to deal with him. “It was one of those ‘you take him’ kind of moments. People just assumed he was wasting time.”
But Paul had nothing to lose. He took the man to view a beachfront property on Tamaki Drive, Auckland. At the end of the tour, the man said he wanted to make an offer.
Back at the office, Paul danced around what felt like an awkward question: could this man actually afford it?
“I said, ‘Just a quick aside… in terms of finance, how’s this going to work? Bank loan? Selling some property? Won Lotto?’”
The man looked him in the eye. “Listen, Sunshine,” he said, “you keep this to yourself, but I’ve just won $34million.”
It wasn’t a joke.
“Long story short, in that next 12 months, he went on and bought like 12 homes off me. He bought homes for all his family and stuff.”
The two spent weekends together, not at social events, but at car yards. The man had a long-standing joke with his brother-in-law: if he ever won Lotto, he’d buy him an Aston Martin, and now he intended to make good on it.
“He wanted to buy an Aston Martin but didn’t realise there were different models – he didn’t know much about cars in general. He also pointed at a Porsche Boxster and said, ‘I’ll take that Ferrari for myself.’”
They made quite the odd-looking pair and the Aston Martin salesperson quickly showed them the door.
“I was in trackpants and a T-shirt. We had no credibility. But then he bought two BMWs that afternoon, and we drove past the first car yard giving the salesperson the finger.”
That early break set the tone, but Paul is the first to point out it wasn’t all luck.
“He had to like me. He had to trust me. He could’ve picked anyone. But he picked me.”
From that moment, he made a conscious decision: he wouldn’t follow the crowd.
“I do my best to not act and sound like a real estate agent. There’s a sea of sameness – everyone’s saying the same shit: I’m number one, I’m the best.”
Instead, he built his brand around directness, authenticity, and instinct.
“I have my own scripts and dialogues. They’re real. Sometimes it’s sophisticated language, sometimes it’s monosyllable. You either got it or you haven’t.”
He’s sold prestige homes and built a client base among high-net-worth individuals, but one of the deals he’s most proud of wasn’t a trophy listing.
“There was a couple … financial pressure, relationship on the rocks. They were going to split. The kids were going to go separate ways.”
He helped them sell the family home achieving an outcome no one foresaw.
“We got more money than they anticipated. They went therapy and they fixed up their marriage … their family, and the three children stayed together. Having come from a split family myself, that really resonated with me.”
His honesty extends to his motivations: “I’m in this job because I want to earn money. I make no qualms about it. I think I’m the only agent I know in Australasia that advertises how much they earned last year.”
He’s obviously not shy about ambition, but it’s never just about show.
“I want the opposite of the upbringing I had. I want my team to be successful and earn lots of money. I’m always looking for different opportunities to market myself.
“Growing up, I lived in a shitty part of Hamilton, but I have always backed myself … I always knew I could do better. For things to change, you absolutely have to back yourself,” he says.
“You’ve got to be thick-skinned to get away with some of the things I say and do. It’s almost an ‘I don’t give a shit’ attitude, but it’s deliberate. I’ve taken a bold approach to marketing myself and my brand, and I’ve always had this ability to balance that with authenticity and humility. I think it’s that unusual combination that works in my favour.
“Even when I was younger, out clubbing with mates, I could say things to women that they couldn’t; I’d get a laugh, they’d get slapped. It’s all in the delivery. And to this day, I can still get away with saying things others can’t.”
These days, Paul is experimenting with AI tools, watching what’s coming out of the U.S., and exploring the impact of sustainability and crypto on the property sector.
“I’m trying to get Barfoot & Thompson more sincere about sustainability. I think we can steal the march in this country.”
One recent experiment began with a cheeky prompt.
“I typed into one of the AI search engines: ‘Who is the best agent in Auckland?’ It had no record. So then I said, ‘What are the top five things I could do to be recognised…?’ And it gave me a list of to-dos. Some of those things I’m going to pursue.”
From walking away with no plan to leading one of Auckland’s top sales teams, Paul has carved a career on his own terms. He doesn’t apologise for standing out.
He doesn’t follow scripts. And when no one else wanted to take the meeting, he said yes – and it changed everything.
