Small Talk Big Ideas - Scott Aggett - Hello Haus Property Negotiators

Thanks for joining us for the Small Talk Big Ideas podcast. A podcast to enrich your soul where we have conversations with inspiring people about all things property, business and life. And now the host of Small Talk Big Ideas, Ian Ugarte.

On this episode we talk to Scott Agate, a person introduced to me by Jane Slacksmith and other podcast and I hope you enjoy today. Scott went to a near death experience in his early ages and has now started hello House Co, a negotiation business for property owners or property purchasers that want to do the best out of their purchase. And he gets paid from saving you money. So that's a good outcome. Enjoy today's episode of Small Talk Big Ideas and as usual, you can follow us on all the social media channels. Scott Agate.

That's it.

Hello.

Hello House.

Hello House.

H A U S. Yeah. So like the car House.

Well, German house.

Oh, is that right?

Yeah. Which matches with my daughter's name, Elsie, which is short for Elizabeth in German. And my son Wolfgang is fairly German.

So you have a German background?

No, we don't have any. Well, I should say that my wife, her mother is a Schroeder, they're Kiwis, 100%. But there is definitely a German bloodline there. But we didn't, we didn't name Elsie for any reference to German history. And Wolfgang or Wolfie, we just love the name. We wanted a strong male name that was an old name like Elsie is as well. And that's not used, it's not common.

It's interesting because you could talk about past lives and perhaps you were in a past life, if you believe in that.

Is he German?

Yeah, possibly.

Yeah.

Like we, we.

Our marriage was based on what I saw in Braveheart. So I always had an affinity to Scottish type stuff. And so the tartan, we don't have any wedding bands. So the tartan that in the ceremony in Braveheart was, you know, they tore a section of the tartan off and they wrap around the hand and that was part and you know, sweet. That's the. So we actually did that. We wrapped a ribbon around each other's hands, cut the ribbon, she put half around my neck, I put half around hers. But I've always wondered whether. And indigenous is the other thing for me. I've got a. Australian indigenous is a big attraction to me to help out there. I wonder whether you're a German.

Yeah, I don't know. It's a good question, isn't it? And the. I used to live in London for five years and I twice came across People that did, you know, history, bloodlines, surnames and things. And Agate is not a common name and you can trace that back to kind of Staffordshire in mid to North England. But the two surname people that I met, the historians, one said it was Welsh and the other one said it was Agate, which was the first or the last family in the village, the gatekeeper.

Right.

Yeah. So who knows, maybe it was a village in, in, you know, outside of Hamburg.

There is an agate crystal as well.

Yeah. A G, A T, E. Different spelling.

We name all our structures. We are purchasing structures over crystals.

Nice.

So we pick a crystal with an energy that we like and. And then we go down that line. Anyway, no one really knows what you do yet.

So let's start, let's start with firstly.

I'll ask you the question, are you a buyer's agent?

No, I am not a filthy buyer's agent.

I've always got a problem in general.

And I say a very big percentage of general. I don't like buyer's agents. I think they have a conflict of interest finding you a property. So they get paid.

Keep talking.

Yeah. And so I'll do, I'll do it in for you. I'm. I'm yet to find, I think I may have found one or two buyer's agents that I think consistently does very good for their, for purchases for their clients. But otherwise, I think getting paid and you know, we've got a buyer's agency getting paid so that you, because you found something for someone means that you don't necessarily. You might cross over the line and go, well, it's not quite right, but I'll get it for them anyway.

Yeah, the incentives aren't aligned as far as I'm concerned. But I agree with what you just said then, that there's, there's legitimate buyer's agents and I've come across quite a few of those in my dealings as an estate agent previously in my former life. So I'm not, I'm not out there bad mouthing buyer's agents in general. I was just doing that as a joke. But I do think the incentives aren't aligned and that's a major problem. And I say that from experience and I think, you know, it's. You hear a lot of people that will commentate on these things in the property industry, but unless you sat in all those seats and understand how the dynamics of a deal really works, it's difficult to be an expert, to pass judgment on that. So I think I'm coming from A good place that I was an estate agent, I saw it day to day. I dealt with buyer's agents non stop and they were the first buyers, you know, that we called. If we had a property that we knew wanted to sell for big money quickly and we knew they had a buyer that just missed out on something else, we would ring them and we would make them pay an absolute premium. With cream on top.

Yeah.

And they did that because they knew they had a client and it was, as far as I'm concerned, it was an easy sale for them. So I looked at it and thought, this is just, it's another version of being an estate agent which is just full of holes that you can punch through it. Good buyer's agents will always do the right thing and represent their clients. Good estate agents will always do the right thing and represent both sides of the coin as best they can. There's plenty of really good agents out there as well, but there's also lots of really average agents. But it's the same in every industry.

Yeah. Now you like briefly talk about the business that you. That I think is really interesting, which is. Hello, House.

You're a negotiator.

Yeah.

Tell us how that works.

Well, the number one thing that I enjoyed about being a real estate agent was the argy bargy of negotiation time. So I got out of the industry in 2015, incredibly frustrated by the lying and the game playing that you've got to do on both sides of it. Dealing with vendors, winning listings and also dealing with the buyers to get them in position to, to action a purchase. So I was burnt by the industry. I'd been in it for 20 years and I wanted to do something that was completely transparent and come at it to service the buyers, which I thought, you know, it's a bad term, but they're really lambs to the slaughter really. When you go up against a trained estate agent that works on scripts and dialogues daily or weekly, versus someone that might be into the market every seven or ten years as a one off transaction, that's hugely emotional. It's just not fair. So I thought this can be done better. I will build a transparent real estate business here that helps purchasers and tries to make a difference in the marketplace. So that's kind of how I started on the negotiation journey because it was something that I really loved.

So rather than being buyer's agent, the client finds the property and you end up negotiating on behalf of the client and see if you can get it for the price or less than what you Both agree on.

Yeah. So I really say that I'm the insurance policy you need as a buyer, that you A, win the property and B, that you buy it for the least amount possible. That's pretty simple. I work closely with people that have got the ability to find their own properties. They can do their own legwork and then I step in. I'm happy to coach them up until a certain point where they engage me. If they find the right property that they want to trigger and then we get them to set a target price, I ask them to set it because I want that transparency first. And then I'll talk to them and workshop it if it needs to be moved. If I think they're unrealistic and they're not going to buy the property because that's the first goal is to own it, I'll reset that and then ascertain how I build a strategy around it to buy it at the lowest price I can.

Okay, we'll talk about that in more detail. But let's talk about you and where you grew up. Where were you born? Where did you grow up?

I was born in Ryde, lived there till I was three and then lived on the Gold Coast. My dad had a service station at Mermaid beach, so we lived there from when I was three till nine in Palm Beach.

That would have been very different back then.

Yeah, it was awesome. Just grew up the whole time on a canal and swimming non stop with my dog and it was so much fun. We had a great. I had such fond memories of Palm beach and the Gold coast and then went home at nine and we moved back to Epping and then kind of did all my schooling in. In Epping and what school I went to Epping Public and Epping Boys. Yeah.

So.

I hated school, to be honest. I had amazing friends, I had a great group of friends, but I absolutely hated being told what to do. I had this really bad attitude towards teachers, which I really regret now as an adult and as a father. But I had this, I don't know, this idea in my mindset from a very young age that why should I listen to you about this when you've never gone out and done it in the real world? And I just couldn't get my head around that and I just didn't listen and I had a football in my hand the entire time and all I wanted to do was play sport.

Do you ever have an opportunity to go back and. Or run into any of the teachers that you were?

No, not really. Actually, it'd be interesting to go back and have a chat to them. But yeah, it's not until I think you came. Well, when I, you know, got a lot smarter as an adult but B had children. Does that really sink in for me about how silly that attitude was? But that's just the reality. You can't look back at it and change those views. That was what I went through at the time.

I think, well, there's a level of intelligence that happens there, that there is an IQ that allows you to think differently, whereas most are falling into the line of, you know, I have to do this and I'll just keep on learning. I've got a daughter that's, you know, into a third school.

Yeah.

And it was interesting because the second school, which is a Christian college, not that we're Christians, it's just. It was a school to send to her to see if she could get into alignment.

Her younger sister, who started year seven this year, Macy's in year 11. So she's moved on to another school, but the younger one is now at the older school and. And I ran into a teacher and it's just a buzz in the staff room. How can this child be from the same family?

