Seven years ago Abbey Davis and Richard Humphreys were friends who played netball and touch in the same teams. Abbey had a sales and marketing job in the tourism industry; Richard sold cars. Today they’re married, and both award-winning real estate agents, who are ranked in the top 1 percent of Harcourts’ agents. In April they became the new owners of Harcourts Twentythree agency based in Epsom.
Who made the move to real estate first?
Abbey: I did, seven years ago. I felt like it was time for a new challenge. Real estate had always been at the back of my mind because I loved property and interior design, but it was the people side of it that I was drawn to. I love working with people and the relationships you form. I was selling my house and I thought, I could do [the agent’s job], and maybe I could do it a bit better.
Did you find your feet quickly?
Start your property search
Abbey: I got my first listing doing basic cold calling. I was doing market appraisals and got hold of a lady who owned a tenanted property. She was thinking of selling and ended up buying and selling with us twice. In my first year I did about 20 sales all up. I networked, I door-knocked, I cold-called, I put letters out. I was lucky but I worked hard.
Did your marketing background help?
Abbey: Definitely. One of the things that worked really well for me was running an Easter colouring-in competition. The parents of the little girl who won wanted to sell their house so I listed it, and then I got the listing for the person who bought it, and then she referred me to her mum who referred me to a friend and it went from there.
Richard: I could see how Abbey was achieving these things – she has so much energy and enthusiasm, that’s what was electric about her. Her passion is infectious.
Abbey: Richard and I weren’t dating at this stage, we had met through friends and were playing in the same sports teams. He was very supportive of me going into real estate and I used to ring him and we’d talk about sales techniques. Selling cars is quite different to selling houses in a lot of ways but we’d bounce around ideas.
Richard: The product is different but the basics are the same, it’s about working out what people’s needs are and helping them to find a solution.
How did you end up moving from car sales to real estate Richard?
Richard: Abbey and I had started dating and discussed me doing real estate because it was something I was interested in. Then when we got engaged we thought maybe I should give it a go. Part of the reason was that we weren’t seeing much of each other because we were both working long hours and weekends. At least if we were in the same business we would see each other.
Abbey: We went from hardly seeing each other to being together 24/7. But it has worked for us. We’ve been married for four years and are in our fifth year of working together. When we started we only had one listing and one car between us – Rich’s car had come with his job. If it didn’t work Rich might have had to go back to car sales. But we went into it boots and all.
Richard: And found that we thrive under pressure.
You’ve bought a Harcourts franchise after a relatively short time in the industry and now have a team of 16 agents – was that stressful?
Richard: Taking over during lockdown when we couldn’t leave the house was. Although the silver lining was that we had time to work on our business rather than just working in it.
Abbey: It was a little terrifying. We were at home with our laptops thinking, How are we going to do this? But in fact, it freed up a lot of time to set the business up, do some future planning and work with our team. I think if we can open a business in the middle of a pandemic, we can do anything.
Why do you think you’ve been so successful?
Abbey: We live and breathe real estate. We are always looking for ways of doing the best for our customers. We have our different strengths – I am good at the creative side, coming up with ideas and marketing, while Rich’s strengths are around setting up systems and making my ideas happen. He’s really good at IT. And he will get stuck in to help out our customers. He’s mowed lawns, moved fridges, emptied rubbish bins, babysat children… whatever is needed. Having a sense of humour also helps.
Richard: We are constantly training and learning and finding new ways of doing things, like using gavl.com, which is an online auction streaming service. From Abbey I have learned to be very goal-focused. She gets out her whiteboard and writes down her goals, and then she sets about being able to tick things off. The first time I tried goal-setting I wasn’t that successful and she said, “You’ve got to aim high.”
So I have and it has been amazing what we have been able to achieve, like being in the top 20 Harcourts’ agents, which was a pipe dream that came true. We talk all the time about what we want and how we will get there. A mate of ours says, “You guys just seem to will things into existence.”
Abbey: My mum always said to me, “You can do anything you put your mind to, no matter how big or small.” I always write my goals on my whiteboard and there is nothing more rewarding than being able to cross them off. It helps you to focus on what you really want, and works for personal things as well as work ones.
I remember Richard coming over for a barbecue years ago and there was my whiteboard with my goals on it: Get a road bike, get my eyes lasered, find my soulmate… I’m surprised he didn’t run away!
Richard: It was a little bit confronting but it worked – it didn’t take her too long to tick them all off!
