Agents of change
The real estate game is alluring – even for Kiwi celebs – but it’s not without its risks. Kate Robertson reports.
‘The whole telly thing is not a reason that someone is going to sell their house with me,’’ Jayne Kiely remarks down the phone line.
Former athlete and host of Mitre 10 Dream
Home, these days, Kiely is one of many media personalities to have made the move to real estate.
Selling everything from $350,000 units to East Auckland mansions, it’s a career change she knew she couldn’t make until the timing was right for her and her family.
‘‘Once my taxi driving services were no longer required I thought to myself, it’s probably time for me to get my teeth into something. I’m not one to sit around and play tennis.
‘‘I met Megan Jaffe [who owns Ray White Remuera] at a charity function, and she said to me ‘Come on, when are you coming to join the team?’ I said, ‘When I feel the time is right, so I can give it 110 per cent.’ I wasn’t going to do it half pied, because you can’t do real estate half pied, it really is all or nothing.’’
Having spent most of her life on building sites, both at work and at home (where she’s been buying, renovating and selling property for decades), Kiely says a familiarity with agents and a genuine love of property meant the move made sense.
‘‘Dealing with real estate agents throughout that process, you meet some great agents and you meet some people you don’t even know how they make a buck. I figured if those people could do it, then I could do it as well.’’
An industry where the learning never stops, and agents are required to be up to speed on everything from the latest advertising trends to complex property law, Kiely says the steepest learning curve, above all of those things, has been the pressure to get the job done.
‘‘It’s something I’ve dealt with through my athletics and working in TV, but you’re dealing with real lives here and real money. I think the pressure to perform and get the best price for our vendors keeps me awake at night, to be honest.
‘‘When I sign an agency agreement I always get anxiety. You’re holding a big chunk of someone’s life in your hands.’’
Having kissed the somewhat carefree nature of TV behind (‘‘TV was all care and no responsibility’’), she says the added responsibility of being an agent is welcome, particularly when it means working closely with people during one of the most important times of their life.
‘‘You can’t help but become part of their lives. That responsibility is completely different from television. Meeting people is the best.
‘‘I especially like working with couples who wish to downsize from a long-held family home. They’ve just got so many stories to tell. Being a little bit older myself, I think it’s important to sit down and hear their stories, and learn about the history of the home. It’s an absolute privilege to be a part of it.’’
At Kiely’s branch of Ray White she works alongside NRL legend Logan Swann. Two suburbs over, former TV3 sports reporter Hamish McKay is selling homes in St Heliers with Bayleys, the Headless Chickens’ Fiona McDonald is in the central suburbs with Barfoot & Thompson, and Sally Ridge is on the inner city round. Over on the North Shore, Shane Cortese is flipping houses and calling auctions for New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty, a job he says he ‘‘absolutely loves.’’
Cortese agrees that having a recognisable face did him zero favours. ‘‘People would say, ‘He’s Shane Cortese the actor, now he wants to sell my million-dollar, two milliondollar home, where’s his headspace at?’ I could appreciate that, but two years in, real estate is my life.’’
An uphill battle in the beginning, Cortese – who spent seven years in sales before acting took off – admits the early days ‘‘were very hard’’.
‘‘It’s not an easy industry to be in. It’s very much like the acting or the sports industry. There are a lot of actors and a lot of rugby players, but there are only 30 All Blacks and 10 guys from New Zealand making movies in America.
‘‘Similarly, there are an awful lot of real estate agents out there working hard, and not making a huge amount of money. I found that surprising. There’s this perception it’s a pretty easy industry to be in, but there’s an awful lot of groundwork that goes in before a sale is made.’’
Going into the office every day during those first few months, ‘‘even if I had nothing on’’, Cortese listened, and observed, work that didn’t go unnoticed. Less than a year into the gig, he was approached about giving auctioneering a crack.
His voice filling with excitement at the mere mention of an auction, Cortese says he thrives on ‘‘absolutely all of it’’, from the legal knowledge and the negotiating the role requires, right through to the balancing of people’s emotions come auction day.
‘‘It’s a very nervous situation for buyers and sellers, so it’s up to a good auctioneer to put everyone at ease and make sure the best outcome for one and all is done.
‘‘You’ve got to read the room, what’s going on in people’s lives, and extricate every little bit of money they have, while also knowing when they’re tapped out.’’
An industry that requires those in it to pull odd hours and work weekends, Cortese says many who approach him to ask about the new gig seem to forget the fact that, as an actor, weekends have always been something very foreign to him.
‘‘I’m seven days a week, but I haven’t ever done a job that wasn’t seven days a week.
‘‘When someone says to me ‘gosh, you’re going to work in real estate, you’ll have to get used to
working weekends!’ I say, ‘Beg your pardon?’ I don’t have to be up at 4am on set and I don’t have to memorise any lines, which is great.’’
With the balancing of his national auctioneer role and his North Shore agent role keeping him busy around the clock, diehard Cortese fans shouldn’t expect to see him on TV screens at any stage.
‘‘There’s no time in the day. I’ve turned down a multitude of work because I have a wonderful family that I need to look after. I did a play reading for Tom Scott, for his new play, but that’s pretty much all I can submit my time to at the moment.
‘‘My focus is on looking after people’s number one investment.’’
In an industry Kiely says sees ‘‘agents come and go’’, Real Estate Institute of New Zealand chief executive Bindi Norwell recognises the fact those coming from a career in the public eye do have a slightly upper hand when it comes to having a good network of contacts, being good communicators, having strong work ethics, and being tenacious.
‘‘Many of our top performing agents work long hours, and people with media backgrounds are often used to the demanding hours that television requires, so find it easy to make the transition to working outside the normal nine-to-five,’’ she says, before adding the resilience they possess is also appealing.
‘‘To get to the top of the media or sporting world has taken many years of hard graft and training. People who come from these backgrounds are used to being knocked back.’’
Circling back to Kiely, as the conversation comes to a close, it seems rude not to ask what she makes of Mitre 10 Dream Home’s successor, The Block NZ.
She laughs, before letting out a sigh, ‘‘Well, you’ve gotta go with the flow of ratings, so they must be doing something right.’’