Because they were making judgments about us.

But Macy's just an extraordinarily intelligent person and is starting to learn, like you said that now there's a regret about, oh, maybe I shouldn't have done it that way and I should have said it differently. And for me, you know, I went to a private boys school in Sydney and I always felt like they were picking me out, that, you know, I always got in trouble because of whatever and I had the opportunity to go back and speak to the headmaster that, you know, was the one that was always picking on me and thankfully was old enough at that point in time to say to him, I completely understand what you were doing. And yeah, how I was out of line and how I thought I was the one in the conspiracy theory here. And we had a really great conversation. It was, it was really.

I'm sure lots of kids have a challenge with that same sort of outlook, aren't they? Or for different reasons as well. But yeah, as I say, you can't go back and paint over these things. That was part of my childhood and the experience, but I really didn't enjoy it. And I think that's what probably drove me into, you know, getting into a sales job or something that I could do and be the master of my own destiny pretty quickly after I left school.

So you left school. What did you do?

I did a full time. The full time real estate licensing course at TAFE in Crow's Nest. So I did that for a year and then I started working at Ray White head office in the city. In the cbd.

Yeah.

Right.

And in commercial.

No, I did kind of just like the office lackey job. One of my sort of family members is married to my sister's side actually is Peter Matthews. I don't know if you know, Peter is one of Australia's leading auctioneers and was a phenomenal real estate agent himself in Sydney. And I did my work experience at school with Pete at Ray White in Bankstown.

And you probably didn't even realize who he was or.

Oh no, I mean I knew who he was because he was effectively fat at that point. But. But yeah, right. From age 16 I did that as work experience. I went out and be a sales agent at Ray White. Yeah. And Pete got me this job at head office where he was doing a lot of auctioneering work and I would set up the auction rooms and I would collate all the franchise numbers from across the country and report to. To Brian White. Yeah. So I had. That was just an office lucky job. But what I got to do, which was fantastic, the best part of that was I was A, seeing all the numbers from the offices or the franchise numbers, what they were doing, which was really interesting. And. And B, I was physically at every single corporate auction they did. And they might do, I don't know, I can't remember 10 or 20 on every Thursday or every Tuesday and Thursday. So I've just watched so many auctions. More, more than most people unless you're an auctioneer. I've seen so many of them play because it's interesting.

We were last night with our private mentoring students that came up hot market right now one of them's going to auction. You know, what's the auction techniques? And to. And, and I said just go to as many as you can go to because you're going to see a whole bunch of scenarios play out. You're going to see the same thing repeating itself from the auctioneer. You know, it drives me insane.

Going once, going twice.

I'll just go seek some instructions.

You just go, we know it's going to happen. It's like, it's like going to a property spruce. A wealth creation seminar. This is $75,000 worth. But today you can get it for five. You go, come on.

Yeah.

Are we that stupid?

Yeah.

Okay, so you start working. When do you actually get to the.

Front Face of selling properties.

Well, I did property management first so I did three years and the first three years. So I did Ray White dy. Ray White Linfield. I did some sales at Linfield as well, just selling apartments and things like that. And then I got to age. I must have been 20 and I was playing rugby at that point for Eastwood and then changed over and played for Gordon.

Good player?

Not really. I played first grade Colts with Sterling Mortlock and Joel Wilson. A few players that played for the Wallabies the following year, that's my claim to fame. But I was always the kind of just getting into the first grade Colts team.

At what position?

Fullback.

Yeah. Right.

Yeah. And I had those two guys future Wallabies in, in front of me so I basically never made a tackle for the whole season which was good. Yeah.

So yeah, interesting.

Do you think in hindsight that you could have made it to top level?

I don't think so. I, I just wasn't. I don't think I was motivated enough and I was full of self doubt. Like I think at that age it's probably taken me quite a fair few years, maybe even to my 30s that I got more confidence around what I.

So that's my question with it, with the, with what you know now and the confidence you got now. Firstly, would you have want to get to the top grade and with what you know now, do you think it would have got you there?

Probably would have wanted to. Whether I physically could have done it is a different story. Right. But yeah, I mean I think if you've got the desire to. And whatever body shape you are, you probably get, you probably arrive at those things. But yeah, it's interesting to look back at that. But I think it comes down to want, isn't it? Like if you look back at it whether the confidence is one thing but I clearly didn't want it enough. It just wasn't a priority enough for me. I saw it more as a social thing I think at that age than I did a, you know, a career or a potential career. And I did this with tennis as well. When I was I think 14, just turned 15, I went to America playing tennis tournaments to America and Canada and I was never good enough to ever break through or do anything that was compelling. So I kind of never tried any harder than that, if you know what I mean. Like I was playing probably six or seven days a week socially and different competitions and things but I knew I'd never get to that level so I just stopped and then I never played Tennis. I haven't played tennis since I was 15. I basically came home from America and I've never picked up a tennis racket.

Yeah, I mean, it's same with golf. I was a pretty decent golf for it. It was, I think I was 12 off. 12. 12 years old hitting a 12 handicap.

Yeah.

And it was going down and, you know, just didn't take it up.

Okay, so you're playing footy.

You've sold a few properties through Linfield.

Yep.

When do you get to really sell?

Well, I think depends how much you want to dig into this really. But at age 20, I had an opportunity, I really wanted to travel. Had massively had the travel bug and hadn't really been overseas other than that American trip when I was 15. So together with my girlfriend at the time then she was at university at uts doing a business degree. She's since gone on to do Three Birds renovations.

Oh, is that her?

Yeah, Lana. She's the driving force behind that. She's married to Jason Taylor. Yeah. So JT and Lana are still really close friends of mine, but Lana and I were together then and I think it was just on my 21st birthday and she was at UTS and I really wanted to go traveling. So I had, I thought, how am I going to do this and get a job over there? I want to go snowboarding, so I want to go and do this for. And try and work out if I can get a job in the ski field. So I forged her university results and scanned them with my name over the top of it, sent that to the U.S. embassy, got myself a work visa for the U.S. and then got a job as a snowboard instructor in Colorado. And I had, I had snowboarded for about maybe 14, 15 days ever in my life, over say five years before that. Completely self taught, completely useless, like a horrible, horrible snowboarder. And I got there and I thought, how am I going to do this at this ski school and try and get a job? And they had maybe 80 or 100 kids trialing for the ski and snowboard team to become instructors, all of which were American and Canadian. A couple of people from overseas and I, I did this lesson with them and I was the worst by far. It was embarrassing how bad I was. They all grew up in the snow and they were all gun skiers and snowboarders. I.

But let me guess.

Terrible.

They. Let me guess. They love the accent.

They love the accent. But not only do they love the accent, they love the fact that I was a salesperson because all the other kids were bong heads and ski bums and I could sell. So they were like, this is gold. So A, you've got this great accent, and B, you can sell. So you're in. You're on the snowboard team. So I just every day went along with the snowboard pro and got better.

Skill versus talent.

Yeah, exactly. To match your story. So I became a snowboard instructor in Colorado. And then that finished on Australia Day, 1999, by a very large tree that I hit at full speed. So that was the end of my rugby and all other sport and start of my terrible back pain and end of my snowboarding career. Well, pause the snowboard crew. We'll come back to that later, I'm sure.

So what happened? So, just lost control, Hit a tree head on. Or.

I was with Lana, actually. She came over to see me for a week and with a whole group of mother friends that were there that I'd made in that ski season. And it was the last run of the day at Vail, and we'd gone up the gondola together. There's about eight or ten of us. And someone had said, last run of the day. Meet you at the bottom. And someone else said, never ever say it's the last run of the day. It's bad luck. Got to the top. I was riding really fast because obviously, as I was instructing that point in riding all day, every day. So I let them all ride off into the sunset, down to the bottom of the mountain on this huge long run until I couldn't see them. And I thought, I'll chase them and I'll beat them to the bottom. So I started doing a few turns, built up my speed to full speed, heading towards the woods on a wide open run. Hit a little snow cookie, lost my edge and went straight into the woods. And it wouldn't have been a, you know, it wasn't a particular tree. I would have hit whatever tree there was. Just I. I was heading straight for it. And I remember kind of just trying to almost, in that split second, do a baseball slide almost to trying to go into it without head first. And I smashed my shoulder, broke my wrist.

Yeah. Crushed my kneecap like a spider's web. Crush my meniscus inside my knee.

