How a $34m Lotto win changed an agent’s fortunes

Having a midlife crisis was one of the best things that ever happened to Paul Neshausen. It prompted him to switch careers, and he has been phenomenally successful since starting in real estate just six years ago. Based in Auckland’s Eastern Bays, he’s now in the top 3% of Barfoot & Thompson’s 1500-plus agents, and last year made an eye-popping $2 million in commission.

How was lockdown for you?

I got to spend time with my wife and kids, which was great. But I was still selling houses, in fact I have just had the biggest year ever. Most agents celebrate when they do $1m GCI – gross commission income. That’s a pretty major feat and hardly anyone does it. This year I am celebrating doing $2m GCI.

What did you do before real estate?

A lot of things. Most of them have basically been in sales. Sales is my thing. My first job was working for New Zealand Post, delivering parcels, only we called it being a postal chauffeur. I then sold stationery for a while and then I went to Xerox, which has a worldwide reputation for being the best sales trainer. I’ve also worked as country manager for a company called Lexmark [which sells laser printers] and one called Shipleys NZ, where we would help companies become more profitable by getting involved with their sales capabilities.

I headed up the marketing team at Konica Minolta and while I was working full-time there I did an MBA, which was 24 months of pain. Then I had what I call an epiphany, but others would probably call a midlife crisis. I woke up and thought, I hate corporate. So I quit. I had nothing to go to, I just left.

If you’d said to me, growing up in Hamilton with no money, “Paul, one day you are going to be eating eggplant dip with olives and gouda cheese and biltong”, I’d have said, “I only do chops and mashed potatoes, sorry.”

Why real estate?

I wanted a job where there was no setting on my earnings and where I had complete freedom to do what I wanted. Real estate was the only thing I could think of, to be honest. In my first year I earned more than I did in my best year in corporate, and I became passionate about it. It ticked all my boxes. It is another form of sales, only instead of selling copiers or document management software I am selling something so much more meaningful, someone’s biggest asset. There’s a lot of responsibility that comes with it – you can help to change someone’s life.

Can you remember your first sale?

It was a house in St Heliers listed as a private sale. I thought I’d ring up and see if I could get the listing. I was sure someone else would have done that but nobody had. It was only $1.5m but I was happy to get the listing, I’d have sold a tent on a roundabout.

Any particularly memorable sales?

After that very first sale, I was sitting in the office one day feeling sorry for myself because everybody was super-busy except me. I got a call from reception saying there was a man there who wanted to speak to a male agent, and I happened to be the only one there.

He was an elderly man, really scruffy and unshaven, and he’d forgotten his hearing aids so he was yelling at me and I had to yell back.

He said he wanted to buy an apartment on Tamaki Drive and I thought, Yeah, right. He said he didn’t have a budget, so I said, “Should we look at this one, it’s $2.5m?” I drove him there thinking, What a waste of time. I showed him around and he said, “Okay, I’ll buy it. And I want all the chattels and owner’s car as well.”

We went back to the office to write it up and I still didn’t believe it was going to happen. I thought I was going to be the laughing stock of the office. I said to him, “What’s your story? Did you have a business? Did you come into an inheritance?”

He said, “Don’t tell anyone, but I won $34m on Lotto.”

I sold him that house, and I sold him nine others that year. So I had a bit of a kickstart into real estate thanks to Lotto.

Is it fair to say you hit the ground running in real estate?

It didn’t take me long to get going. I was on a cadetship with Barfoot, where they pay you for six months. I took myself off after three because I was earning more money than the retainer. It’s been forward momentum since then.

What’s the secret of your success?

I think it’s a combination of being a good listener and a good communicator, having good sales skills and a dose of charm. I become a confidant to a lot of people, and a lot of my clients have ended up becoming friends.

For my MBA I majored in corporate governance and negotiation. I think that is one of my strengths. I’ve also got a great team behind me – a couple of really good salespeople and my PA Brett. Plus it is working hard and putting in the hours. I work seven days a week. My job is full-on but it is so rewarding, not just financially but in the sense that you are making a difference to people’s lives.

And of course I couldn’t do my job without my longsuffering wife, Tania. She does all the house and kid stuff (we have seven kids between us, three still living at home, plus two grandkids and another one on the way) while I skylark around selling houses. I tell everyone she’s the reason why I have been so successful so quickly. She has the patience of a saint.

How did the two of you meet?

A mutual friend said a girlfriend was selling her house, and that I should appraise it. So I did. But I didn’t sell it, I moved in instead. Actually, she wasn’t going to give me the listing, she said I was too inexperienced, I’d only been selling real estate for three months. But in the end, it all worked out pretty well for me. We’ve been married for… [checks the date on the tattoo on his arm] …four years now.

With a busy career and seven kids between you, do you get any time for hobbies?

Tania and I dance. We have lessons with Aaron Gilmore [from Dancing With The Stars], learning waltz, salsa… about six different types of dances. Our children dance with Aaron and we wanted a dance for our wedding so we started going to him. We loved it so much we carried on. He’s a great teacher.

My other interests include music. I’m a huge U2 fan first and foremost but growing up in the 80s, I love music from that era. I got an amazing artist called Matt Griffin to paint an aerosol mural on a fence of some music legends who are no longer with us, so I’ve got David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and George Michael in the driveway. I love art, I love cars, I love fashion. I am an unashamed label basher – I wear clothes by Versace, Gucci, Balmain, Fendi, Dolce and Gabbana… you name it.

You have a stunning korowai on display in your hallway –

what’s the story behind that?

My mum Jean, who passed last year, used to make korowai. She was in a short film called Pluck, which won the Best New Zealand Short Film last year, about how she made them. She travelled to the Chatham Islands to get feathers but a lot came from road kill. People used to ring her up, including the cops, and say, “There’s a dead pukeko on such-and-sucha-road”, so she’d toddle on down and get it, or else they’d drop it round to her so she could pluck the feathers. The korowai we have is her Queen Bee one, which she left to Tania.

Do you ever look back at your childhood and wonder what your younger self would think if he could see you today?

I do, a lot. I had a very humble upbringing in Hamilton. My parents met at a company that made plastic stuff then got jobs at the post office. They were very blue collar – it was, “Get a government job and stay there because it is safe.” I was always different, I always had big dreams of grandeur and success.

I look back and the difference between then and now blows me away. The contrast is massive – even when it comes to food. If you’d said to me, growing up in Hamilton with no money, “Paul, one day you are going to be eating eggplant dip with olives and gouda cheese and biltong”, I’d have said, “I only do chops and mashed potatoes, sorry.”

But I am proof that you can make your dreams come true.