New Zealand’s luxury real estate heavyweights come from a range of backgrounds. Some started out by selling run-of-the-mill properties, others jumped in at the top end.
One such agent is Graham Wall, who holds the record for New Zealand’s biggest residential sale - the former Hotchin mansion at Huriaro Place, in Orakei, Auckland which sold for a record $38.5 million in 2013.
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Wall fell into real estate thanks to being a man about town who knew how to put a deal together. He made his name selling all 11 of the Sultan of Brunei’s houses in Auckland’s Herne Bay to Kiwi businessman Gary Lane in 2005 for $35m.
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His son Ollie says, “My dad wasn't a real estate agent, (but) he saw an opportunity to sell all of the Sultan of Brunei's properties in Auckland.”
Wall had a connection with the sultan, found a buyer and put it all together. The regulations were more relaxed in those days and Wall had a friend with a real estate licence who did all the paperwork.
Lane only wanted one of the 11 properties, so Wall resold the other 10. It was a big leap into the world of high-stakes real estate and led to the creation of Wall Real Estate.
“My dad went off and got his own real estate licence and started selling. Just one man with a mobile phone,” says Ollie. “He knew everyone in town. He's a hustler - forever running around knowing everybody, putting people together.”
Ollie and his brother Andrew joined their dad in the family business, leaving behind careers in advertising and art for the opportunity to sell luxury real estate.
The family relies on its database to sell, Ollie says.
“I think only one of the houses over $20m we’ve sold has actually been advertised. It's almost better not to have 50 people at an auction for a property.”
Like Wall, Paul Neshausen was made to sell luxury homes.
The Barfoot & Thompson agent, whose mantra is “big money energy”, says, “I’ve always liked nice things. Whenever I’m out shopping - for clothing, or cars or art, or furniture or whatever – I always end up buying the nicest, most expensive item. So, when it came to real estate, the same principle applied. I actually really love big, beautiful, upmarket homes.”
But when he made the leap into real estate, he was willing to sell anything.
Barfoot and Thompson’s Paul Neshausen treats each meeting with a potential vendor like a job interview. Photo / Fiona Goodall
“If you’d offered me a tent on a roundabout, I would have gladly accepted it. But sure enough I found my place and my comfort zone and that just happened to be in the bigger, more exclusive homes.”
Neshausen now sells in Auckland’s exclusive Eastern Bays, and his clients have high expectations. “You need to be a good fit. Reputation is important, but it’s also about personality and ability. Whenever I meet someone wanting to sell their big flash pad, I treat it like a job interview. Whilst I assume I’m going to get the listing, I’m nevertheless on best behaviour.”
Former The Block judge Victoria Bidwell is another agent who has found her niche in the luxury homes market.
“I specialise in waterfront properties in the Takapuna/Milford and Devonport areas and I've sold a lot of amazing houses. One I sold set the record for Bayleys - it was $11.5m. It was huge at the time but has been surpassed now. You get to meet great people. You became very immersed in people's lives dealing with something that is very important to them - their home - and you always want to do your best.”
Like many top-end agents, Bidwell will often field calls from wealthy buyers on the hunt for something special. “They’ll say, ‘I don't want the world to know, and I've been told that you're the person I need to talk to. I'm not in a hurry’.”
One buyer gave Bidwell a list of what he wanted. “One of those things included fresh foam at the bottom of his property. He loved fishing off the rocks and didn't want to get in the car to go fishing. I knew there were about three houses that probably fitted his criteria and I approached the owners.”
Former Block judge and Bayleys agent Victoria Bidwell often gets calls from wealthy buyers on the hunt for a home. Photo / Fiona Goodall
Another real estate name synonymous with lavish homes is Ross Hawkins, one of the biggest selling Ray White agents in Australasia. Hawkins lives in Auckland’s Parnell and he mingles with the people he ends up representing or selling to.
“I've got a launch down at Orakei Marina and I see a lot of [potential clients] on the boats. You get talking and you do business that way. I'm dealing with people who are at a similar stage of life as me and doing much the same things I do with my family. I see them in the local café, I see them at school functions, I run into them on the ski field in Queenstown.”
Most of his clients, however, like to keep a low profile, and Hawkins, like most top agents, is discreet to a T. He says business is growing thanks to Covid-19, with Kiwis investing money that would have otherwise been spent on international holidays in beach houses and holiday homes instead.
CBRE agent Gavin Lloyd doesn’t blink at selling a $20m property.
He started his real estate career selling $200m office buildings, shopping centres and other commercial properties in Australia. Along the way, he got involved with developers selling heritage wharf developments on Sydney Harbour. “That’s where I got a passion for project marketing, which led me into what I do now, which is selling residential developments.”
Ray White agent Ross Hawkins in front of one of his most recent sales - one of Auckland's oldest homes. Photo / Fiona Goodall
A New Zealand wife and a love of mountaineering brought him over the ditch to Auckland, where he became CBRE’s national director, residential projects, and in 2019, he made sales history when he sold the penthouse of The International to former White House deputy chief of staff Chris Liddell for a record-breaking $15.3m.
