The real estate couple with grand designs

In the last three years, Steve Koerber has sold 2.3 times more real estate in Remuera than any other agent. One of Ray White’s top 25 sales staff in the world for residential properties, his not-so-secret weapon is his wife, fellow real estate salesperson Nila. He reckons his business has tripled since they’ve been working together. They talked to OneRoof about how they met and what happened when they applied to be on Grand Designs NZ.

How did you meet?

Steve: Nila came over from Australia to help her aunt sell her house, and I had the listing. That was in 2013 and both of us were on our own after our previous marriages. After putting the sold sticker on the For Sale sign I got up the courage to text her to ask if she would like to go out for lunch with me. It was a very big thing for me to do because I hadn’t been out with anyone and when she didn’t respond I thought, Oh no, rejected again. But she had flown out to Brisbane and her phone had run out of battery and as soon as she saw the message she replied and said, “I would have loved to have had lunch with you.”

Nila: We corresponded for two years after that. We met only once in that time, in Wellington, just for the day. But after two years we met in Hamilton Island for a week, and that was it, we knew we would get married.

You had real estate in common – did you bond over anything else?

Steve: We both love to read and as part of our long-distance courting we would talk about books. Nila would ask for recommendations. I went through all of the books that I had read and then she would read them. Then she’d say, “What’s another one?” so I would have to google books I hadn’t read to recommend to her. She overtook me, and I have always read a lot, because I like learning and improving. Although I haven’t read much recently.

Nila: That’s because I talk too much.

What are your favourite books?

Steve: I have two, and I have been fortunate enough to meet both authors. One is by [motivational speaker] Brian Tracy, called Maximum Achievement. That has helped me a lot in my career.

Nila: It’s a fantastic book, we read it once a year. It’s a business book but it’s not really about making money, it’s about becoming a good person.

Steve: It’s about achieving things in every facet of your life. The other book is The Shift: Taking Your Life From From Ambition to Meaning by Wayne Dyer, who I met three days before he died. It had a huge impact on my life. I was hugely ambitious, but then I moved more to a position of meaning.

How did you end up in real estate?

Nila: I was an accountant, and then I ran a cooking school. I love food and cooking but it was tiring, I was on my feet all day. When you are a single mother of four children you are already tired. Then somebody said they thought I would make a good real estate agent, so I decided to try it. I had been selling real estate in Australia for a year when I met Steve.

Steve: I am from Australia originally, and I started out in the military. I was in the Royal Australia Navy, where I was a lieutenant commander, a navigation and warfare officer. I came to New Zealand 25 years ago because of my first marriage and joined the navy here, then a year later I left the military and decided to do real estate. It was quite a change, I had no sales skills, but I decided that if I was going to do it, I would give it 100%. I am that kind of person.

Steve worked up the courage to ask Nila out after helping her sell her aunt's house. Photo / Fiona Goodall

Did it take long to be successful?

Steve: I did really well quite quickly. I started off on the North Shore where the navy base was and for two years I sold the whole of the North Shore. I would be doing open homes in Devonport one minute and Torbay the next. It was nuts.

In 2011, after 15 years in real estate, the wheels started to come off. I was pretty burned out and I went through what you would probably call a mid-life crisis. I had a three-month sabbatical and went to live with my parents in Queensland. I went off into the mountains and meditated, and it made a huge difference. I came back much more relaxed. I was able to shed my ego. Before that, I had no idea what ego was but there’s a lot of ego in real estate and I was stuck in that.

Nila: The thing to remember with real estate is that that you’re not special, you’re not a doctor saving lives. You’re selling houses. But it is a big responsibility because you are dealing with what is usually people’s biggest asset and you don’t want them to lose money. Or be stressed.

What’s the secret of your success?

Steve: Consistency and hard work.

Nila: Being a good person at the end of the day. You have to be kind, you have to work hard and you have to be a problem solver.

Steve: That’s how we see ourselves, as problem solvers. We’re getting people from point A to point B with selling their house and that involves dealing with any problems that arise and finding solutions. We bounce a lot of ideas between us and we often do that while we are out walking. We walk a lot and we talk while we do it. We get a lot of brainstorming done that way.

Nila: We walk for miles every day. A lot of it is to do with work. Steve and I do all our own flyer drops – we don’t pay someone else to do it. Sometime we’ll be out at 11 at night doing it. It’s fun.

Do you have different strengths?

Steve: Nila is very good at getting things done. If I was working on my own I would probably do more things on the phone, but she will say, “I know it’s 8.30 at night but let’s go and see this person now”. She takes decisive action and she does it quickly. She doesn’t leave dishes in the sink. I do.

Steve and Nila: "You have to be kind, you have to work hard and you have to be a problem solver." Photo / Fiona Goodall

Nila: People think I do the admin for Steve but actually I am really terrible at it. He is super-good at it – he’s very meticulous and has an eye for detail. He’s also very good at databasing.

Steve: I’ve done coaching and given talks about databasing, and also farming. In real estate that means you pick an area and “farm” it, making it yours. It takes discipline. You may be tempted to sell in other areas, but that waters down what you are trying to do.

Nila: We will occasionally sell in areas other than Remuera, but only if it is for a former client, somebody we really like. It’s hard when you don’t know the area, and nobody knows you. Real estate is a long game of sticking it out and doing what you know.

Does working and living together ever get to be a bit much?

Nila: Not at all. We enjoy being together all day, every day. We’re a great team.

Steve: I could not do what I do without Nila. She tripled my business.

Nila: He was good before I came along, but together we have got so much more energy to put into selling houses. I don’t know how anybody in this business works on their own. It would be gruelling, and lonely.

Do you have any energy left over for hobbies or interests?

Steve: A lot of our energy has been going into building a new house on the slopes of Mt Hobson. It’s a pretty special place and we can’t wait for it to be finished. We thought the house would be suitable for Grand Designs – which is the only TV show we ever watch – but they said no.

Nila: We thought it was a great story. We are a blended family with seven children between us, the house is amazing and is being built on the side of a hill. I am from Sri Lanka and grew up in a tea plantation on the side of a mountain, we thought they would like that sort of thing. But they wanted people who are more involved in the building. They said to us, “What are you going to do?’ We said, “Pay the bills.”

Steve: They said, “What are you going to do if you run out of money?” We said, “Work harder.”