DAVID RAINBOW

David Rainbow has won just about every award going since he got into the real estate business nearly 36 years ago. He’s been Bayleys’ top-selling agent in New Zealand three times, and was their first residential agent to achieve over $1bn in sales.

David is very proud of his achievements, but while the kudos is nice, at the end of the day the reward he chases is knowing his vendor is happy.

Three and half decades in real estate is a long time.

It is, but I’m still doing it because I love it. I always get enormous satisfaction out of seeing both vendors and buyers very happy when the transaction goes through. That’s why I’ve kept doing the job so long, and why I have no intention of retiring even though I will be 70 this year. The main person who has helped me is my wife Leonie, and we worked very successfully together for 10 years; she still forms an incredibly supportive part of my business.

Why real estate?

Actually, I was in banking first. I progressed through the ranks pretty quickly and ended up as an area manager looking after South Auckland by the time I was in my early 30s. Then the bank I worked for went through a merger and I decided to take a year off. My wife Leonie and I had a delicatessen which went really well, but by then I had started thinking about real estate.

I get on well with people and I have always liked houses, so it seemed like a good idea.

When I was growing up my family renovated a lot of houses. My father was an airline pilot and when he wasn’t flying he would be doing up a house. I’ve always liked to read house magazines and watch TV shows about property, and also doodle house designs.

Can you remember the first house you sold?

Yes. I sold it for $35,000 in 1984, it was in Ellerslie. How times have changed.

What kind of advice do you give?

I always do my best to be helpful to the agents I work with, especially now that I have a lot of experience behind me. I am always happy to share advice. If you are only in the industry for the money, then you are doing it for the wrong reason. I’ve been able to earn good money, which is fantastic, but what it’s about is facilitating a transaction that leaves the vendor and the buyer happy, and takes the stress out of the buying and selling a house.

It is important to always be truthful to yourself and everyone you come in contact with. Good principles are most important, and treat others like you would like others to treat you. No one who is successful has got where they are without some knockbacks. You need to be gracious when that happens and move on, plus be humble with one’s success. And finally, just be yourself. Don’t try to copy anyone else.

Have you always sold highend homes?

When I first started out I decided I wanted to specialise in those kinds of homes as nobody else was really doing it. So I went in to the city council offices, found out who owned those homes in Remuera and the eastern bays and then wrote to them all, introducing myself. I have built up a lot of contacts over the years and until recently I had 4500 people in my database.

You must have sold some amazing homes over the years.

I have. In saying that, I enjoy being involved in various price levels, not all high range. There have been some incredible places — I have sold homes for more than $20m. I sold Waimanu [the stunning Herne Bay home owned at one time by the Sultan of Brunei] three times, twice to the same person.

I was also lucky enough to be appointed to market Sir Edmund Hillary’s home after he died. I put a lot of work into setting it up, and we had a gold coin donation day for people to come along and look at it, which raised about $1500 for Sir Ed’s school in Nepal. The house was bought by a neighbour and moved to Otara where it has been set up at a school.

But really, it is the people that make it a special business.

Some of them must be pretty high-powered if they are buying and selling multimillion dollar homes.

They have been. I’ve dealt with various people, business leaders, people who are internationally known . . . and I’m not saying who. It is important to be discreet.

I can say that I got to spend a day in a helicopter with Joe Walsh from the Eagles back in the early 90s. He was looking at a property up north which we went up to see, but he didn’t end up buying it. Years later I saw him in a shop in Melbourne — I was there for an Eagles concert — and when I said who I was, he said that day was a very special one for him.

It’s interesting to meet these well-known people but actually, I enjoy meeting and working with people from all walks of life.

Is selling real estate easier now than it was when you started? Technology must make a difference.

I don’t know about easier. It’s certainly different. Cell phones and the internet do make it so much easier to get hold of information. You can do so much more with marketing — when I started the photos were black and white and often we used line drawings because the photos weren’t very good.

Now you have all these extra rules and regulations, such as the Anti-Money Laundering legislation, so it is a bit more of a rigmarole.

The basics of selling are still the same, it’s all about people. You’ve got to find someone who wants to sell their home and someone who wants to buy it, and make sure everyone comes out of the experience feeling happy.

“It is important to always be truthful to yourself and everyone you come in contact with. Good principles are most important, and treat others like you would like others to treat you. No one who is successful has got where they are without some knockbacks.”