Trio who turned Pt Chev real estate into family affair

Check out a house for sale in the Auckland suburb of Pt Chevalier and there’s a good chance it’s being listed by Lawrence and Derek von Sturmer and their half-brother Ross Brader. The trio — and their colleagues at Professionals in Pt Chev — have 60-70 per cent of the market there and say their unique team approach is responsible for their success.

Who got into real estate first?

Ross: I started in 1983 in Wairarapa, when I was 19. I then ended up in the Wellington region, where I owned offices. I visited Auckland in the mid ‘90s and saw how much higher house prices were. I went home and said to my wife, “Let’s move to Auckland!”

We knew nobody here, we didn’t know anything about the place. By complete fluke I ended up opening an office in Ponsonby, one of the hottest places in the city. I started getting good market share through Ponsonby, Westmere, Grey Lynn and Pt Chev. We put the focus more on Pt Chev because it reminded us of beachside places in Wellington like Plimmerton and Eastbourne. It’s a really good community, like a small town in the city. Our office is here now and we do sell in other suburbs but a lot of our work is in Pt Chev. We all live in Pt Chev.

Lawrence: I joined Ross in 2002. I had been in retail — I was doing sales training for Freedom Furniture — and I thought if I was going to be in sales, I should be doing the best type, which seemed to be real estate.

Derek: I was born in 1983, the year Ross went into real estate. I have memories of Ross coming over to the Wairarapa from Wellington to visit us in his nice cars. He seemed to really be enjoying what he was doing. We came from pretty humble beginnings. Dad was the principal of a school with about 100 pupils (and he drove the school bus), Mum was the music teacher and we grew up in the school house. When they retired they moved up here to Auckland and now they also help us out doing things like meeting photographers and opening up properties. It is a real family business.

So Ross’s choice of career was a big influence?

Derek: Massive. I always looked up to Ross and never wanted to do anything else other than real estate. When I was about 18 I begged him to let me work for him. He said no, I needed to travel and have some experiences first. He saw an ad for people to work at Club Med, so I applied for that. I was a competitive gymnast at the time, and I ended up being a trapeze artist in a circus on a beach in the middle of nowhere in Malaysia. It was good, although I did get a few injuries.

After that I ended up in Mexico where I got a job coaching a rugby team. They hadn’t done very well the year prior and after I took over they won the Mexican championship. From there I coached the under-19 team and national men’s team and sevens team. I got to travel a lot around the United States and the Caribbean with them.

I found coaching has really helped in real estate when it comes to dealing with people.

Lawrence: I worked overseas for a while, selling houses in Fulham and Chelsea in London. It was cutthroat and I wouldn’t do it again. But it was good experience. It was 2005 and they still did so much by post. It would take two weeks for them to arrange leaving curtains in the house. It confirmed to me that I really wanted to work here.

What’s the secret of your success?

Ross: We have got many years of knowledge and experience behind us, and we really enjoy what we do. Plus we have put a lot into supporting the community. We support sporting groups, Plunket, local businesses… and they support us back. We also give a certain amount from every sale to the Child Cancer Foundation and as a national company, we have raised $6m over 20 years.

Derek: People trust us. They know that we live in the area and it means a lot to us. Because of our experience we can offer our vendors really good advice to help them get the best possible price. Ross has been doing the groundwork since 1996. Lawrence and I bought the business from him four years ago and the good reputation of Professionals is incredibly important to us.

Lawrence: It is also due to the fact that we have a team approach. We structure things differently to other agencies.

Derek: We kind of stumbled on our way of doing things because we are brothers but now we also include our other two other team members, Jo de Beer, who is like our adopted sister, and Jackson Tariau, who is new to real estate. The way we work is that the commission is shared between us. It doesn’t matter who is doing the selling.

Ross: In most real estate offices everyone does their own thing and there is often a lot of competition to get the listing and sell the house. We allocate one person as our lead agent but we all pull together to work for the vendor. The owners love it because they know there will always be someone available to handle anything that comes up.

Does this also make life easier for you?

Derek: You know that when times get tough you’ve always got back up. My son was born prematurely and has been in and out of hospital but I know if I have to drop things for him, the rest of the team can take over.

Ross: The only problem is when you have a family event and you can’t all go. There was a family wedding in Bali but someone had to stay and work. That time it was Lawrence.

Lawrence: We share a calendar [online] so we can see everyone else’s appointments. If we are going to be too busy to do something, we can see who has got the time. It’s all colour-coded.

Derek: We set up messaging threads with all of our vendors that include the entire team so everybody can keep track of what is going on.

Ross: It means we don’t need to have meetings all the time because we already know what is happening with different properties.

Lawrence: And we don’t ask silly questions.

Do you have different strengths?

Ross: I’m the analytical one, I do all the statistics. Derek’s really good at dealing with people and building relationships.

Derek: Lawrence is the responsible one. I don’t know what I’d do without him.

Do you spend much time together out of work?

Ross: Not as much as we used to but that’s okay because we see each other all the time at work. We used to go to a lot of concerts together. We go fishing when we can, on my boat.

Derek: Ross started our addiction to fast cars. We’re into go-karting. Whatever we do, whether it is go-karting or fishing or playing tennis, we get pretty competitive.

Do you ever disagree?

Ross: We occasionally have different points of view. So we discuss it as a team and come to a conclusion.

Lawrence: We have barneys sometimes. But we’re family, so we get over it.