‘I door-knocked every house in Mangere East’

Xavier Tofilau spent years door-knocking thousands houses across the country raising funds for charities. That experience proved very useful when it came to drumming up business as a real estate agent and after only four years in the industry, South Auckland-based Xavier is in the top 1% of Ray White’s agents internationally.

Q: What did you do before real estate?

Lots of different things. I dropped out of school at 15 to work at Tegel Chicken in Henderson. That was to help out my mum, who was a single mother and the only breadwinner. I did that for four years, then I went door-knocking for people like UNICEF and World Wildlife Fund. I’ve knocked on around 80,000 doors in my time, all over the country. I got doors shut in my face every single day, but it taught me all about sales, and resilience. You would knock on 80 doors a day, speak to about half of those people, present to about half of those.

I did that for four years, then I worked in retail sales for a while, and then at a call centre. That was similar to the door-knocking except you picked up the phone and called random strangers.

Q: How did you deal with having doors shut in your face and people hanging up on you?

I learned to embrace rejection! It’s just part of the job. It also taught me about having a good work ethic, and persevering. Sales is a numbers game; you just have to keep calling and calling. The more people you talk to, the more rejection you will get, but as you get better and more skilled, your conversion rate is higher.

Q: How did you end up in real estate?

Back in 2009 I door-knocked the Ray White office in Ellerslie and the owner there, a guy called Philip White, told me I would be good at real estate. I thought about it, but I was still young, only in my early 20s, and when I looked at the office full of older people I felt a bit intimidated. But that got me thinking about it. What really put me off was the fact that you work on commission and I wanted a job with a guaranteed salary.

I ended up moving to Australia and going into recruitment HR. Then in 2017, I got rheumatic fever. I was pretty sick and couldn’t work. My wife Sabreenah and I came back to Auckland and I was on a sickness benefit, and I thought, “What am I going to do when I can work again?” I said to my wife, “You know I’ve always wanted to do real estate but I’m too scared because I won’t get a salary.” She said, “Why not take the punt now while you’re off work anyway?” So I did the real estate course.

Q: Did real estate come easily?

It was really hard to start with and I felt like I’d gone into the deep end. In my first two years I door-knocked every house in every street in Mangere East, talking to as many people as I could to build my profile. When nobody knows who you are and you are coming up against more experienced agents, it is the only way to get listings.

Once I got going, things then took off pretty fast. I was the first Samoan male to achieve Ray White’s highest accolade and become a member of the Chairman’s Elite, which puts me in the top 1% of agents internationally.

Q: Why do you think you have done so well?

I had the hunger and the passion to try to prove myself. I think you have to back yourself, and have confidence, which I did.

Plus I couldn’t do what I do without my wife. Sabreenah used to work for the IRD but once things started going well she left to be my personal assistant. We work really well together – she is the backbone of the business. There’s a saying that the men are the heads of the family but the wives are the neck, and without the neck, the head can’t move. That is so true.

Tofilau outside his church in Mangere. “My faith helps me to mellow out.” Photo / Fiona Goodall

But I think the main reason I have done so well is my faith. It helps to keep me humble. You can lose yourself in this industry sometimes with all the egos out there. But my faith helps me to mellow out, to know myself and where I come from. It helps me to understand that real estate is not just about making money, it is about helping others.

Nearly two years ago my wife said to me, “We need to take Sundays off – we have got leadership callings in our church.” So we sacrificed one of the busiest days of the week in real estate to do what we needed to do at our church.

Q: Has that affected your business?

It has. Having every Sunday off means we have to work smarter for the other six days. And as a result, our business has tripled since we stopped working Sundays. It has made things better.

Q: Have you had any particularly memorable sales?

I’ll always remember the first one – it was a house in Mangere East, owned by a Tongan family who found me on Instagram. We got a good price – it set a street record – and they were very happy. The family who bought it were Samoan, and it was really important to the dad to own a house. He passed away recently but at least he had achieved his dream and got to own a home for a few years. It felt good being able to help with that.

Last year I sold a house on Panama Rd in Mt Wellington for a family who were relocating to Rotorua. I appraised the property at $1.1m - $1.2m and it sold for $1.9m, a Mt Wellington record for two bedrooms. The owners were stoked. It meant they could buy their dream home down the line and be set up for the rest of their lives.

Q: What do you do when you are not working?

For me and my wife, it’s about family time. We have a son, Xavier, who is six, and we are always doing things with him and with both sides of our family. We like to travel as much as we can to create memories – we just came back from Tauranga and Queenstown. And my wife and I try to go on date night once a week to keep us close to each other.

And of course a lot of time goes to our church and our callings there.

Q: What do you love about your job?

I love the thrill of the hunt, from the point where you first meet somebody, maybe from a cold call, through to when the property is sold. I enjoy meeting people and building relationships, and I love it when we get a great result for our vendors.

I like the flexibility of the business. We get to choose our hours, so my wife and I can plan everything around our family and we can have that time off on Sundays for our church. I also like being able to work with my wife, and now my brother, Sasa, has joined the team. It has been a great journey and I feel very blessed.