They're all down the bottom of the hill.

They wouldn't have known about down the bottom. And they couldn't. They couldn't find me. And then. So it was the last run of the day. Starting to get dark, obviously very cold in January. And then they Couldn't find me. It went on for about 45 minutes and I was unconscious. I'd fallen into the woods, head first down, and no one could see me or no one knew where I was because I was the last rider. So everyone's partying for Australia Day down the bottom and they're sitting there waiting. They were freaking out. And then, yeah, I was very, very lucky. I kind of got my life saved that day. There was two old men cross country skiing, and I was going in and out of consciousness and screaming. And one of them heard the noise, crossed his skis, hiked through the trees up the hill, found me. The other guy skied down and got ski patrol, then came back and then put me in the banana boat, you know, cut all my ski gear open, put the heat packs in and the oxygen masks. And they had no idea what I'd done, if I'd broken my neck or what it was. I couldn't talk. And then put me in the banana boat and got me down. And so there was thousands of people or hundreds of people at least, at the bottom of Vale celebrating Australia Day. And then just watched this. My girlfriend just watched this lonely banana boat come down. Still had no idea if it was me or what it was. And there was a snowcat ambulance waiting. And then straight into the snowcat ambulance. But just before I got into her, I remember I couldn't. I had no idea what I'd done. I thought I'd broken my neck and. Or I was a mess. And Lana came screaming over to the ambulance and had me on the ground and was just uncontrollable, just screaming her eyes out, her lungs out. And I was. I was just panicking because I couldn't see what was wrong. I had no idea. And it turns out it was nowhere near as bad as what I had. I thought, thank God. So, yeah, far out. That was a pretty heavy experience for me.

And if it wasn't for those two.

Guys, yeah, I don't know what would happen. But it's pretty brutally cold in Colorado in. In late Jan as it gets to nightfall. And yeah, I would have thought that I wouldn't have got out of there that night at least. So, yeah, you would have been brown bread for sure.

Wow. Okay.

So back to Oz.

Yeah, back to Oz. On crutches and had surgery in Australia. And then, yeah, I kind of had like three months of, you know, rehab. And then I thought, what am I going to do? I don't want to be in Australia. I left to go. I wanted to go to the US to go snowboarding and then to England to try and play rugby and get a job in real estate or do some of that. So I thought oh well, stuff it, I'll just go to London anyway and land there and see what happens. So I got a two year working holiday visa and once I'd done my rehab, got on a plane and flew over there and met up with a couple of rugby mates from Sydney that were living there and working and just in a share house and I went for one job interview and landed at Foxton's in Islington. Foxton's at that time was kind of like, well the best way to explain it is I think McGrath followed Foxton's in terms of their business model and their branding and how they were really the star kind of real estate agency in the world I think at that point in terms of technology and how they went about the business. Worked in property management there in new business lettings actually which is exactly the same as sales role. You just match a tenant with a, with a property and yeah, did lots of deals there and did that for nine months and then got poached by a competitor in the street.

Helped set up their business for two years and then got poached by another competitor and did that for another two years, set up their business and then yeah, chase my girlfriend at the time home after I bought a couple of properties and sold a couple of what is in London. So that was 21 to 25 and then chased my girlfriend at the time of five years that I met there when I first arrived to come home. She wanted to do a second degree. So yeah, they ended up back in Sydney and kind of begrudgingly really I didn't want to be back but missed all my friends in the UK and had created a life for myself over there and was doing really well and had to start from scratch in Sydney again.

Back to Ray White?

No, back to.

No. I went for one job interview which was Bell Property in Edgecliffe or Darlinghurst at the time and got that job in sales. So I'd never really been a full time sales agent as I said. So I was kind of starting from scratch. I didn't know anyone in the eastern suburbs. I wasn't from there. But yeah, started from scratch working with those guys and it was when it was owned by Chris Meehan who was the original founder of IT and John Hewson the politician. So did that for. I can't remember the amount of it must have been two or three years working for sort of head office when there were three franchises. They had one in Manly.

And then a couple of offices of their own that they owned one in Port Douglas. And then, yeah, they had. They were going bankrupt fast and doing a pretty average job of it.

Why?

They started being property developers and doing things like this in Port Douglas, which just drained their cash.

Went upside down.

Yeah, they built the pool development in Port Douglas, which was really expensive and I think was just too big, too soon. Yeah. Just not focused on being residential estate agents. But Chris was an incredible person to follow around. Hugely successful estate agent at the time, writing big, big numbers, like a James Dack kind of figure in real estate in those days. Coined the term expressing expressions of interest, I think as well, and started that whole sale method in. In Potts Point, Elizabeth Bay, around those areas. So I was a really interesting person and quite entrepreneurial to sort of work with. But they were going out of business fast and they're just running out of cash. They were about 60 or 70 staff. They were too heavy, so they were cutting back all the time and making adjustments and they couldn't pay our superannuation. And they came to my boss at the time, Mark Murphy, and said, if you and Mark take a franchise, we'll basically trade off the super that we owe you and we'll give you a business.

Really?

Yeah. So that's how Potts Bell property, Potts Point started. Was Mark and I trading off our super at the time and. Yeah. Starting the first franchise in the eastern suburbs of Bell property.

It's pretty cheap. Or was it.

Oh, I don't know, in retrospect, what were we paying for? I mean, a business that was going bankrupt and. Yeah. So probably not in the grand scheme of things, but it just. That's just life. It just. That's how it fell. The cards lay that way. So I don't look back and think we paid too much, we paid too little.

Didn't have a choice.

Yeah. But also not even the choice, but there's the opportunity. Right. That opportunity wasn't there today, yesterday and it's there today. So, yeah, I think you're either one of those people that jump in at that point or you get really tentative. And I was just, you know, two feet in, in half a second and work the rest out later.

So you get your first franchise with Bell 29. At 29.

Yep.

You had to build a rental role from nothing.

Had to build everything from scratch, Right. Yeah. All the systems. All we had was the brand to work with and. And that was it. And no real infrastructure because they were going bankrupt. So we. We went on to have a second franchise with them as well. So we opened up Walsh Bay under the Harbour Bridge on the waterfront there. So we had two businesses. And then at that point, Peter Hanscom came in, who's the. The current owner of Bell Property, who came from Ray White in Brisbane. And he was also CEO, I think, at one point, of McGrath initially, or. Or groomed to be CEO of McGrab. I think John wouldn't step away, step away at that point.

So he left Segue there.

Yep.

I like what John McGrath's done. I hear he's a very.

Strong personality. Have you had much dealings with him?

Not really. I've met him personally quite a few times, but I don't know him at.

All because he started.

He was an auctioneer.

Yeah. And I think he's obviously a phenomenal estate agent and a great business person to get that. That business to where it is. So I don't have anything bad to say about it.

I read one of his early books and it just made a lot of sense. Very practical. You know, from Monday to Friday, just eat the standard food that you should eat, you know, and if it's not on the menu, just ask him to make you a chicken sandwich.

I think it was fish, wasn't. He had fish in every meal. And he laminated all his power words in the shower and he reversed into every car spot so he could drive in positive fashion forward in the morning. See, that's where John and I will fall apart because we were never meant to be friends.

But it was really simple. You know, you sell a house, you.

Go by and say hello to those people all the time.

Because that front of mine, next, when they want to sell, they'll be thinking, oh, that was the guy that sold.

It to me and he's been really nice to me. I'll contact him.

We sold one of our properties.

We don't sell many properties, but our last Sydney Property, we sold three. McGuire, it was Eastern Suburbs. And the agent rang me, goes, oh, my God. John just rang me and he tore strips off me because the sold sign was like 3 millimeters off being parallel.

To the, like, level.

It was really upset. Absolute perfectionist.

So, okay, so now you've got two bells.

Two bells, yeah. And then Peter Hanscom stepped in and with a huge vision to grow the business and make it into, you know, Australia's leading boutique agency, which he did. And I think when I left, they had, you know, over sort of a seven or eight year period, he took it to about 80 franchises, which was awesome. Yeah. So being in that hot seat in terms of the first two franchises in the east, that gave me the opportunity to do more franchises and we branched out after I sold Potts Point and Walsh Bay. Mark, my business partner at the time, wanted to get out of it and do something different. He moved to London. He'd had enough of doing that day to day. And I still had that kind of. I wasn't ready to get out of real estate. But I absolutely. Looking back at it and even at the time I knew it, I absolutely hated it. I hated it. So I hated the day to day of it, but I just couldn't step away from the earning, you know, that really good money and building wealth and I just enjoyed the lifestyle that it afforded me on that side of things. So, yeah, stupidly or not, I don't know. I'm glad I went and did it in retrospect, but I didn't enjoy it. But it was a good life experience. I went off and did Bell Property, Surrey Hills and did that for another four years and sold that and sold that at the end of 2015. Yeah, but that was a real struggle.

