Paul and Jonathan (Jono) Sissons have property in their blood. Their father, Robin, and grandfather, Jack, were builders who got into property development back in the 1960s, so it’s no surprise they’ve ended up in real estate. Jono is the managing director of New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty’s Remuera office, while older brother Paul is a top agent there.
Q: So you came from a family of real estate pioneers?
Paul: Our father and grandfather were building contractors – John Sissons and Son Ltd – based in Otahuhu. They did a lot of group housing in the early days. In 1963, they bought land in Pakuranga and subdivided it.
Jono: They were the first people to do show homes. You could come and have a look and then buy the land. They did package deals, which were new at the time. People used to go for Sunday drives to look at these show homes. It was quite an outing. They even put up bunting in the street. I suppose you would call them property developers now, but they didn’t use that term.
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Paul: Other people started doing the show home thing, and we’d end up doing a tiki tour on a Sunday afternoon, all piling into the back seat of the car to look at these houses that were being built. Later, they moved into big commercial buildings. They built the Whangarei freezing works.
Jono: And the freezing works in Taumarunui.
Paul: They had their own joinery factory and made their own doors and windows. Then somebody wanted to buy them out, and the offer was too good to refuse. Dad retired at 50.
Q: Did they expect you to follow in their footsteps?
Paul: No. They wanted us to be doctors and lawyers.
Jono: Maybe you. You had the school marks to be a doctor or a lawyer; I didn’t.
Paul: There are four of us, I’m the oldest and Jono’s the youngest. Our brother Tony is the headmaster at King’s School in Remuera, and Greg owns a ski business in Canada.
Q: Who got into real estate first?
Jono: I did, 30 years ago now. Before that, I was in tourism – a sales manager for hotels and airlines. I decided in my early 30s to do an OE, and when I came back, I started looking for alternative careers. I’d always been interested in houses – I bought my first house when I was 19 – and I enjoyed selling, so real estate seemed like a good fit. I also liked the idea of having a job where there was no ceiling to my potential to earn. I took to it like a duck to water, and really enjoyed it.
Jono owns the Remuera franchise for New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty. Paul is one of the office’s top sales agents. Photo / Fiona Goodall
I was lucky that I got to work for two people who were really great teachers. One was Colin Meo, who taught so many agents how to negotiate and how to run an auction. Everyone who worked for him became very good at those two things.
I also worked for Deborah Kelland, who took the marketing of real estate to a new level. I learned a lot from her.
Q: What is your most memorable sale?
Jono: One of my most significant sales was in Hepburn Street, Freemans Bay. It was a Nicholas Stevens design, a House of the Year winner. It set a record. But I think the most memorable was a deceased estate in St Marys Bay in the 1990s, in very original condition. Three sisters who were in their 70s inherited it from their dad and thought it was a dump. They led very modest lives and said they would be very happy if they came out of it with $100,000 each.
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They came to the auction straight from the bowls club, and they couldn’t believe it when the bidding went berserk. It was an untouched villa in St Marys Bay – people were clamouring for it. When the bidding went over $1 million, they were jumping up and down and hugging each other. I can’t remember what it went for in the end, but it was a lot of money; it was like they’d won Lotto.
I was in tears; everyone in the room was in tears. I will never forget that one.
Q: Paul, what did you do before real estate?
Paul: After a brief stint at university, I spent 11 years in the insurance industry, working for a large international company. After that, I sold Lockwood houses for a while, then I worked in marketing, sponsorship and events for Lion Nathan, running their sponsorship programme. I did things like Coast-to-Coast, and I spent a couple of years travelling with the All Blacks, as sponsorship liaison. Which basically meant I had the credit card when the guys wanted to go out for a drink.
After that, I got involved in running bars and restaurants in Christchurch and Auckland.
Q: How did you end up selling houses?
Paul: Around 10 years ago, I’d sold my business and was wondering what to do next. Jono said to me: “Why don’t you get your licence and come and work for me? Negotiating is your strength.”
So I did. I didn’t work in his office at the start, in case people thought I was getting leads because he was my brother. But he did help me out with advice because he knew so much about the industry.
Jono started in real estate after an OE in his 30s, while Paul came into the business later in life. Photo / Fiona Goodall
Paul achieved the top sale of 2024, a mansion on Paritai Drive, in Auckland’s Orakei, which fetched $21.84m. Photo / Supplied
I remember my very first open home, at an apartment in Portland Road, Remuera. It was raining buckets (the raindrops were bigger than those old 50c pieces), and we had to have towels on the floor. Jono came along to help, which was just as well because it went nuts – we had 32 groups through. I was talking to some people who were trying to find out where the property was sitting price-wise, and I must have said the wrong thing because I looked over their shoulders and saw him standing there, giving me this look.
