Real estate home ground for a natural negotiator
‘‘The first car I bought, I tendered. I bought it for $15 – it was a bomb but two weeks later I sold it for $45. That was my first deal.’’ John Ross
John Ross knows Lower Hutt like the back of his hand. ‘‘You know how you get to know the wrinkles on your hand or your own fingerprint marks? That’s Lower Hutt to me.’’
The high-profile Professionals real estate agent grew up a stone’s throw from Hutt Hospital.
As one of five children, he and his siblings kept his parents busy.
‘‘We were a very working-class family, a real stable family. We never had much and yet I suppose we had plenty because we had a really loving family.’’
The 58-year-old made a start on negotiations early in life, dealing in marbles on the playground of Eastern Hutt School in the 1960s.
‘‘I just took to it naturally. Negotiation was in my bones,’’ he said.
Once he hit high school, attending Naenae College, he moved on to dealing in cars and motorbikes. ‘‘The first car I bought, I tendered. I bought it for $15 – it was a bomb but two weeks later I sold it for $45. That was my first deal.’’
He was 15 years old. At the time, Naenae College had around 800 students and a ‘‘tough reputation’’ but strong Christian values taught to him by his parents stands out for him in those years.
He is the first to admit school wasn’t his strength – he repeated a year – and he left when he could.
Ross took up a job as a rubbishman. He’d work during the day, finish up around three in the afternoon and head to night school where he was studying mechanical engineering.
‘‘But I never took up engineering.’’
Instead, he graduated to driving the rubbish trucks.
However, the job left his mind restless and when he came across a small, three-line advertisement in the newspaper calling for real estate agents, he went for it.
It was 1981 and he was 21 years old.
There’s a saying in the property industry that you never forget your first sale – Ross’s was in Taita, in 1981. It went for $28,000 but would be worth $400,000 today, he said.
A year later, at 22, he struck out on his own and opened his own office. ‘‘I was the youngest agent in the country to open an office, at 22. I had a full licence at 26.’’
When asked how he grew his business so fast, he points to his natural ability to negotiate and taking advantage of new technology.
‘‘Real estate is often at the forefront of technology,’’ he said.
That included the quick adoption of developments such as the internet and drones.
In the early 90s, he bought his first cellphone. It cost him $3500 but he said it paid for itself in the first two weeks.
‘‘While [my competitors] were running back to their landlines, I was doing business on my phone.’’
He said it was important to keep learning, something one of his primary school teachers instilled in him.
‘‘Mrs Kos, the big thing I got from her was ‘You can do better; you can achieve this.’
‘‘She used to come and say ‘I met one of my old pupils, he’s now a doctor. I met one of my pupils, he’s now a lawyer.’ You got this impression if you were one of Mrs Kos’ students, there was nothing you couldn’t do.’’
At 58, Ross is still learning. He often travels overseas, on ‘‘study tours’’ to see how the market works in different places.
One stop off in Texas saw him working with Ebby Halliday, owner of Ebby Halliday Realtors. When Ross first met her, she was 95 and still working.
‘‘You’d be mad to still be in business at 95 if you didn’t enjoy it. The whole thing is you enjoy what you do.’’
His knowledge and expertise in the industry has seen him frequently consulted on housing issues around the Hutt Valley.
He also helped sponsor the centenary celebrations for Eastern Hutt School in 2015 and runs the largest real estate firm in the area, with 150 staff.
‘‘I’d be the last person to take the credit for the success of the business. It would be so wrong, it’s not, ‘Oh, John has done such a wonderful job.’
‘‘I don’t want to take away from the huge contribution of everyone. You don’t have to go far to see I’ve got some outstanding people.’’
One of the main lessons he tries to teach his staff is the importance of integrity.
‘‘I say here everything starts at home. If there is no trust in the office, if your colleagues don’t trust you it’s only a matter of time before the marketplace doesn’t.’’
He imparted these lessons to his three children – two daughters in their 30s and a 21-year-old son.
Long-time business associate and friend Rudy van Baarle has known Ross for more than 20 years.
‘‘He’s got very high integrity and I don’t think most people appreciate how much he does in the community. He does it all under the radar.’’
That work includes contributions to the Child Cancer Foundation and his firm even took part in a stair climb earlier this year to raise money for the organisation.
Van Baarle first met Ross in the mid 1980s when Ross was working for a small local real estate firm.
‘‘He was young and enthusiastic, just like I was,’’ van Baarle said.
‘‘It’s an interesting scenario, what makes people successful when they come from humble backgrounds.’’