So move back to Queensland then.

Yeah. So part of this journey, I guess is probably to do with my dad as well, because dad was. My dad had Parkinson's for 33 years or 35 years and passed away in 2016, in August of 2016. So we, my sisters and I were all in Sydney as well and we were, you know, constantly with him as much as possible in a nursing home and watching him. But we didn't want to do anything until we worked out what happened with dad, really. So which we knew eventually was going to be him passing. So when he passed away in August, I think we were in Queensland six weeks later. Yeah, so we just. I'd had that year, almost a year of winding down, getting rid of the stress, not working at all. I just had our first child in that in 2015, so a year earlier and I just wanted to spend time with Elsie and Bids my wife and yeah, just get the hell away from Sydney and real estate. And my wife's from New Zealand, she's from Christchurch and got no affiliation with Sydney. So, yeah, her brother was on the Gold coast and wanted to. She wanted to come and see the Gold coast and yeah, we kind of made that move.

What's it like to see you had good relationship with your father?

Yeah, very close.

And what's it like to see that, you know, over many Years that the fall down of his health and get to that point.

Yeah, it's so. It's crushing watching a strong man like that go through that change in your life for such a long period. It was horrible for my sisters and I and for. And for our mum. But it is what it is, right. Like it's just part of life. And he, he did as well as he could. He was a real family man and engaged with all the grandkids and stuff like that. Probably the hardest thing for me was A watching that but B then not having my kids have him around like to have that grandparent. When I grew up I had one grandparent. The other three had passed away so I don't have any, any recollection of those. So I didn't want that. Obviously no one wants that for their, for their children. So that was probably a tough thing.

I think that's, that's probably one of the things for me. I mean I'm. I'm a child of immigrants to Australia. Australian born, only just could have been conception on a plane.

Where from?

From Spain, north of Spain. And yeah, so I had three grandparents alive but I only really got to meet them twice.

Yeah.

And I look at my children so Christine's parents have passed away so they really. I have two grandparents, my kids and we moved them away from Sydney.

Yeah.

And I've got this great regret that I see other people have a bond with their grandparents and it's. And it's, it's one of the regrets of moving up here. I mean I love being in Queensland but. Yeah.

Yeah. Family is pretty key, isn't it?

But we.

It's probably a good segue to, to the. Fast forward to today where we're at. I'm just finishing a renovation on a property that we've bought as an interim home for us which will be hopefully a long term investment property. But I bought literally 5 meters away from my in laws.

Yeah. Right.

So I bought them a house last year or found them a house. They bought it themselves that I gutted and renovated for them was a waterfront townhouse in mermaid waters. And we've literally bought. There's one in between us attached. So we're literally five meters away from them. So I'm trying to work out a way now how I can dig a tunnel through to my father in law's wine collection.

And also have like a babysitting gate where I can exchange my children for wine.

Yeah. The only way to get.

You can have woofie but you'll need that Bottle of Central Otago Pinot come with you?

Can the barcode on the way through through?

Yeah, but we're really close. Like they're, they're so amazing. My, my wife's parents, they're such beautiful humans and all they want is to be involved with the grandkids. So they are literally. My kids are just in their house non stop. Like my son will wake up, he's two and a half and like, I want to go Nan's house. It's the first thing he says. Yep. And Nan will be at the door before he gets a chance to say, I want to go to Nan's house. So it's, it's quite sweet. But they have their own privacy and they don't on our back at all. They're just super chilled.

There's a lot of.

There's a lot to be said about multi generational homes. Yeah. Where, you know, if I had stayed in Spain, I would be living. I would have lived in a multi generational. I'd still be living in a multi generation. Like my, you know, my parents would be living with me and, you know, very much an Asian culture thing where actually your grandparents bring up the children.

Yeah.

While the parents go out and work.

But it's big in so many corners of the world, isn't it? Oh, yeah, it's. It's not a unique thing. So, yeah, we've really enjoyed having them close by and having the family. But. But of course, what comes with that is you miss what you left behind in Sydney. Right. So I've got two sisters, one's in Sydney and I miss that family dearly and only get to see them occasionally, not often enough. And then coming up here was nice because my sister lives in Palm View and my mum lives in Budrum, so I got to see both them last night. And your smiley face today. Easy.

Where'd you meet your wife?

At Mankind, which is like a male grooming shop on Crown street in Surry Hills. She was my therapist. She was a skin specialist.

Therapist.

Yeah, well, skin therapist.

So someone who fixes your skin and then counsels you at the same problems in the world.

It's quite a nice story, actually. My best friends gave me a voucher to get a massage or a facial or something like that. And I had never had one in my life. I'm not a guy that likes massages. I'm not into it at all. I'd never had a facial in my life. It sat on my fridge as a bachelor for the best part of a year with a Use by date on it. And then I thought, oh, I better go use that. You know, out of respect to my friends that gave me this beautiful present. So booked in. This spot was across the road from my office, Mankind, opposite the clock on Crown Street. There, went in and met Bridget. So she was the girl that was going to do the facial. And normally, guys, I've been told go in there and just basically fall asleep or, you know, quiet time for an hour while someone massages you or works on your skin or do whatever. But because I was nervous and I'd never done this before, I was just, you know, fish out of water. I was just doing what I always do, talk. So I started talking and Bids is actually quite a quiet person, a real introvert. But she was answering my questions and talking and engaging and the rest of it. And basically it just became a counseling session. Like, you know, I was actually. I wasn't a bachelor at that point. I was right at the end of a relationship that I'd been in for five years that I was trying to get out of actively, that I wasn't enjoying. And I had a. You know, I just spent time talking to her and I got on really well and just chatted and then went again three months later, six months later, and then had a similar conversation where you're up to now, well, I've broken up from that person and I'm single and the rest of it, and this is what I'm up to. And what about you? And then I went again another three months later and. And then Bridget asked me, who are you looking for? Like, well, you know what? Who are you trying to find? And I said to her, this is probably a cheesy line, but it wasn't delivered cheese. I said, somebody just like you, with great banter. Someone that I have fantastic banter with. And we kind of both laughed. And then I asked her out on a date and then married her. Yeah, it was match made in heaven.

And that was the last method she ever gave you?

Yes.

Yeah.

Interestingly enough for Christine, I had just finished a massage course and I gave her a massage as one of our first dates.

Yeah.

So anyway, that sounds sleazy.

So.

You then are on the Gold Coast.

You've got a few businesses.

Yeah. So the long story with the Gold coast one is. So we moved when I said to you when dad passed away. And then I said to Bids, so that's what I call my wife, Bridget. Bids. I said to Bids at the time, I want to go to Italy or France, learn another Language, not speak to any other humans. Live in the countryside with our kid and just live a completely different lifestyle for a year or two years and just see what happens in our life and what direction we go. Because we absolutely love Italy in particular, but that we've got family in Spain and things as well. But anyway, so beads is like, yep, fine, we'll go to Europe and do this, because that's a dream of yours. And she loves traveling as well. But she said, on the way to going to Europe, can we go to see my brother and family on the Gold coast and spend a bit of time there? Because I never get a chance to see them. And I said, yeah, sure. I love the Gold Coast. I never go up there anymore. Got fond memories there. So let's go up. We'll go up for like a month or two. And she's like, that's awesome. That'll be great. So then I thought about going up there. I was like, I really want to be a property developer, whether I do this here, there, or somewhere else. And Gold coast is a lot cheaper to do it. So it's, you know, it's an easy place to get started. It's familiar. Why don't I buy a house up there and we'll go and move into it and I'll renovate it from Sydney and I'll do it, you know, fly in and fly out and do it. So I did this for a matter of maybe two months, and I would fly up, I'd see 15 open for inspections or 20 in a day and fly back the same night. And I did that for maybe four to eight weeks until I knew the market. I was looking specifically at one suburb. So I really honed in on that.

