Worst house in the top street sells for under $2M

I would like to write about my favourite part of Auckland, Devonport. This suburb reminds me of Manly in Sydney, we can call it Northern Beaches here in Auckland too, it is an amazing suburb with an amazing feel, ambient, old character houses overlooking the Harbour Bridge,  the city.

I used to go there fairly often, we had a client we worked for at the Devonport Naval Base, they called Babcock, I believe they are the biggest contractor at the Army Base. 

I had a job there the other day and as it happens every now and then the dispatch stuffed up the times and I had a bit of time to wonder around and watch what is happening on Monday morning. The township has an incredible feel, the wharf with the beautiful shops and cafes with the beautiful people lined up waiting to embark on a ferry to Auckland CBD. Some of them clutching to scooters or bikes, it is a very convenient commute to city to avoid the Lake road on Hauraki Peninsula that can get pretty clogged up in the morning and on the way back in the afternoon.

I went for a walk and what struck me was the ever presence of Real Estate Offices in that little township. I think there’s more Real Estate offices than cafes, definitely more than hairdressers and massage parlours. I picked up the local paper called ‘The Devonport Flagstaff’ and again it feels like an advertisement for Real Estate industry. On the front page is Barfoot&Thompson, the 3rd page Amanda Evans from Sotheby’s, paige 10-13 Bayleys full page advertisments, ‘Bayleys Altogether Better’, interesting, paige 14 Ray White, EK Group Megan Jaffe Real Estate Ltd, that would be the name of the Ray White franchise, some very sharp looking people Eden and Kim, paige 16 and 17 Bayleys again, 18-19 and 20 is Barfoot&Thompson advertisments, on page 23 is a little column for Bruce Parkinson and Natalie Denton from Ray White, that is not Megan Jaffe Group Kim&Eden, then there are a few pages where surprisingly there are no Real Estate Ads and at the very end is Harcourts Cooper&Co. Martin Cooper and his former business partner Matty Ma (she’s female) and her husband David Rong have been involved in a very nasty legal feud for many years, allegations of financial deceptions and dishonesty, conflict of interest, unethical behaviour, mismanagement of funds you name it. They had this since 2018 as far as I remember. I believe there has been a court verdict in the meantime and the company went into liquidation. Don’t quote me on this please, I have not followed the case, it happens when people make lots of money and that’s when problems arise and eventually you end up in this long winding real estate stouch. I wasn’t going into that, it just occurred to me that maybe that is the reason why Martin Cooper has his advertisements at the very end of Flagstaff as opposed to front page like Barfoot&Thompson or Megan Jaffe Group Kim&Eden.

As I browse through the paper, on the page 6 is a little article with the title ‘Worst house in the top street sells for under $2M’. The picture of the house, looks like a rundown, built in 1915, listing agents Marissa Muirhead and Maria Stevens from Harcourts. It didn’t say if they were related to Harcourts Cooper&Co, it’s not important. They sold it for $1.86M. There was a strong interest, 70 groups, 12 registered bidders (that’s a lot), go Marissa and Maria, well done, a fantastic result.

The thing that came up to my mind and now I’m going to the point why I’m writing this blog, there must be so much money in Real Estate in Devonport that all you need is to sell a house or 2, maybe 3 in a month and you can afford to run a shop in town, employ all the beautiful real estate people and yet to be flushed with money. The worst house sells for $1.86 and that would be $54,000 commission just on this house. What about all those $3M-$4M-$5M houses? You sell one and you can knock off for the whole month, ‘see you next month’.

The biggest dilemma I would have if I had a property in Devonport is ‘who you going to list your beautiful house with?’. You have a house for let’s say $3M, easy in Devonport, that would account to $82,500 in commission, who you going to gift that money to? You have a line-up of people vying for that price money. It could be Kurt Piper from Barfoot&Thompson or Justin Hwang with Tina Rackley from the same company, Amanda Evans from Sotheby’s, what about Trish&Tracey from Barfoot&Thompson, they selling heaps in Devonport, and what about that beautiful couple from Megan Jaffe Group?, Kim&Eden?, they would love to have a share too?, what about Bayleys?, Matt Mimmack Bayleys Nr.1 commercial agent(they all number 1 by the way) and Harcours Cooper&Co?, Martin Cooper would definitely want to have his fingers in that pie after all those years in court rooms and legal expenses.

