One of Auckland’s leading real estate agents has launched a book which she hopes will inspire other women to recover from hard knocks. But her stated mission this spring is to break house price records in the rich-lister beach town of Omaha.
Ray White Epsom and Matakana-Omaha business co-owner Heather Walton told OneRoof that her book Rags to Riches to Real Me, which comes out on Thursday, is a labour of love.
In it she shares what she learned as she climbed out of a disastrous marriage (her words), bankrupted after she was locked out of the $60 million of assets she had built up with her former husband, a property investor, and then went on to establish a career in real estate.
“Property is all I’ve ever done. Property law, then development and commercial, and now with Ray White. I love how you can transact – the psychological games, if you’re genuine and the parties like each other. I’ve been negotiating all my life,” she said.
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Picking herself up after the end of her marriage in 2008, by 2011 she was one of Ray White’s top sales people, winning the number one award for New Zealand in 2016. With her new husband, Mark Bycroft, she owns two of Ray White’s biggest offices, with their Matakana office boasting a renovated cottage she offers as a retreat for agents and clients. This year their Epsom branch was Ray White’s fifth biggest, their Matakana-Omaha branch won awards for brand championship and market share in the company’s national awards last month, and two of their sales agents took out rookie of the year awards.
Heather Walton's book was written during lockdown and offers guidance to create wealth, happiness and live your best life. Photo / Supplied
“I was top rookie myself, and I’ve trained five other agents – that’s six rookie awards. I can create a rock star, I know what I’m looking for. Like me, they’ve all had some adversity, they have the grit and determination to succeed.”
Walton told OneRoof that while she’d done the “eat pray love thing” in her 30s, it wasn’t until the Covid lockdowns at her family house in Omaha that she wrote it all down. She’s already working on the follow up, an insider’s guide to real estate with the working title Rags to Riches in Real Estate.
She tapped American self-help guru Melissa Ambrosini to mentor her while she structured the book, found a Canadian-based editor (“it’s all me, I didn’t use a ghost-writer”) and secured a New York publisher.
“It all came out. I thought how much it would help other people. I had an amazing team that got me on the international market,” she said.
“I want to share my story [so people can] learn how to acquire wealth and happiness, create your own truth, and live your best life, just like I did.”
However, Walton is skipping the book launch parties to focus on getting in new beachfront listings as the summer season kicks off, with the aim of breaking an Omaha record or two.
Walton sold a Hamptons-style house on Inanga Road, in Omaha, for a record $8.32m at auction in October last year. Photo / Supplied
While she didn’t make the record $9.1m sale in March for a four-bedroom, architect-designed house on a 1039sqm site on waterfront Kutai Lane (that was Precision’s Di Balich), she set the “one-back” record of $6m in February for a four-bedroom home on Taumata Road. Hers were a pair of earlier waterfront records at the beginning of summer, both on Inanga Lane: $8.32m for a four-bedroom Hamptons-style house in October and $7.75m just three weeks earlier for a striking three-bedroom contemporary home.
Walton said her clients buying in leafy Epsom are also looking at Omaha or the increasingly gentrified lifestyle spreads around Matakana.
Heather Walton with new husband Mark Bycroft. Photo / Fiona Goodall
“You become the one they go to because they know you’ve got the connections, you’ve got the database,” she said.
Walton says her son’s 13 years at Kings’ prep and King’s College has made her all sorts of connections, which she cultivates by giving back to the school through sponsorship of things like the rugby teams. Her son is also behind her book launch, giving her permission to share her story.
“Giving back helps bring people together. People know me as Harrison’s mum,” she said. “Kids who have grown up summering in Omaha, they’re a real community. They have the home friends, their school friends and their Omaha friends. I love this market, you can give such good service,” she said.
And in answer to the perennial question, is this the summer to bust the $10m barrier in Omaha?
“We’ve not tested the market yet. It will be interesting to see in the current market conditions,” Walton said. She is already tapping her network of buyers to gauge interest on waterfront properties as part of pre-listing appraisals that may well head into those prices.
All eyes are on whether the $9.1m Omaha record set for a beachfront home on Kutai Lane in March this year will be beaten this summer. Photo / Supplied
“Owners are just as curious as I am, now. We all want to know – can we break the $10m barrier? Where is Omaha – has it gone backwards, is it the same as last summer? Or is it going forward again?
“I tell you what, it won’t be going backwards, not on my watch. Last year it broke $9m, sometimes it skips $1m, so I never say never,” she said.
“There are homes located on the Omaha waterfront that are worth $10m-plus and if they were on the market I have very little doubt I would achieve that.
“But sadly [they] are not for sale nor do I expect they will be any time in the future. They were built with long-term purpose of being held possibly for generations to come. “
Walton said that buyers headed off overseas this winter for the first time in three years, and enquiry just died, so the real test of the market will be from Labour weekend as summer heats up.
“I love this market, because there’s new people coming in, people with $8m, $9m, $10m to spend. The $3m to $4m buyers are thinking they’ll get a bargain, but they won’t.”