So realistically, because. Because it's. Something comes up all the time. You know, Christine's good enough now that within eight hours she could probably get to know a market really well.

Yeah, I'm the same.

So effectively all the same, I'm saying. But that comes from years and years and years and years of experience.

Yeah. To know what you're looking for and to look at the things that are potentially hiding, I guess, you know, what's not being told in the story. But once you identify a suburb, it's pretty easy then just to load up on the data and dig into the. The recent sales and what's currently on the market. So, yeah, I did that, bought a house, renovated it, moved in in September that year, and then thought, actually, we really love it here. And then we've four and a Half years later, we're still there. And I've done six houses in four and a half years, so we still.

Haven'T got to Italy yet.

Still haven't gone well, Been to Italy lots of times on holidays in that meantime, but never made it to live there. And I doubt now in retrospect that we'll. We'll get to do that for some time because we're now at that age. It's school age now. Right. With our first.

So if you were to go to Italy, regardless of timing, where would you, you know, would you be going? Into something in the hills and an older estate house and doing that up or.

No, I think we would go to.

Sicily or Solar de Elba, like an island off Tuscany there or up near Genoa. You know, it's got to be coastal. We both love the water, so wherever it is, it's going to be lapping onto the Mediterranean. Yeah. Even if it was something small, but yeah, definitely a love affair with the water and Italian food and language.

Okay, so you're now on the Gold coast, living there, everything's good.

And you find that you think you can probably fulfill a market that doesn't exist, because I don't know if there's. The first time I've ever heard of anyone that does what you do in.

Terms of the Hallow House, the negotiation side of things.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, it was. It was burning hole in my. My brain for a few years because I'd been had. I had this idea for probably a decade plus from when I was an estate agent and just didn't really know how to execute on it. And probably going back to your motivation point, wasn't motivated to execute on it because I had other things that was going on. But I realized that to do the development thing, which I. Which is my passion, which is what I really love, architecture and design and buying properties, just really enjoy that part of it. I need to have an income stream because it was just lumpy and risky. So I thought, okay, well, I've got to build a business myself. Let's build a business that I can stay in T shirt and shorts. I can stay at home with the kids. I can be with my wife all the time. I can travel whenever I want to. I don't have any staff, and I can do something that I love. What is it? I was like, hello, house, that negotiation business. So that's how it was kind of born. And then I just had to work out, get it out of my head onto paper and. And, you know, model out how it could potentially work. But that was challenging because as you said, no one's done it before and no one's still doing it today. So it really was, without sounding egotistical, it was breaking new ground. So there was no model for me to follow. You know, I was just had to work it out on the run.

So it's Hallowhouse Co. Yes, a few testimonials there. And so what was your first, what was your first conversation to get the first project or the first client?

I think I promoted it through my own social networks and just, and put it out there on Facebook that I'm launching this and this is what I'm going to do. And then I had friends and family in different areas refer on friends that were looking to buy or in the market that were having challenges. And what you realize is you scratch the surface. As you well know, everybody knows someone buying a home in Australia because it's like contact sport. Australians love talking about it at dinner parties and at family meetups. Everyone knows someone that's going through it. Everyone has problems going through it because it's just not easy, the buying process when you're buying a home in Australia. So there's no shortage of clients, right. There's tons of people that need help. Was just finding those people and letting them know that that service exists. And that's probably the problem today still that it's a niche service that's I'm still really finding its feet, working out how to market it, how to advertise it. So my referrals come from mortgage brokers and then friends and family in my own social, social networks. Mortgage brokers, because they've got a pipeline of pre approved clients, they need to get through that pipeline as quick as possible. Those clients don't want to be looking for three, six, nine months, especially in a rising market like this. So they refer them to me and I have the ability to close those properties, you know, those deals for them much faster. So it's a win win for everybody.

Okay, let's talk about the business model. How, how do you make this work? You've got clients, you charge a fee.

Yep.

Tell us about that.

So I charge. So first foremost I mentioned this earlier, but I work with clients that got the ability to find their own properties. So if they want to use a buyer's agent or they can't do that legwork, they're going to use someone else. So it's not a service that's going to fit for them. But where I best work is with people that have got the ability to find their own home or investment property that they want to purchase. So I'll coach them up until that point to help them find those properties faster. And I don't charge them any money to do that. And I'll give them all the tips and techniques to find those listings. But when they have found the right property they want to chase, I get them to set me a target price, which is their maximum walk away price. And I charge at that point $2,000 upfront, 1995 plus GST. And that's an upfront retainer that's charged once only. So if they miss out on a property or it takes them two or three goes, I don't charge them again for that. But once they set me a target price, I get to task on trying to buy it at that price or below. And I charge them a 15% performance fee of anything I save below that target. So if you give you an example, a property's on at a million and fifty, they come to me and they give me a target price of a million. I secure it at 980. I've saved them $20,000. So I'll charge them 15% of that $20,000. So it's $3,000 performance fee in addition to the $2,000 upfront.

So what if I come to you and say it's on 4 million 50 I want to get for 900.

Yeah, sure. People do this to me every day. Yeah. So it's, it's a really, it's probably the first question people ask me when they go to engage me. What's stopping me from setting you an unrealistic target price? And what I say to them is the whole purpose of me building this business was transparency. So I'm going to be brutally honest with you. How much do you want to own this property? You've come to me at this point because you need an assistance of an expert property negotiator. Do you want to be looking again in a month's time, three months time, six months time? No. You really want to buy the property? Okay, give me the reasons why you think this property is worth 900,000.

Because that's what I want to pay.

Correct. So that's what, so that's. So there'll be an element of people that say that that's just what I want to pay. And then there'll be an element of people that turn around and say, well, the comparables are 950, 970, 980, you know, and I'll say, okay, well, what realistically, where do you think you need to. You need to be to buy this property. And then I'm going to try and work backwards then from that point and save as much as I can. But you've got to be realistic in the first place, otherwise it's a waste of your own time. So you must turn it back around to them.

You must have a process that when someone says, you know, 900 and you know it's not going to go for under 980, you must have a process that you're just looking, searching, finding comparables and going yet looking realistically, you're really kidding yourself.

Yeah. And it's about 30 seconds work. And the other. Yeah, if you look on real estate dot com, you'll see the last three sales or whatever that blow that out of the water.

Well, that's an important point because there's people looking on the market on property for sale, not property sold.

Yes.

Because that's dreaming versus reality.

Yeah. And I'll also say to people, look, if you really want to pay 900, I'll support that. Let me call the agent for you. I won't charge you. Don't pay the two grand up front. Let me just ring the agent for you now. I'll just do this as a service and I'll be back on the phone in a minute because I know the answer. Right. I'm going to ring the agent. The agent will say, mate, you're absolutely dreaming. Like the last one. Sold for 975. You're going to have to pay 980 plus to own this. I've got four contracts out or whatever. So it literally is less than a minute. And I just bring them back and say, as I expected, you know, the agent's got interest at this level. Let's get serious about it. Do you want to buy this house? Do you need my help? Yep.

So with, with the average negotiation, you know all the cues, you know the sentences, you know the keywords when you're negotiating on behalf of a client. And so you, you're essentially in a point where the agents, they can't pull the wall over your eyes. You've seen it all before.

Yeah, I mean, I used to coach agents on those dialogues and scripts. So I've got a fair understanding of what lines they're going to use, but more importantly, when they're going to use that line so I can anticipate it and why they're using it. So you say certain things because you're Hiding certain other things. Right. Or you want to arrive at a different, a different outcome or a different place. So I'll get a sense of when the line is coming and, and then that'll give me an indication of whether or not there's another buyer or really what the vendor's motivation is or where they are on price different to the.

Current market now, but when a market's not hot.

And I actually had Terry writing here the other day and he said at the moment, you could just throw a dart at an Australian map and you're probably going to get a good chance of growth at the moment because sort of a once, maybe twice in a generation time that this is right now.

You wouldn't be old enough for the 85, 88 boom that happened.

I was born in 77, I'm 43, but I definitely don't know anything about the 80s real estate market.

Yeah. So I was, I'm a few years older than you, but 85 to 88. I remember my brother bought in that 17% interest rates, you know, properties doubled, almost doubled from 85 to 88. And so that's one, maybe twice in a generation that you'll see a market that's going on like this. But the one thing that always drives me insane in markets that aren't hot is that a property could sit on the market for 200 days. You ring up and you're interested, there's.