His 20-year history in big commercial projects has helped him build a network of high-net-worth people from around the world. “The big business owners and entrepreneurs at the top end of the town, those are the people that ultimately buy luxury property,” he says.
Big deals don’t frighten him. “Nothing frightens me. I’ve stood on the edges of some of the highest mountains around, and I don’t have any fear of taking on a $200m property.”
When Barfoot & Thompson agent Leila MacDonald first started in real estate, she simply knocked on the doors on the houses she liked, hoping the owners could be persuaded to sell.
"In the early days I got my listings by simply knocking on the doors of houses that appealed to me. It was easier marketing property then. You put an advertisement in the Saturday paper, and you took clients around to see the homes they were interested in. Nowadays it’s all about endless open homes!"
MacDonald’s persistence paid off and she landed the listing for Fairholm, a coveted Victorian mansion on Remuera Road, which made records in the 1980s when she sold it for $4m, a princely sum in those days.
Barfoot and Thompson agent Leila MacDonald: “I enjoy putting people together.” Photo / Fiona Goodall
MacDonald had a marquee erected on the lawn at Fairholm and auction attendees were asked to dress up for the occasion, with many of the women wore hats and gloves.
She has since sold many of the suburb’s most expensive homes, working with her son David.
"I take what I do seriously, and the thing I enjoy most is putting people together — when I can see that the vendor and the buyer are the right fit,” she says.
"When you’ve sold as many properties as I have, you find yourself saying 'hello' to a lot of people who remember you, and I love that. I think people know I’m a straight talker and I’m honest, even if it isn’t quite what they want to hear.”
New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty agent Pene Milne didn’t plan on selling homes at the top end of town, but her first two sales were well above the average in her catchment area, and she soon started chasing higher value homes.
Last year, she sold a waterfront home for $24m. The property was one she’d been associated with for more than two decades. She sold the home in 2006, kept in touch with the buyer, who asked her to sell it again 14 years later. “It’s all about relationships and longevity and wanting to be able retain those relationships,” she says.
New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty agent Pene Milne broke records last year with the sale of waterfront home for $24m. Photo / Fiona Goodall
Most of her vendors have homes that are tastefully and beautifully styled, she says, but sometimes it’s necessary to stage or part-stage the property.
“Sometimes they may not have the property set up in the way a buyer might envisage it. What they’re using as a pool room might be better suited to being staged as a dining room,” she says.
She adds, “I don't make assumptions. It may be a once-in-a-blue moon kind of sale for the vendor. People do appreciate advice.”
Every corner of the country has agents who specialise in luxury homes. Most have a patch, some cover very wide catchment areas, sourcing and selling homes for well-heeled clients.
Bayleys agent John Greenwood handles high-end waterfront properties right across the country, from Northland to Napier, with the occasional Queenstown property thrown in.
“It’s product, more than areas,” Greenwood says. “Most agents end up farming a particular area and hammer it to death. I work in a product area, which is basically targeting the purchasers. Most of it is second homes, in the $5m to $50m price bracket.”
It’s not unusual for Greenwood’s buyers to view properties in very disperse locations. A single buyer may view properties in Whananaki, Bay of Islands and Coromandel, says Greenwood. For that a helicopter ride is needed or he suggests they go for a drive.
Greenwood says his vendors rarely have to sell in a hurry. “Most will hold their price because, eventually, it will grow into it.”
He likes to look for expressions of interest when selling a property because high-net-worth players want privacy and a tender may be too public for them. “Someone’s going to tell somebody else, whereas expressions of interest do not do that.” Auctions work, but only if the sale price is under $10m.
Chester Rendell, who sells in the Bay of Islands with Sotheby’s, says his potential buyers are just as likely to be expats as locals.
“Typically, [buyers] will Google ‘waterfront property for sale’ and see what pops up.” He also has a formidable database, which he works. “You never know who these people know.”
Like all agents in this market, Rendell’s middle name is discretion. “Vendors don't want to splash [their affairs] all over the place, but they're hoping that somebody might come along that would be a nice match for it. There are a lot of very private people in New Zealand.”
Some agents come to the luxury housing market from jobs selling other luxury goods.
Bayleys Havelock North agent Gretchen Paape sold top designer clothes to Hawke’s Bay’s high-rollers in a previous life. She owned Papillon boutique in Havelock North from 2002 to 2011 before moving into real estate.
At Papillon she built up a large database of clients. “You do get to know someone quite well when you dress them,” she says. “You’ve built that rapport and you’re halfway there when you sell their property.”
Sotheby’s agents Nic Goodman and Darryl Buckley agree.
The top end is more challenging than the rest of the market, where, Buckley says, “you're meeting 40 to 50 people, and they're all getting thrown into multi-offer situations and somebody is winning by $5000. It's rather boring real estate to be quite honest.”
Goodman adds, “The higher end is much more difficult. Your buyer pool is significantly smaller, and it’s all about building a rapport with the seller and the buyer. It’s like a marriage really.
“If you’re selling a $3m property, you can’t be inundated with inquiry from people that have $1.5m. The seller is going to get pretty disheartened.”
