A switch from the advertising industry to real estate six and a half years ago proved to be a great move for Travers Smyth. After a slow start, the award-winning Harcourts Cooper and Co agent is responsible for one in every three property sales in Birkenhead Point, in Auckland's North Shore.
Did you have a career plan when you were younger?
No. I was a little bit lost when I was at school. I always had an artistic slant so I applied for design school. I ended up working in advertising and marketing, predominantly as a graphic designer but also being an art director and copy writer. It was good, especially as it enabled me to work overseas.
Why did you move to real estate?
Start your property search
My wife Emma and I came back to Auckland after living in London and then Sydney and I found the work here wasn’t as abundant as it was overseas. I realised I liked what I did but I wasn’t madly in love with it. The idea of being my own boss appealed and I started to look at real estate. I called an agent my parents had dealt with and picked her brains, and the next thing I knew I had done my papers and was straight into it.
Did you hit the ground running?
I got off to quite a slow start. I had researched real estate before getting into it and I knew the attrition rate in the first year was quite massive – something like 80 per cent of people don’t make it past that first year. I was prepared for a hard slog, and it was hard. It took me about six or seven months to list my first house and being a commission-based job, that meant no money. But I was committed to making it work.
I burned through our savings pretty quickly and ended up getting a job doing bread merchandising. I would get up at 3.30am and drive around to supermarkets, taking old loaves of certain brands off the shelves and putting the new stuff up. I would do that until seven or eight in the morning then go and do my real estate work, trying to get someone to let me sell their house for them.
It wasn’t great money but it was enough to get us by while I tried to get going.
How did you get that first listing?
I’d like to say it was a product of my hard work but it wasn’t. My manager said to me one day, “I’ve got a listing for you. It’s my friend’s parents’ house and you can have it.” I remember nearly crying. I worked really hard and when it sold it set a record for Unsworth Heights, which was great. It was a good confidence builder for me.
After that, things started to take off. I built on that and business got better each year. I will sell anywhere but I have ended up focusing heavily on Birkenhead Point. Somebody suggested I have a look at the area when I first started selling and I fell in love with it. It’s a cool area, the homes are beautiful and the people are really nice.
Smyth nearly cried when he got his first listing. "It was a good confidence builder for me." Photo / Fiona Goodall
How did you manage to get so much of the market share there?
When I first started I did a lot of door-knocking in the area. I built my business up from scratch, and I’m quite proud of that. I did get the door slammed in my face twice. I actually ended up listing the house of one guy who’d slammed the door in my face. It was about three years later, and he had forgotten. After I signed him up, I cheekily reminded him what had happened and he said, “Sorry, I was probably having a bad day.”
I would usually go door-knocking in the evening when people were more likely to be home, but I was also conscious that it was a busy time, with dinner time and bath time and kids to organise. Now I’ve got kids I know that if somebody turned up on my doorstep at that time of night asking if I wanted to sell my house I would probably want to say some choice words. But actually, I am always pretty polite to door knockers because I have been there.
Smyth: "I love my kids to death and want to spend as much time with them as I can – they are only young once." Photo / Fiona Goodall
For me it was important not just to ask if they wanted to sell, but to go in with value-added stuff, like details of recent sales and statistics. I think that helped.
Has your previous career been useful when it comes to real estate?
Yes, having a background in advertising and marketing has definitely helped. For my first listing in Birkenhead Point, I did a really strong campaign and it got a great result, and I think a lot of that was due to the marketing. It ended up winning the REINZ multimedia campaign of the year. I always cast a critical eye over the marketing.
What’s the secret to success in real estate?
For me the most important things are having a good work ethic, and working hard to get the best result for your clients. That’s vital. Being personable also helps, and you need to be able to read the play and have a good EQ. I don’t know if that’s something you are born with or you develop, but being able to pick up on subtle clues and knowing when you can push or when to step back is important. So is empathy, especially if you are dealing with a deceased estate or a marriage split. Selling a house can be stressful at the best of times and in situations where there are extra factors at play, you need to be sensitive.
Do you pride yourself on working hard?
I always go to whatever lengths it takes to get a sale. One time I was in the middle of negotiating a big sale – my first one over $2m – and I was driving between the vendors in Birkenhead Point and the buyers in Northcote Point on a Friday afternoon. I was too polite to ask to go to the toilet at one of their houses so I stopped at the public toilet in Little Shoal Bay, between the two.
While I was there I made a quick phone call to my wife, telling her I was going to be late. Then when I went to drive out I saw that there was a chain across the exit. Someone had locked up the park while I was in the toilet. I rang the council and they said they could come and let me out but I would have to pay a fine. Then they said it would take an hour to get there. I said, “I’ve only been here a few minutes – surely they must only be two minutes up the road.” They said, “Well, they can be there in 45 minutes.”
I offered to pay double the fine if they would come straight away, but no. I was sweating bullets – it was a really big deal for me and these people were waiting for me and I was trapped in a car park. In the end I managed to wiggle the post the chain was attached to out of the ground, lay the chain down, drive over it and then put it back. And I got back to the negotiations.
What do you do out of real estate?
I’ve got two young children – Florence is four and Alfie will be two in July – and my time out of work is taken up with family. I love my kids to death and want to spend as much time with them as I can – they are only young once. You don’t want to get to the stage where you are ready to take your foot off the gas only to find that they’re moving out of home.
I try to take Friday off so I can spend the day with them and do things like take them to swimming on a Wednesday morning. I think it is important to be able to balance your work life with home. You see a lot of casualties in this industry, marriages that break up because it is a pretty demanding job, so I think it is important to make time for family.