Always another buyer, there's always another contract out you wouldn't believe another contract, someone's coming on Monday.

Unbelievable.

Yeah. They'll have their finance ready by Thursday.

So at what point in time?

Like for me, I think the figures, for me, if I was to guess it would be like 95% untrue, 5% true in the cases I've had over the years.

Yeah.

How do you handle it?

Well, I just know how to read through the shit. Right. So, you know, and that's exactly going back to the point that I just said. As soon as you know these things, you know those reasons. And if you ask a few more key questions and push a bit harder, you'll. You'll get to understand the motivation and whether or not really there is another buyer there. And I guess it's just sense of timing for me, understanding the agent speak, to be able to see through it and punch holes through it and get the right outcome for my clients. But I'll give you a good example. This, this happens to me every single week. I'll say on a Tuesday or a Wednesday before the Saturday Auction, my clients will ring me, they'll give me their instructions on what they want to do, if they want me to bid or make a pre auction offer or wherever it may be. And they'll ask me, you know, where it's at and can I speak to the agent? And I'll ring the agent, but before that I'll say to the owner or the purchase that I'm working with, I'll dial you into the call so you can hear everything that's going on as well the dialogue. Just so you understand, you know, what's happening, what the agent's telling me, if you want to be involved. Otherwise I'll tell you what happens and I'll say to you, say to them at that point, this is exactly what I expect the agent will say to me on this call on this day. And word for word, the agent will pick up the phone and say, you know, we've got a really motivated seller. Don't miss this opportunity to be there. It's going to get sold on the day they've got to sell, they've committed elsewhere, whatever it might be. But I can give you the exact line on the same day. And my buyers just like cry themselves laughing because I've said exactly what the agent's gonna say in advance. And it's just, it's so, it's so scripted. The whole industry, they're coached by the same people, they use the same throwaway lines at the same point. So if you do this long enough and often enough, and you've been behind the scenes, and this is why you go back to the buyer's agent conversation. If someone's never been an agent or they don't buy or negotiate at the volume that, that you do as an agent, how do you understand the nuts and bolts of a deal? How do you, how have you got enough life experience in that job to put yourself or your client in the best position possible? You can't. So all these buyer's agents running around saying they're great negotiators. I'm like, you negotiate. Once on one property, that agent is negotiating with the vendor from before they listed it, the whole way through the campaign, that agent is negotiating against you, plus maybe 5, 6, 7, 20 other buyers in the same campaign, they've just got so much more negotiation experience than you. They can out bluff you, they can outmaneuver you. They train on scripts and dialogues every day. You don't.

Yep.

Yeah, and that's the better negotiator.

That's your strength because you've been there, done that for so many years.

Totally. So I just, I bite back a bit when buyer's agents say to me that they're, you know, exceptional negotiators and they've, they've got, you know, the ability to win all these deals off market, which is a giant fur fee as well.

I mean, I consider myself to be a reasonable negotiator. I love the thrill of the chase. I, I love it. Once I got the deal, whatever, it's sort of, it's that part of it. But my best mate is Steve McKnight and he's bought and sold a property every week as an investor for the last 19 years.

Well, he knows his stuff, right?

Yeah.

And so, you know, he comes from knowledge and power.

Absolutely the same thing as you, you.

Know, you know, the walk away that, that's when the agent's going, oh shit, I poked the bear too much here, I'll have to start to settle it down again. And he's really interesting to talk to. Auctions you go to, you bid at auctions too?

I bid at auctions. I normally do two or three a weekend for clients across the country over the phone. I always over the phone, I don't meet any clients, I don't see any properties.

What's the legal process now?

If you're bidding over the phone on behalf of someone else, they have to.

Give a pre register. Yeah. Authority. It's simple to do it.

So you're not actually in there. Like. I love being face to face at auctions because you're watching the bidders going in and you know when you've got them or haven't got them, depending on your style.

That's a really interesting point that I'll hang you up on there that I think is that I disagree with. So many people say to me, you know, and you see this written a lot in the property industry about their auction strategies and the rest of it. I firmly believe, as I said to you up front, having seen thousands of auctions and been running those as an auction agent as well, coaching agents to do this, you know, selling 20 or 25 auctions a month as a team, that the person with the deepest pockets and their hand up last wins every auction.

Absolutely right.

There might be the occasional one where you put pressure on people and they crack because they're super emotional about it. But the commercial reality of it is, you know, you've got to have the highest bidders, the highest bidder is going to win. Right. So I say to people, this, the Whole time. Like, I don't necessarily, I don't need to be there because I don't, I don't. The rest of it's theater to me. It's just numbers. I am brutal. I am a non emotional third party. And that's why you want me in your pocket. Because I, you know, no one can pull the wool over me at that point and I don't need to see them face to face to kind of realize that. I just, I just want to know the numbers and I want to know the dialogue and control that as best I can.

And I said that last night. We were talking about auction techniques and doing this and doing that and Steve's got a particular technique and I've got one too. And I said exactly that. And you know, Josh will back you in the end. Someone who's going to pay more than you is going to pay more than you like. It just doesn't matter what you do in there. Occasionally you'll be able to throw them off their kilt, but that's about it.

But buyers have got, buyers get really worked up about this. Like the general public people that I deal with, they really stress about it and they listen to every word the agent tells them. And when the agent tells them that, you know, oh my God, we've got the reserve back and it's way less than we thought. And you know when you make a pre auction offer and they tell you that, you know, it's thanks for your offer, but it's not enough. But the auction will be less than that on the day and that'll buy it on the day. And it's like, hang on, none of that makes sense. Yeah. So in other words, hang on, we've quoted a price, you've offered an exceptional price that's way above our guide price, which we're legally allowed to quote. We're not going to accept that because we've got tons of other people telling us it's worth that or more. We're going to lie to you about that and reject your offer. Now I'm going to lie to you again and bait you about the reserve price being less to get you along to auction date. Lies, lies and lies.

And they don't even know the reserve date. That reserve until auction most days.

Yeah. Most vendors don't set it to the day before or on the day. Yeah. And you. And the agent's got no control out of that. So even if they knew on a Tuesday, on Saturday morning, the agent, I mean, the vendor could turn around and say, actually, I want 100 grand more.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So what do you do? So that must make it difficult for.

You, especially in a hot market, to buy something at auction when the price has been set by your client.

Yeah, my preference isn't to bid at auction if I can. So all those ones that I've bid at auction are for two reasons. One, they instructed me way too late, like in week four, on the two days before the auction for the first time I've spoken to them, for example, or we've, they've got me nice and early, which is my preference. And I try and make an offer to stop it during the campaign and it's not enough. And then the, the buyers still want to go along to auction and bid for it. But one thing happens every time that if you miss out on a strong offer that you make pre auction, that you're always going to pay more for it on the day. And most of my clients end up missing out because they set the parameters around where they feel is fair market value. And then when it goes to a competitive process, they're just mentally not in that headspace to pay another 50. 100 grand. 150 grand for it. So I often think that if we miss it at that point, we might as well just move on rather than wait three weeks and compete at the auction and do all the, the hanging on the theater.

Yeah. So with, with the market the way it is now, it's extremely hot.

Which throws more tendency towards auctions. What's your success rate if you can put a percentage to it to a property that's going to auction where you think you can get it, you can pull it off the market and get it on behalf of your client beforehand.

Yeah, that's a really hard question actually. And I could probably give you those figures if I went and actually looked it up and look back at the history of it. I mean, you've got no control over a number of different things. You know how many buyers you're competing against at every auction. So every auction is different. So the buyer depth is key to it, the vendor's expectations, price wise and motivation and then the buyer's budget. So for me to hang my hat on and say, well, I'm only successful 30% of the time, there's so many variables that affect that that are out of my control.

But what about not getting it to auction so you actually get stopping it, market stopping it? Yeah.

I'd say we're probably in the 40 to 50%. That's not range. Yeah, I'd say that level at least less than half anyway, for sure.

And that, that most of that would.

Be dialogue and understanding.

It's all dialogue. Yeah, yeah, it's all dialogue because they're only going to sell it to you by virtue of winning the property, you're going to be the highest bidder. Right. So whether you buy it prior to auction, they perceive you to be the highest bidder if you're selling to you at that point. So you've got to really control the process as best you can. And how I typically do that in an auction environment, pre auction, in that situation to buy it is by introducing time pressure and a second property because you've got to reverse the fear of loss at that point and try and take control of it as best you can. But it's difficult to do. That's the challenge in this market.