My point is who you going to list your house with because all these people above and there are many many others, I just can’t name everyone, they all will tell you the following: ‘Give it to us, we will get you the most money’.

Why not Corban+Dallas?, they do everything for you like the others do, they do the marketing, they will guide you through the process of sale, they devise the sales strategy, they organize the auction for you, they will be there to guide you through the offers after the auction if the house gets passed in at the auction. You need a property lawyer and Corban+Dallas and you save yourself a tone of money. 

Would someone tell me why not do it a different way?, more progressive, cost effective?, being in charge of the whole process. Why would you want to give someone $82,500 from the sale of your house?

This brings me into my home suburb of Onehunga. I will include One Tree Hill and Royal Oak in it too. Traditionally there used to be 2 real estate agents servicing this suburb, Rohan Thompson and Martin Honey, both from Ray White. I know Rohan, he’s a decent bloke, an experience realtor with roughly 30 years of experience. I haven’t met Martin, I saw his McLaren or Lamborghini or something like that the other day on the streets of Onehunga, I can’t really tell, not my cup of tea these cars. He has a rego ‘Honey’ on it. 

These days this suburb is swamped with real estate agents of all sorts and kinds. Martin and Rohan are still here but nowhere near as prevalent as they used to be, I should probably mention Dean Tuffley at this point, he’s been doing it only for a few years but he’s a machine, he only sells beautiful houses, he won’t take on anything else, he’s not interested in having houses advertised, he wants to sell. I think he’s biggest asset is he’s just a genuinely nice guy, he makes you feel like ‘you are his best friend’. Who else is here?, I honestly don’t know where to start, it’s a long list of people, some of them I have never heard of. Glen Baker, Jack Davies with Brittany Broadbent from Bayleys One Tree Hill, they would’ve been here for a couple of years, they try hard. Kim Hampson from Bayleys, Sally Dawson, Jo Darbyshire, Linh Yee aka Lingling and Shaan Joshi, Lindy Lawton, James Burry. Lisa Westerby with Montana Northcroft, Rachel Boivin with James McQueen, where they all came from? I don’t know but I’m going to have to stop here because I would have to give you another 200 names. What about Ketiesha Excell Elliott from Barfoot&Thompson? If I was called Excell I would probably do the whole suburb by myself. What about Liz Buyers and Digna Clark from the same company? Wendy Saad and Helen Lam from Barfoot, they sell heaps. VK Verma, Emily Huang, Lucretia Prasad (a very attractive woman), Ben Fong, his billboards reads ‘Now is the right time to sell’. How would you know Ben?. I went for a short walk on Sunday in One Tree Hill. I live locally like Dean Tuffley, that’s his selling line. I noted down these names just by looking at sale signs. Manas Nanda, Paul Qu, Mellisa Taylor and Joanna Xu, Sean Lee, Jean Ham, Isabella Li, Sejal Patel, Aneil Daya, Souvik Dutta, Sandy Wang, Julia Zhu, Vincent Fong, Lola Luo, Freddie Guo, Oscar Pan, Daniel Qiu, Ethan Huo, Johnny He, Alex Wu, Anna Lechtchinski, Michael Wu, Helen Paterson, Max Li, Vincent Bamao, Amy Xiong, George Fong, Zane Munif, William Liang, Alana Whyman, Peter Hickey, Jacinta Kerrigan, Sheila Hunniford, Julia Liu from Wallace. I might go to check that place she’s selling, she can go straight on Instagram. Look I’m not making this up and I have to stop here. These people came on my radar just by walking the streets in Onehunga and One Tree Hill. If I logged on to realestate.co.nz I would have to give you another 200 names. The list doesn’t stop. The point I’m making is ‘Who is going to get you the most?’. 

If I had a property for sale in Onehunga, Royal Oak, One Tree Hill, I would go for Corban+Dallas. Their new innovative approach to selling deserves a chance. Zero commission, flat rates, they devise the sale strategy and how to get the most out of the property, guidance through the process of sale, they organize the auction, top notch marketing you name it. I would definitely give them a chance.

Alternatively you can turn to the list of 200 people who all of them will tell you the same ‘we will get you the most’.