If you want to sell a mansion, it pays to be discreet.
There are always exceptions but the wealthier the seller – or the buyer – the more low key they tend to be.
Upmarket real estate agent Michael Boulgaris says elite clients value their privacy above all else.
“A lot of my big sales I’ve done recently up to $20m no one even knows about them because I’ve just got to be so confidential about who the buyer is and who the vendor is because I’m dealing with high profile people.”
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Having a company chauffeur driving a brand new Rolls Royce can help the process, Boulgaris says.
A Rolls Royce on hand can make a potential buyers feel special and taken care of. Photo / Getty Images
He doesn’t know of other agents who do this but says people expect this kind of service at the top end of the luxury market.
“We do airport drop offs and pick-ups and if the client wants to go to lunch or something the driver takes them.”
Even then, you have to be careful, he says.
“I placed a property only last week up to $20m and the owner said ‘oh my God, get the driver off the driveway please, someone will see, someone will recognise your car.’
“We’ve just got to be so private.”
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Sometimes Boulgaris will drive his ute and put the dogs in the car in order to be discreet.
A lot of success at the multi-million dollar mansion level comes through networking, not advertising, he says
“That’s where my success is. I don’t need to promote these big properties. I’ve got people on a waiting list for two or three years waiting for these properties to come up.”
And owners don’t like their big homes going up on a website alongside under-a-million dollar properties either, he says.
“You wouldn’t go to Louis Vuitton and then seek out second hand sneakers in the back room. That’s where I keep very discreet – I have to.”
Chester Rendell, Bay of Islands real estate agent for New Zealand Sotheby's International Relaty, says he sells mansions by selling the area.
That’s because the Bay of Islands is one of those very special areas.
“It’s the playground of the Bay of Islands itself – 144 islands. The beaches and the bays and the fishing and the diving and the deep sea fishing and the warmth.”
Location and privacy are again the big factors in selling, he says.
It can help that the very wealthy know they can easily get to their house, which generally must have a separate driveway.
“That’s what they’re looking at; how far if I come up on a commercial flight is it to Kerikeri Airport. I think you can land your G5 jet there if you want to, and when they extend it (the airport) certainly you will be able to.”
Graham Wall, of Graham Wall Real Estate, says you have to be a great negotiator to sell a mansion.
“It’s easy to think you’ve got the best deal because their numbers are so high but actually a really good agent will even get you more money, and that’s a fact.”
You also have to understand what he calls the “intrinsic value” of a property.
“Like, the investment potential of a good property, when someone is going ‘jeez’ at $15m, ‘I don’t want to spend that much money’.
“If you’re someone who can say ‘I’ll show you a couple of houses we sold for $15m that are now worth $20m it makes people feel good.”
Does he wine and dine clients or give them cigars?
Wall says no.
“We just let them fall in love with us and find that we’re refreshingly honest and straightforward compared to the brokers they deal with in other countries.”
And Fred Bramwell, of Colliers Queenstown, says referrals come in from the Colliers International agency but people also look at the sought-after area on the usual property portals.
You become pretty good friends with a lot of the clients as you take them around the different offerings, he says.
“I guess you would wine and dine some of them. Pretty much all our clients we’d do that with.”
