In her 20 years in real estate Pene Milne, of New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty, has sold some of Auckland’s most expensive properties, including a $24m home last year. She currently has the listing for the country’s priciest piece of real estate – the super-penthouse in the Pacifica apartment tower, which has an asking price of $42.8 million. She’s come a long way from her early days in the job, when she had to start from scratch in a new city.
Q: What did you do before real estate?
I was a nurse. I had nursed for 20 years and was a charge nurse for many years, from the age of 24. As a manager I had a team of 32 staff, which was a lot of responsibility. I enjoyed it but when we moved from Tauranga to Auckland in 2000 I was ready to do something different. Real estate was nudged under my nose and I thought, Why not? So I went off and did my papers, and started in 2001.
I did think at the time that I knew nothing about sales but once I had been doing it for a while I released that a lot of the skills I had from my nursing background were transferable. Nursing is about communicating in high stress situations, at a very human and personal level. Through the way you communicate you’re selling, not a product, but confidence, knowledge, and expertise.
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Real estate is similar. People are dealing with a high-pressure situation – a house is your biggest asset – and you need to help your clients navigate through that.
Q: Did you instantly find your feet in real estate?
No! It was a very slow build-up. I was not only new to the industry but I was new to Auckland and I had no network, no contacts who I could convince to give me their property to sell. I started from zero.
I did have someone tell me I should just stick at nursing; it was what I was good at and I had no experience at all with real estate. It was probably a good thing that nobody told me just how hard getting into real estate was going to be. But you don’t know what you don’t know, and I went into it completely blind.
I was lucky to have another agent, Max Oliver [former president of the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand], who was a mentor and who had confidence in me. When someone believes in you, it makes a big difference.
I knew so little about Auckland, I didn’t even know how to drive from Parnell to Ponsonby. We didn’t have GPS navigation, we had map books, and I just had to figure it out. It was daunting, but at the same time it meant I had to learn very quickly. Still, I went for six months without earning an income.
Q: Can you remember your first listing?
I followed up every single thing that might provide an opportunity; I looked for every bit of information and exploited that to the nth degree. Finally, I got the listing to sell a townhouse within a new residential project in Takapuna. I sold that for $995,000, which 20 years ago was a lot of money.
Milne’s passion outside real estate is working for Leukaemia and Blood Cancer New Zealand. Photo / Fiona Goodall
My second sale was a house in Rawene Ave, Westmere, in February 2002. I got a lead about that property and I followed it like a hound dog. I got a two-week listing, which is not long to try to sell a house but I managed to do it. It sold for $2.2m which was unheard of in Westmere at the time. It set a new benchmark but back then I didn’t realise the significance of it. I was just very happy I had sold a house.
Q: You have a bit of history with Rawene Ave, don’t you?
I do. In 2006 I sold 20 Rawene Ave to a buyer who put a beautiful home on what is a big piece of land. In fact it was originally three separate properties, and I had to get three different owners to agree to sell to this particular buyer, creating one site. That took a lot of negotiating.
Around the same time that this was happening, I also had a buyer who wanted to buy another site on the same street, at number 38, and that involved getting two owners with properties next to each other to agree to sell. That’s quite an unusual thing to have to do in your career, and to do it twice, in the same street, around the same time, was really unusual. I sold number 38 for $24m last year, which was the highest residential sale in New Zealand for the year.
Q: You also have New Zealand’s most expensive listing – the super-penthouse at the Pacifica apartment tower?
Yes, and it is an incredible space, just majestic. It’s the super-penthouse, spread across two floors of approximately 600sqm each so the total is 1219sqm. To have an apartment of that size is very unusual in New Zealand. It’s currently a shell and available for people to do what they want, and at $42m for the completed apartment, it is going to be spinetingling beautiful.
An artist’s impression of the Pacifica super-penthouse. Photo / Supplied
I am selling more apartments now because I go to where my client base is, and a lot of them have moved from large family homes to apartments in the city. I still sell a lot of waterfront homes from Westmere and Herne Bay round to St Marys Bay, Ponsonby, Parnell and to some extent Remuera. But a lot of my clients have moved to the city and when the time comes to sell, they ask me.
I have just got a very unique listing – a car park in Britomart. It will be the smallest thing I have ever sold, but why not?
Q: What’s the secret of your success?
I think it’s because I am really drawn to people. I like being able to find out what their needs are, and understand them, and then be able to help them. It was the same with nursing. There is a real art to communication – you have to be able to listen, and to empathise, and imagine what they are dealing with. Selling and buying a home can be very stressful and I am there to try to take as much of the stress out of it as possible. You also have to be very diligent and work through everything with your clients. There’s a lot of responsibility with the job.
I really love what I do, and I love Auckland too. This city has been very kind to me.
Q: What do you do outside of real estate?
I love Pilates, and walking my dog. His name is Chalkie and he’s a chorky – a Chihuahua crossed with a Yorkshire terrier. I love him to bits.
My other passion is working for Leukaemia and Blood Cancer New Zealand. I have been on their board since about 2011 and am currently their chair. They are a fantastic organisation and while I am there in a business capacity, I also have an interest on a personal level as I am a survivor of blood cancer. I was diagnosed in the 1990s and I was still having treatment when I was in the early stages of my real estate career – in fact that’s why my family moved to Auckland. I had a bone marrow transplant in 2004.
I understand what a huge thing it is for people to face, and the challenges you can go through. I had three very young children when I was diagnosed, and I feel so blessed that I still get to enjoy them now that they are adults, aged 33, 30 and 28. I am very grateful, and I want to give back.
