Rohin Arora knew he wanted to go out on his own and build a business for himself, but he quickly realised that as a young agent he was going to have to go above and beyond to make it happen.
Mr Arora joined Area Specialist after starting his career with a larger franchise and establishing himself in the industry.
He quickly realised that he could do far better financially with the Area Specialist model and was prepared to put in the work to make that happen.
“When I first started at Area Specialist I had zero brand presence in my area,” Mr Arora said.
“I was the only agent working for this company, not a single listing to my name or a single sale.
“I found a couple by doing cold calls, and it turned out they were selling.
“Within a few weeks, I went out to their place and it turned out to be one of the biggest listings of my career.”
He said the couple had three or four agents presenting and he was able to win the listing.
“One of them had a really good relationship with the vendor too,” he said.
“So they put their trust in me with that and I ended up getting them a record price for the suburb.
“It was just massive and that just led to everything else falling into place.”
Mr Arora said he was able to secure the listing because he was prepared to go above and beyond and do what other agents weren’t willing to do.
“The reason they went with me and went out on a limb is because they got the impression that I would work harder for it than everybody else,” he said.
“My strategy was way more hands-on than what the other people were proposing.
“Others were saying, ‘Just auction it’, but I was there doing private appointments only for that property for the first two weeks.
“I brought through 60 buyers one-on-one.”
He said the process was very time-consuming and he spent days just at that one property, but it gave him more time to show buyers all the small details of the home and build rapport with them.
“All the other agents had personal assistants and teams working behind them, so they would have had two or three agents at the open,” he said.
“It was such a big home that I couldn’t physically manage an open for inspection there on my own so I just said to them, I’m just going to bring people through one-by-one.”
Mr Arora said the process was so successful that it saw the property achieve a record price and he’s also been able to secure listings from some of the buyers he met during the sales process.
“Since then, any big listing that we get, I do private appointments,” he said.
Mr Arora got his start in real estate as an 18-year-old, before moving to a major franchise where he learnt the art of making sales.
In his new business, he focuses on Ferntree Gully and Upper Ferntree Gully in Melbourne.
“The area attracts a lot of first home buyers, there’s a lot of units and the upper end market closer towards the hills, where you’ve got large blocks of land, um, you know, more expensive homes with views.
“It’s a pretty diverse community.
“I’m Indian myself so it helps that I can speak Hindi because I do deal with a lot of Indian clients, so that comes in handy fairly regularly.”
Mr Arora said he first came across Area Specialist Founder Michael Choi, when he was a young agent trying to learn more about the auction process.
He said Mr Choi had a lot of content online trying to help other agents and it was something that really resonated with him for many years.
When the chance to join them came up he jumped at it.
“When I was looking at moving, he was one of the first people I thought of because anywhere else would have just been much of the same,” he said.
“We have become good friends and I’ve got a very good relationship with him.
“I was actually with Michael in Exmouth just last week.
“We went up to swim with some whale sharks and that was pretty cool.”
Mr Arora said the Area Specialist model was completely different to anything else in the industry.
“We pay a subscription fee, a licensing fee every month, which is a flat fee of $1500,” he said.
“On top of that we or the vendor just pays $599 every time we sell a property and the rest is ours to keep.
“So the more you list and sell, the more money you’re going to make.
“It works well for higher-performing agents.”
Since joining Area Specialist, Mr Arora said he has become better off financially.
“Since starting with Mike I’ve been able to buy my own place, renovated it, got a new car, and I hired my sister as a full-time employee,” he said.
“So she works with me as my executive assistant.
“None of that would have been possible if I was still at a different company and all within a very short amount of time.
“I’m financially free because of it now.”
“People have seen that I’ve built some momentum on my own and we’ve had some more people join already,” he said.
“It would be great to start an office together and I’d personally like to put on another employee to work with me and my sister.”
Area Specialist is a real estate platform for top-performing agents, providing the systems, tools and technology they need to create, grow and power their business.
For more information visit beyourboss.com.au