Jono: You were talking too much.
Paul: It was his way of telling me: “You’ve got two ears and one mouth, use them in that order.” It was good advice. In the end, the auction was a ripper and exceeded the vendor’s expectations.
Q: How long did it take to realise real estate was a good fit?
Paul: Not long. I knew that the first two years in real estate can be really tough, and it can take a while to find your feet. I was up against agents who were much more experienced, and as the new boy trying to bust into it, I had to back myself. But I had a background in sales, and I had the confidence that if I worked hard and did the right thing, it would work out. And it did.
Q: You did end up in the same office – how has working together been?
Jono: It was a bit weird at first because Paul is my oldest brother – there’s a seven-year age gap – and he was always the one supporting me, going right back to my days at school. I did athletics, and he’d come along and say: “You can win this, you have the ability, you are the fastest runner.” He had a kind of mentoring role – he always had a positive mental attitude.
Then, when I recruited him to join us at Sotheby’s, there was this role reversal. I had to be his boss, which was kind of difficult sometimes, and I had to be tougher on him than anyone else. When I bought the franchise, Paul was incredibly supportive and loyal. He has skills I don’t have; he always puts his hand up to help with things like technology.
The brothers have a family history in property development dating back to the 1960s. "Dad loves the fact that we’re in real estate. He wants to know everything." Photo / Fiona Goodall
Paul: The whole office here is very supportive of each other. We leave our egos at the front door. We celebrate each other’s successes, and if you’re struggling with something, you know you can always go to Jono or one of your colleagues and say, “This is a challenge I’ve got. Have you ever run into this sort of situation?” There is a philosophy that we are here to help each other.
Q: What’s been your most memorable sale, Paul?
Paul: That would be Paritai Drive [in Orakei]. It was a beautiful home, and it sold for $21.84m. That was New Zealand’s top sale for 2024. That year, our office had the top two sales in New Zealand and three out of the top six.
The thing that made it amazing was that the vendors had the confidence to say, “You know what you are doing, what do you need us to do to help you?” They totally put their trust in us.
Jono: When a client trusts you like that, that’s when you get the best results.
Q: Why do you think you’ve done so well?
Jono: It’s easier to talk about someone else than yourself, so I can say that the reasons Paul has been so successful are that he’s incredibly hardworking, diligent and consistent. I’ve managed a lot of people in real estate, and it would be hard to find someone who has the same work ethic as Paul. He’s also reliable, trustworthy and a particularly good negotiator.
Paul: In the years I worked for Lion Nathan, we had some training sessions with international negotiation specialists. One was the head hostage negotiator for the FBI. I learned a lot of skills from that, and from working in insurance. I can’t write an ad to save myself – I have to get other people to do that for me - but when it comes to negotiating and getting people to pay a little bit more, that would be a strength.
Q: What’s the secret of Jono’s success?
Paul: He’s just very good at what he does. He has a huge amount of knowledge and experience, and he’s very good at passing on that wisdom. If you’re ever in a situation where you’re not sure what to do, if you go to Jono with it, you can guarantee he’s been through the same thing three or four times and will be able to suggest different ways of handling it.
He’s done an incredible job since he bought the Remuera franchise. He’s got the ability to get the right people around him and to keep us accountable.
Jono: I love being able to see the growth in the team we have here at Sotheby’s. I like to empower people to be the best they can and to build their confidence. Seeing their business getting stronger every year is why I come to work. I don’t want a huge team; I want a small one of elite performers. I don’t want an army, I want an SAS team.
Q: Do you have time for hobbies or interests outside of real estate?
Paul: My life outside of work revolves around my family. I’m a second-time-around dad with my youngest two at university. We try to travel when we can. We’ve got good friends with places in Fiji, so we try to go there when we can.
Jono: Work is my main thing, but I do like to travel too. What’s a hobby?
Paul: You’re very social – you’re always having people over for dinner or going out for dinner. You also spend a lot of time with Mum and Dad, you see them every Saturday.
Jono: Dad’s 97 and Mum’s 94. Dad loves the fact that we’re in real estate. He wants to know everything – how many sales have we done each week, how many new listings have we got, what new staff have started?
Paul: Dad retired at 50, but he’s always kept busy with things like investments and spending time with the grandkids. And as a family, we’ve always been into skiing. Dad skied into his 80s.
Jono: We’ve travelled a lot with skiing as a family. It’s kept us altogether, right down to the great-grandkids. It’s a bit more difficult to get us all together now to go skiing, but it’s great when we can.
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