What about. It's very difficult to get. Take New South Wales out because they've got five day cooling off and yeah, unless they sign a 66W in other markets around the country, you can put conditions in, obviously finance, due diligence, building and pest, all of which are weak.

Points in your offer though, in this market.

So that's my question.

Yeah.

What you know, does that mean you need to start releasing, removing and possibly putting yourself at risk?

Well, I do it a different way, so. Well, putting yourself at risk is correct because if you leave it a few days longer, you're definitely exposing yourself to being beaten by somebody else. But if you can, if you can have really clear dialogue and be upfront and open with the agent to say how seriously interested you are and how strong an offer you're going to make. But very quickly get your ducks lined up and do a building and pest inspection or a starter report or whatever you need to do evaluation, then you can remove a lot of those speed humps and put yourself in a position where it's a much cleaner offer. So that's what I try to do with my clients. So the term I use is speed kills. And I say that to all my clients when I first speak to them to say, I'm going to push you to a level of uncomfortableness that. And it's based around speed because most buyers will go and see something on the Saturday at the first open or can't make it, I need to go shopping on that day. I'll get there next Saturday. At which point you've got 10 or 20 competitors, multiple contracts out. It just makes my job really difficult. And for you to buy it at that point, very Hard as well. So I say to them, you've got to see it before the market or at that first open home. And then if you like it, get me on the phone. The minute you walk out of the open for inspection, I'll start building a strategy and start researching it. I want your instruction that night and I want to have a building and pest lined up to do Monday. And if that means bribing a building and pest guy, paying them 200 bucks cash in addition to what they normally charge to jump the queue for four days. Whatever you have to do, if this is the property that you want to buy, get yourself in a position to do it before anyone else. Because most buyers just drag their feet. They'll wait till Monday, Tuesday they'll talk about it with Uncle Pete and Mum and dad and workshop it at work with their friends. And then they'll get around to waiting on the building and pest inspection that the agent's coordinating that another buyer is doing that's going to be ready next Wednesday. And by that point you've just opened up the floodgates to everybody else. So speed is paramount to the success in buying property at the right price.

What's your biggest paid success? Because I know you had an unpaid success, but you know, what's the biggest drop in strike price have you done.

For a client under target price? Under target price, 800 grand. Yeah, and my average below target price up till Christmas time was 23 and a half thousand below the client set target price. Average buy price around one and a quarter million.

So 1.25, 2.1%. And so you're saving them 2.1%.

Yeah, but you got to remember that's below the target price they set me. So it might be 10% below the asking price or whatever it might be. So. So it's very difficult to market my business on the basis of how much money I save people. So I initially set the business up when I was in its infancy, saying it was Australia's only no win, no fee property negotiation business. So I completely put myself on the line and said I'll work for free unless I can buy it below the target price at or below the target price. But the problem with that is I had to keep going out and market myself to new customers saying I'm saving X below the target price. So the new buyers come in, just set that bar lower every time. So that's why I had to put a retainer in place. It also weeds out the waste of time buyers and makes people get serious about it straight away with a real target price rather than, you know, they're not going to spend two grand to pay the retainer and just waste my time offering 900 on a million and fifty, as you said before. So that really, you know, sorts out the serious buyers from the time wasters.

So the 800k one was overseas, was.

In London, but I've done others like I did one in Daltons Bay in New South Wales and Sydney. I think, I think I saved them about 600 grand at 5 million. Yeah, I mean they're big numbers. I mean if you talk about, rather than focus on the dollars, I focus on the percentage because that's more important to me because I buy at every price point. So thank God I did this one. I bought my in laws house one next door to where I am as I said to you last year and went through the whole process. I told them let's treat it as a hello house business deal because I don't want to get involved in this family, you know, you set me a target price, let's do the due diligence together and make sure you're comfortable with it. They set me a target, I think of 385 and I bought it for 320 and whatever the numbers were, this is a waterfront, a waterfront three bedroom townhouse, north facing in mermaid waters last year for 3, 320. Yeah.

What's it worth?

The best deal I've probably bought out of the. Well it'd be very close to the best deal I've ever bought out of the 27 properties I've bought for myself. Yeah, yeah. And they were sight unseen. They were on holidays in Sydney seeing their other daughter.

Right.

And I rang them and said, I've found a property for you, I'll buy this, I'll sort it out. It came on on the Friday afternoon. I bought it on Saturday lunchtime.

Yeah, right.

And I hadn't even seen it. Yeah.

That's extraordinary.

You wouldn't be able to buy that.

What do you think it was really worth?

It was worth probably about 400 to 420.

And why did you get it so cheap?

It was a meth.

How.

Why did you negotiate it so well?

Yeah, well, a couple of things. It was a horrible meth house so it literally had like drug holes in the walls and syringes and things like that. It was a horrible, horrible place. But they were happy to gut it if they could get it at price. So that was irrelevant. But that would have turned tons of people off and I knew that but over time, people would realize that they were going to renovate anyway, so it was irrelevant. But it would take them two, three, four days. I know from being an estate agent how long it takes people to realize this. The penny drops, it's the right one and then they jump into it. So I rushed, I rushed the agent. It turns out that it was going to like a foreclosure if he didn't sell it by a certain day. And he had 11 days to exchange and settle it. So there was no other buyers were able to do this, but we didn't know this. Yeah, so I just made it all cash offer and bought it on the spot on Saturday afternoon and settled basically instantly. So it was just one of those freak things that happened. And because I knew the market, I knew it was value, I knew what we could do with it, I knew what it was going to cost to renovate it and I knew the downside.

You already owned your one too?

No, I didn't own our one.

What did you pay for yours?

535 last year in November. But there's a story with mine as well, which is interesting, but, yeah, substantially more than. More than theirs. But theirs is worth, they spent 175 grand on the refurb, so let's call it that. It owes them just under 500,000. Theirs is probably worth 700,000 straight away. So they've got 200 grand equity in it.

Amazing.

In, you know, in a year and probably 150 of that without a rising market, you know, just straight out of, you know, just buying in the market. And that's what, that's been my skill set the whole time. Like people will say to you, I bought this and I sold it for X and I made lots of money. But. Yeah, but you sat on it for three years or four years. Like I've done deals where I bought a studio apartment in Potts Point. Always off other people, never my own stock. So never insider trading, always on the open market. I bought a studio for like, I can't remember the numbers to say 215 grand in pots Point years ago. And I had a five week settlement and I found another buyer for it and sold it before I owned it. So I instantly settled on it and flipped it and made $75,000 on studio.

Yeah.

So it's like 30% in five weeks.

22 square meters or something.

Yeah. So it's just, it's. If you know the market, you can spot these odd ones and they don't come up very often, but you've got to be able to act on it like grease lightning and, and do it really fast. So my one, the one that we just bought next door to them. So it's a long story. The short of it is we were, we've been developing the houses and we want to buy a knock down at Mermaid beach and build a house and we haven't been able to find the one that we want. So we knew we were going to go and rent for a year, two years in between while we did that because I wanted the equity out of our house and the cash out of the one we were in. So it was going to cost me 100 grand in rent, 120 grand in rent and we have to live in someone else's house that we didn't want to live in and you know the pain points of all that. And I saw them renovating, like starting to renovate the one two doors up from, from Nan and Pops. And I knew the guy that was, that manages the village, the townhouse and I went to him and said what are they doing with this one? And he said well it's a really rare one, it's semi detached. All the others are sort of attached and it's got 8 meters of waterfront, all the others have got 5. It's got an extra whole half a house on the side. So it's much bigger land and much bigger per square meter internally. It's the pick of the whole sort of complex like that. But the owner's had it for 25 years. It's been a rental property. It's horrible inside. They want to tart it up and put it on the market and sell it for 560 in February, this was in September, October. And I said to them go to her, offer a 525 grant and not touch anything further. Just down tools and go away. And he did and then she came back and ended up buying it for ten grand more. But it suited us to buy it A, because you know, in laws are next door. So we have a lot of family traveling from Sydney and New Zealand so it's a great fit for us. B the kids are next door, their grandparents and C we were going to go and spend 120 grand on rent. So for us it was, we were going to have instant equity in this property. It was a smarter business decision for us to pay that. So for that number it worked for me personally perfectly. And it was no point being silly trying to chip 10 or 20 grand, just buy it and be happy.

