When Alexandra Vincent Martelli launched her Auckland business as a buyer’s agent two years ago, it took a while for some people to get their heads around the concept of what she does. Alex describes it as taking the stress out of finding a home for her clients while helping to protect them against buying a dud or paying too much money. And no, it’s nothing like TV show Selling Sunset – she’s more like Location, Location, Location’s Kirstie Allsopp, she says.
Q: Did you always want to work in property?
When I was at school a careers advisor asked what I liked doing, I said baking, and she said, “You should be a chef.” I went home and told my mum I was going to be a chef and she said, “No, you’re not.” My mum is in property, she got into subdividing and developing in the 90s and 2000s and is very savvy. She’s very good at seeing opportunities and thought it was something I could be interested in.
When I was 15 I did work experience for Barfoot & Thompson with their residential auctions team and commercial team, and at the end of the week, they asked if I wanted to work for them in the school holidays. I did that right through school and then when I went to Auckland uni to do my Bachelor of Commerce, I’d be at Barfoots at 8am working with their commercial team and after two and a half hours I’d race up to university for classes, go back to Barfoots over lunchtime, then back to uni. Right through university, I had this incredible commercial property experience, and I loved it.
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During the Rugby World Cup in 2011, I had a job hosting international guests from Savills Australia, which had a partnership with Barfoots. They said to me, “We have a role coming up, would you like to move to Sydney?” I went there at 23 and did a couple of years for Savills. There was a buyer’s agency that had been set up there that helped people who were time poor or struggling to find a home and when I spoke to them, I thought, This is brilliant. I worked for them for three years and really thrived.
Q: What appealed about being a buyer’s agent?
I love that it’s really people-oriented. I didn’t want to be a residential salesperson, that’s never appealed to me, with open homes and all that. Being a buyer’s agent, you get to know your buyer really well. You get to be a part of people’s journey and it’s incredibly rewarding when you see how happy they are to have got their home.
Martelli has made a name for herself as a buyer's agent and has set up her agency, Martelli & Co. Photo / Fiona Goodall
I loved working as a buyer’s agent in Sydney but I had a real itch to go to London. You’re competing against the best, so if you can do well in London, you’re at the pinnacle of being great at what you do. So I moved there.
Q: How did that go?
I had to start at the bottom and work my way up. I immediately took a massive hit to my earnings, I was on a fifth of what I’d been getting in Sydney. But London was incredible – real estate is a much more sophisticated industry over there. I worked for CBRE, which had an incredible residential consulting business – over 120 people just consulting to developers on new-build projects.
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I ended up running an international sales and marketing business, based in London but travelling to Hong Kong, China and the Middle East to build and train teams. I had to restructure our team in Hong Kong and let the manager go, so I ended up living there and running the business. It was fascinating, with the two cultures.
CBRE had quite a big buyer’s agency and I looked at how that worked compared to the Sydney operation. I’d decided at the end of 2021 that it was time to come back to New Zealand after 11 years away, and I also thought the time was ripe for a proper buyer’s agency here. So I started Martelli & Co.
Q: Was it difficult for people to understand how a buyer’s agent works?
Buyers understood. Most people these days are very busy and there are a lot who are prepared to pay someone to do all the work, someone who knows what they are doing. The clients we work with know the value of their time, and they don’t want to spend it doing everything that goes in to finding and buying a property.
Buyers want to buy a good quality home for a fair price – they want to know they’re not buying a dud. Our role is to protect the buyer and take a lot of the emotion out of the purchase.
Martelli's fiancé, ACT leader David Seymour. "He loves the idea of someone starting a business and making something for themselves," says Martelli. Photo / Dean Purcell
The ironic thing was it was difficult for people in the property industry to get their head around what I wanted to do. I had a lot of people saying it wouldn’t work because it wasn’t the Kiwi psyche. They said it goes against our whole DIY philosophy, getting someone to find a property for you. I spoke to heads of agencies and I got a lot of them saying, “Why don’t you just come and be a real estate agent?”
Eventually a couple of people got me in to talk to their teams. Glenn Carpenter, of Ray White North Shore, said he loved what I was doing. Thomas Farmer from Ray White Remuera said, “Show us what the value is to agents,” so I talked about how I am bringing them qualified buyers. Agents finally came around to it but it took a while – there were some lonely days. Now my colleague Karin Attwood and I have formed some really nice partnerships but it’s taken some kicking and screaming to get there.
Things started to snowball after about a year. It’s really busy now, and it’s all word of mouth. We don’t advertise.
Q: Was your business impacted by your relationship with your fiancé, ACT party leader David Seymour, becoming public?
No, not at all. Someone said, “When it gets out you’ll have thousands of enquiries”, but it didn’t change anything. People come to us for a specific reason and it’s nothing to do with politics. I think people respect that our lives are very different and we are skilled in different areas. David is incredibly supportive of me, and he loves the idea of someone starting a business and making something for themselves.
Q: Can you remember the first buyer you found a home for?
It was a young woman who’d looked at multiple properties and was finding it difficult because she didn’t know what to look at in the building reports. We found a new build three-bedroom home for her. She loved to cook but it didn’t have a central area in the kitchen so I had a custom-designed island bench made. I measured all of her pots and pans to make sure the drawers were deep enough. I learned all about the weighting of granite for the island bench. We do go above and beyond for our clients.
Martelli: "Most people these days are very busy and there are a lot who are prepared to pay someone to do all the work." Photo / Fiona Goodall
We don’t only look very carefully at the houses, but the areas as well. We helped a family looking in Riverhead – there was a wedding venue down the road, and we looked into things like what time buses came to pick people up and how loud the wheels were when they drove off.
Q: What sort of people are your clients?
They’re people who are very good at what they do, who value their time and know it is worth paying someone who does this – finding houses – as a full-time job and is in their corner. A majority of them are business owners. I’ve met lots of great people over the years, that’s what keeps it fun.
There’s this idea that it’s just about buying luxury homes but we have people looking for places for $1m, and first-time buyers. Elements of it are luxurious, I deal with some very high-end budgets and see some beautiful homes. That’s a nice perk of the job but seeing the crappy homes is quite fun as well.
One thing I have learned over the years is that no matter what your budget, you always wish you had more. I remember a client who had $25m to spend and they said, “If only we had $30m”. I said, “I’m sure you’ll find something for $25m, you’ll be all right.”
Q: What do you do when you’re not working?
It’s pretty much a seven-day-a-week job. I even go to open homes when I don’t have to, just to have a look. It’s hard to drive past an open home sign.
I go to the gym every day, and I run. I do that as much for my mental health as my physical. If I’m working on a major deal and feeling stressed, I will throw on my running gear and run a couple of kilometres. By the time I get back to the office, my mind feels much clearer.
I love auctioneering – I trained as an auctioneer – and I help a group of girls involved in an inter-school auction competition. It’s great being part of that. I used to do some girl guide leading, and I love seeing girls gaining confidence in themselves.
I’m also a dedicated pub quiz goer – it reminds me of being in London.
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