Shortly after Todd Murray opened the Harcourts Northwest Realty office in Massey North, Auckland, eight years ago, he set about convincing newbie agent Diego Traglia to become the first member of his team. It took showing Traglia a payslip with the six-figure amount Murray had made in just a month to win him over, but joining forces turned out to be one of the best decisions both men have ever made, with Traglia, who left school at 13, now one of New Zealand’s top agents.
Q: How did you get into real estate?
Murray: I’m from West Auckland, born and bred, and went to Massey High School. I was a bit of a loser really. I didn’t settle down to any jobs. I got a bricklayer’s apprenticeship then I went overseas and played some rugby in Ireland, went surfing in Indonesia and Hawaii.
The mother of somebody I’d played rugby with in the UK was prominent in real estate in West Auckland and I had a bit of interest in it so I thought I would give it a go. Back then, around 2010, you could get your licence in a week, basically off the back of a Weetbix box. I got a job at Hobsonville Harcourts through my mate’s mother but I didn’t realise you got paid on commission. I only found out after three weeks when my partner at the time said, “You need to figure out what you’re getting paid.”
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I plucked up the courage to ask my manager and he said it was commission, and that if I sold a $500,000 house I would get paid $20,000. I got in my car and drove down the road looking at all these houses thinking, That’s 20 grand, and that’s 20 grand. I could see the possibilities – I thought working on commission was great because there was no limit to how much you could earn. When I told my partner she thought it was ridiculous. She said, “What if you don’t sell anything?” and I said, “I’m going to sell everything.”
I started in September and by the following March I had made $130,000.
Q: How did you get your first listing?
Murray: Back in those days, agencies would have a duty agent who would sit at the desk manning the landline. A woman rang up and asked if I could appraise her late son’s house. I went along and did that, got the listing and sold it. Through that I made contacts and got more listings and it just went from there.
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I did have to work really hard. I made so many phone calls, I offered to do open homes for my colleagues who were going on holiday, I walked around the streets looking for people who were doing renovations to see if they wanted to sell. All old-school stuff.
Q: What made you want to buy your own office?
Murray: After seven years I needed a new challenge. I wanted to stay in real estate but I felt I had done my dash selling – I’d done as many open homes as I could handle in my life (as it turns out, I’d love to do an open home now). Then the opportunity came up to open a place in Massey North. I was still selling when I opened the office and I was looking for agents who could sell and let me step back to work on the business. Diego was the first person to come on board.
Q: Why were you keen for Diego to work with you?
Murray: I remember trying to call him about something and his voice message said, “I’m the Massey expert.” I was mildly p***ed off because I thought I was the Massey expert, or at least one of the top contenders. But I kind of liked that confidence. Then we met for the first time at an open home.
Traglia: Todd was the listing agent and I was taking a buyer for a viewing. I was still in my first year and very new and impressionable. I chatted to him while the buyer was inside and he told me something I have never forgotten. He said always save the number of every single person who calls you. If they call you back one day, you can use their name and say, “Hi, I’ve been waiting for you to call me to sell your house.” People really appreciate that kind of service. It was good advice.
Murray and Traglia dominate the West Auckland property market. Photo / Fiona Goodall
Murray: I invited him and his partner to dinner at my place to talk about joining me. It wasn’t going down that well and then I showed him my payslip for that month. It was over $300,000 because I had sold a piece of land in Whenuapai that belonged to a family whose kids I’d gone to school with for $22.5m.
Traglia: I’d had some minor success at that stage but I knew I had the potential to do something bigger. I looked at that payslip and I thought, if he can do it, I can do it too. I am honest about the fact that I have always been driven by money. I come from a family that had no money, and I moved to New Zealand with $5000 in the bank. My first job was at Burger King and then I washed cars. I looked at that payslip and I knew being able to earn money like that would open doors I didn’t even know existed.
Two months later I came to the office. There was nothing inside, just a photocopier covered by a sheet of plastic. It wasn’t even plugged in. I remember walking in, looking around and even though there wasn’t much it just felt right.
Q: Why do you think you’ve been so successful?
Murray: Diego’s a very clever businessman, a good marketer, and extremely charming. He’s got the looks and an accent – how could you lose?
Seriously, he’s made some significant changes to the industry because of the level of service that he delivers. He’s so good at things like communication – he’s crystal clear and he keeps that up from day one until settlement day and even afterwards. He was documenting everything on chat groups before anyone else. He was one of the first agents to use the website Rate My Agent. He’s always been ahead of the curve and he just works really hard. My road in real estate was easier than Diego’s because I had networks here; he had nothing. Compared to what I had to climb to get to where I am, he’s climbed Everest.
Murray says Traglia has made his life in real estate easier. “He’s one of the few people who I am happy about achieving more than me.” Photo / Fiona Goodall
Traglia: I do work hard but I enjoy it. This is not a job, it’s my life. I do 70-80 hour weeks, so far this week I have worked 14 or 15 hours every day. Yesterday I had 21 meetings between 8am and 9.30pm. But I am not complaining. I do make time to spend with my partner and children because my family is the most important thing to me.
I don’t do as many sales now as I was doing a few years ago. At one point I had 17 agents in my team and we were selling over 300 homes a year. I was the number one agent but I would not want to go back to that level of intensity because it was very stressful.
Now I’m just below 200 sales a year, which is still huge, and that is very comfortable for me. I feel like I have conquered everything I want to conquer in real estate and now I just want to keep building on my reputation as a trusted agent and help the agents in my team to do well.
Q: What difference did it make having Diego get such good results?
Murray: It meant I could pull away from selling and concentrate on the agency. It can be a struggle to build a business but once Diego stepped up to the plate, it turned it into a very different ballgame and meant the business was really able to grow.
Q: Diego, was Todd’s support important in your success?
Traglia: I couldn’t have done it without him. He gave me support I didn’t even know I needed. He has created a platform for agents to do the very best for their vendors and buyers, which is what the job is all about. And he has given me the freedom to do what I need to do. He is supportive of everybody here and we pride ourselves that there are no cowboys in the office.
Real estate can be a bit of a snake pit but in this office we have full trust in each other and we all believe in doing the right thing so people can trust us.
Q: Are you good friends?
Murray: We are. We’ve gone on holiday together, our kids play together, we’ve even shared ownership of a car.
Traglia: We bought a brand new Lamborghini is 2021. Neither of could afford one, so we decided to go halves in the car of our dreams. It was the most beautiful car. We didn’t have a roster to decide who was driving it, we just took turns. But it was very expensive to own and after six months we decided to sell it. We had no regrets, it was a beautiful experience. I’ve got a smile thinking about it now.
Murray: It’s hard to be friends and business partners – Diego is now a shareholder – but we are. We have a lot in common, we both live and breathe real estate.
Q: Do you disagree on much?
Murray: Sometimes there are things we don’t see eye to eye on but that’s very rare.
Traglia: We have the same values. We wouldn’t do anything that is not the right thing. We are two alpha males but I could count on the fingers of one hand how many times we have crashed heads.
Murray: We are very competitive but not with each other. He’s one of the few people who I am happy about achieving more than me. It’s humbling for me to be a part of what Diego has achieved. I couldn’t be more proud of him and I don’t really get proud of people.
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