It's Often the thing I see a lot people haggling over price, they get cute and, you know, with conditions and then they want to, you know, their ego gets stuck. But two and a half grand, I'm not paying extra. Two and a half grand.

What's two and a half grand in ten years time?

Well, the market's moving at that point. Ten grand a month at the moment, so it's just another week of waiting. But we, we renovated that. I gutted it, spent 150 grand in cash on it and so I'm in for just under 700 and I reckon I could sell it today for 850. Yeah. So I made 150 grand tax instead.

Of paying 120 instead of paying.

Going backwards on the other end.

Yeah. A lot of people say that negotiation is about winning.

True.

Partly yes, because you want to win. Right. That's the aim of the game. But if you want to dig that, you know, you want to dig into that further, then the answer is no. Because the ultimate outcome for me is to be win, win, win, you know, it's got to be a fair outcome. So the way that I aim to do this is to control the negotiation as best I can, but make the agent feel like he's in complete control. And that's a real skill that's very, very difficult to do. And I quite like messing with agents, inexperienced agents, minds by. It's fun, isn't it? Yeah. By making them feel like they've got me and they won and the rest of it. But I had 20, 30, 50, 100 grand more up my sleeve. Yeah, it's fun doing that. That's the bit that you said before, like you enjoy that. That's the fun part for me as well. I love that battle.

So great business model.

Amazing. You know, the turnover that you're getting, like you've got. How many average do you negotiate on a week?

I've bought eight houses in the last 10 days around the country. Yeah. I mean I'm negotiating every day on a property because you don't win them all. But I would probably buy on average, typically two properties a week is probably pretty normal for me. Yep. It's just a busy time right now.

One problem with your business model, you.

Don'T own the business.

No.

The business is Scott Haggart.

Yeah. 100%. 100%.

Can you grow this business? Can you, can you train someone to do what, you know?

Well, I mean, a good agent that's had the career that I have had would definitely be able to do this in Melbourne, Perth or whatever. And maybe I could build a business of negotiation experts and sit atop of that across the country. But it comes back to what we talked about before, which is the lifestyle part of it, Right. Like, I got out of having 25 staff and working really hard. I don't really have. Well, I don't, I'll be honest, I don't have ambitions to have a whole team of people. I, I'm very happy earning to a certain level, but being complete control of my own destiny. No one tells me what to do or where I need to be. Yeah, it's. It's a nice lifestyle to have. So. So in life, I constantly ask friends in business and mates, family about this and there's no right or wrong answer. But I'll ask you the same question, like, how much money is enough?

It's something that led me to the lifestyle I've got now because I had and was building to a ridiculous amount of money. And I look at it now and actually I was less than half a day away from suicide because the money didn't make me happy.

Yeah. And I don't mean it from an ego perspective in terms of how big is your bank balance? I mean, how much do you need to earn a year before you just think, do you know what? That's enough work to do per week or per month or whatever. Now I'm missing the kids, you know, or I want to, I don't want to do that deal. I want to go and hang out at the park and push them on the swings. And I guess I've just got to that point where I'm like 38 and out of real estate and I'm like, okay, well I can, how can I do this smarter and build a business around lifestyle and then how much is enough then? So to answer your question, yes, it's very difficult because it's hard to leverage my time. I just mentioned to you before walking in that I've just done a pitch deck on another business because I've already arrived at the same point, right. In terms of, there's only so much of Scott Agate that you can do. And for me to grow the business just means I've got to be more on my phone, which means my wife's going to be upset with that and the kids aren't going to see me as much.

So. I agree totally. I mean, this thing.

I just feel so grateful for the position I'm in. You know, I.

My team reckons I work hard. I actually don't Think I work that hard?

Well, if you love it, it doesn't feel like work.

But I've got choice, you know. I'm here talking to you this morning.

By 2:00 this afternoon, whatevs. I'll do whatever I like, whenever I like. I work from home, you know, it's exactly what you're talking about, exactly what you're doing. And I've got choice and freedom to do what I want to do.

Yeah.

And I'm not con. This is going to sound horrible. I started playing walk ball soccer again and I don't know why, but the competitive edge got back into me. White line fever. And I'm growing. I'm playing with over 35s. Most of us are over the age of 40 and some of them can't pay the $420.

Yeah.

For retro.

And they have to pay it off on, on, you know, installments.

Installments.

And I'm going.

Okay. I mean it sounds so wrong for me to say that you should be in a better position to do that. Life circumstances don't often give you that. But I look at it and I think, I think you could have more control. And it's just a bit of a headspace thing to say. I should be able to earn, I should be able to do more, you know, and it's not about working more.

Or working harder, just being smarter about it.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

But again, I mean, I don't want to sound like a tool, you know, or an ungrateful person with the position I am. I'd said I'm grateful. Like I've, you know, you've seen the river I live on. Certainly. Probably not a canal like yours, but it's a nice spot.

Sharks like mine.

It's got pool sharks.

There you go.

Not, not that I've ever been attacked by one.

I reckon it's a fur fee, but anyway, have you seen any?

I never have, but there's lots of, you know, there's been lots of attacks and sightings in the Gold Coast.

I can't see any attacks or found any news articles up here for the last 50.

No one swims anyway. Let me put it that way. In goes. But I grew up swimming in those canals and I can show you there was lots of sharks there the whole time. And I swam with a dog, which was the worst thing you can possibly do.

Lead to heaps of stingrays down here.

Yeah.

But that's about it. What's your advice to someone that feels like they're going to miss out if they don't buy something right now.

Oh, the old fomo, eh? Well, I mean, I think you got to understand the bigger picture. Why are you buying a property? Why is it important for you to do that? And what are the positives in doing that now versus doing it tomorrow? If you've got the financial capability to do it and stay within your means and if that's going to leverage you financially in life and get ahead, then it's probably a decision that's a smart one to do it. And if you're going to do it this year, I would do it sooner rather than later. Because you're in a rapidly rising market, it's probably going to get more expensive for you in six months, 12 months time. But I think a lot of people in Australia, I used the word contact sport before. I get a lot of like 19, 20 year olds and things say to me, you know, I'm saving up to buy a property and I think that's brilliant and you know, it's really positive that people want to get on that journey. But I'm also one that it's for living life, you know, like I'm a terrible property Investor. I've had 27 properties. I should be really wealthy, I'm comfortable. But I could be a lot wealthier if I held onto those properties. But I put priority on life experiences. So while lots of my friends and family had their heads down working really hard, I was in Italy, you know, having a great time or traveling all over the world. I think I did somewhere between six and 12 weeks overseas every year while I was a real estate agent. So I guess it's just down to priorities. Right. Like if you. What's the most important thing to you? And.

I just, I don't like people diving into the property market too early unless they've had a bit of life experience and can actually enjoy themselves. Because I think you just end up working really hard and don't get to see the big picture.

It's nice. I'm a bit opposite on that.

Yeah.

The way that a way that I.

Did it, like I just went hard at it from 18, like I've 29, 30 years this year in property.

While my friends are out and about, traveling the world and whatever. Here I was working hard to pay for those properties, especially the shitty properties I bought back then. But they set me up. Yeah, but to have the freedom I've got today.

Yeah. And you may not regret missing out on those opportunities, but they would have potentially and I would have. So it's down. It's horseback for courses.

Right.

So. And you just, I think you just got to know who you are and that's why, I guess it's hard to be giving generalized advice is not like that. But.

So you're happy to take on more clients?

Always. Yeah. Hello, House co. That's it, thanks. Couldn't get hello, House.com.

What is hello, House.com?

I don't know.

I think there's an interior design agency in the U.K. that's hello, House.com.

Right.

But look, the clients that use me are normally referred into me or seen me for some reason, so there's no problem finding me. So.

Okay, awesome.

Thanks for coming in today.

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

There you have it. Scott Agate, what an interesting guy. Very deep and thought provoking. I hope that you get to use his services and save yourself a huge bundle of cash on the next purchase of your property. As always, you can follow us on Twitter, on Instagram and on Facebook and you can also get to more information at. Ian yougarte.com.

We'Ll see you in the next episode of Small Talk Big Ideas.

Thanks for tuning in to the Small Talk Big Ideas podcast. We hope we've succeeded in our goal to inspire and challenge you. And we look forward to catching you on the next episode of Small Talk Big Ideas with Ian Ugate.