Ray White Elite Performer Dean Tuffley harnessed the skills from his corporate sales and competitive sporting careers to go into real estate right as the pandemic hit. He’s passionate about the area he lives and sells in and is regularly seen pounding the pathways of Cornwall Park in Auckland.
Q: You started selling real estate in 2020, how did that go?
It was right as Covid started and I thought, ‘Oh, no, not doing this!’ It was really hard. All the sentiment was that the market is going to crash, you’re not going to sell anything and no one is going to buy or sell. But I stuck it out and did a lot of door-knocking, a lot of prospecting and a lot of hard work and got some really good momentum, built some great relationships and went from there.
Q: What made you decide to stick with it?
Start your property search
It’s always something I wanted to do. From a young age I had this fascination with property and people and real estate agents – I used to go to open homes with my parents when I was a little kid. I’ve also always been a salesperson. I worked for Air New Zealand and Coca-Cola in sales roles.
I’m naturally really competitive – I’ve played competitive basketball and netball – and I’m hungry to succeed. The nature of the industry fits my personality well. I love people and having the opportunity to help them. I’ve sold a couple of properties this year where I’ve got people out of tricky financial situations. Their relief and being able to help them so much is really rewarding.
Q: Have you always worked at Ray White?
Yes. I work at the Mount Eden office. It’s a supportive environment that’s conducive to success. We’ve got a lot of high performers here and Jared [Cooksley] is an incredible leader. He’s young, he’s vibrant and he’s got amazing ideas. We’ve got amazing people like John Bowring auctioneer – I know I can call on Jared or John anytime, anywhere, for any hairy situations that come up. There are things we have to be flexible and creative with at the moment, in terms of the market – it’s an environment that has allowed me to flourish and have incredible success.
Q: What do you put your success down to?
A few things. I never over-promise or under-deliver, always the other way around. I often get feedback from clients who say that the whole process has been better than what they anticipated and that I have I delivered so much more than what they thought or expected I would.
Discover more:
- Real estate power duo: 'If someone from Bollywood reads this, give me a call'
- NZ's top architects champion joyful homes, warn against 'half-cooked' townhouses
- IKEA v orgasms: Housing market surveys throw up weird results
Consistency is also key. Real estate is so up and down – you’ve got global macro factors, micro-factors and all this stuff going on that you can’t really control, apart from your consistency and how you operate your business.
Being able to connect with people from all walks of life is another thing I like. I always say that real estate is not IQ, it’s EQ. I 100% believe that. You’ve got to understand people and empathise with their situations, you’ve got to respect every single part of the process because you’re dealing with high-pressure, high-impact scenarios that change people’s lives.
Q: Not to mention your hard graft at the outset.
That was a whole lot of hard, unrelenting prospecting that didn’t give me anything at the start. I door-knocked basically the whole suburb of the area I work in and gathered data when I wasn’t given any other opportunities. I gave up pretty much everything at that time because I had made the decision that I wanted to succeed. I built the foundations of a really successful business, managing my time really well and building strong relationships in the area I sell in.
I wasn’t one of those people who thought it was going to be easy, I knew it was going to be hard. I had those expectations and made sure I didn’t leave any stone unturned and it paid off in the end.
Q: Any majorly memorable sales?
That’s a hard one – every time I take a property to the market, I say to the client, ‘Thank you for the opportunity’. Because no matter if it’s a $700,000 to $800,000 property or an $8m to $9m property – to be given that opportunity every time is humbling.
Tuffley: "I'm in Cornwall Park all the time - I live very close and that’s the area I sell in." Photo / Fiona Goodall
Sometimes it’s been those lower-value properties and getting those clients out of really sticky situations – where they paid a lot at the peak of the market and I’ve still been able to get them a good price. To see the emotion on their face and how much I’ve helped them is just as rewarding and memorable as those higher sales.
Q: What do you do in your spare time?
I know a lot of agents say this but I don’t have much spare time – working seven days a week is pretty much a given for most of the year. But when I do get time off, you’ll find me exercising – I’m at the gym most days, playing tennis, netball, basketball, both competitively and socially. I’m in Cornwall Park all the time – I live very close and that’s the area I sell in. I like to go running, stop at the café for breakfast or go for a walk. I always see my clients and friends in the park, which is cool.
I love socialising with friends – dinner and wine. They understand my job is demanding but they’re really supportive.
I love to travel when I have the time. Obviously, that’s quite hard given the [limited] amount of time that you can take off outside of Christmas, but I make sure I get at least one or sometimes two holidays in per year if I can.
Fiji is a staple for me – it’s easy and there’s no time difference. You can be sipping a cocktail beside the pool within four hours of leaving Auckland.
- Click here to find Auckland properties for sale
