- OneRoof’s top agents brought over $8b in listings, a $1b increase from last year.
- Bob Qin, of Barfoot & Thompson, led with a 38% rise in listings, totalling over $355m.
- Holly Jones, of Ray White, and Sandy Wang, of Barfoot & Thompson, saw significant increases in listings.
Real estate had a flat year, but OneRoof’s super-listers have been busy as ever.
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In part, that reflects a lot of stock on the market with some agents upping their listings numbers by over 50% for the period to the end of August.
For some, the increase reflects changing agencies, establishing new franchises, or expanding coverage areas.
Some reported listings had increased the most from May and June this year, and one said the poor economy meant she had picked up a lot of listings from people leaving for Australia, and from landlords selling up because of the tough rental market.
As seen in OneRoof’s agent rankings last year, many of the names at the top are familiar, but there are a few agents who had been sitting on less than 50 listings in the previous 12-month period but are now juggling more than 100 homes.
Newly completed terrace housing hitting the market has also led to big increases for some agents, but most at the top stressed the importance of skill and experience when it came to getting listings in a slow market.
OneRoof analysed the 12 months to the end of August 2025 to ascertain the country’s top listings agents, a period which covers more than 100,000 residential listings.
The top 50 listing agents, detailed in the table below, brought to market more than $8 billion worth of real estate – almost $1b more than they listed in the 12 months before – and handled just over 8000 listings.
While the OneRoof rankings didn’t take into account sales and sales prices – only listings volumes and search prices – it did show the super-listers were getting results, with much of the stock attached to their names selling, although getting deals over the line in a market overflowing with listings has not always been easy. Average days to sell had, like last year, blown in many cases.
The number one agent by volume of listings has changed. Below, we profile the top 11 agents and find out what makes them tick.
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Taking the top spot is Barfoot & Thompson’s Bob Qin, up from number eight last year. The reticent Qin didn’t want to comment. “That’s Bob,” say people who work with him, describing him as extremely humble.
With listings up 38%, and adding up to more than $355m in total value, Qin put his success down to the support of his company but said “I prefer shut up”, when OneRoof asked what his secret was.
Qin sells in the Millwater area – his counterpart Sabrina Zhang, who also sells in this fast-growing part of Auckland’s north, burst into the top 10 this year at number 10.
Qin used to be a chemical engineer in China and was a builder in New Zealand, according to his website profile, which says: “I have an excellent understanding of the residential building industry and focus on developing properties by leveraging these skills to deal with builders and developers.”
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Past and live listings include dozens of new builds, from big four and five-bedroom standalone houses to attached terrace homes, some still under construction.
While Qin did not want to talk, his recently retired branch manager, Tony Carter, said the star agent always credited his hard-working team with any success, sending them up ahead of him to collect company and industry awards.
“Bob is focused on doing a professional job. He’s got a very well structured and disciplined team and Bob’s first consideration is them.”
Qin also recognized the value and importance of good marketing, Carter said.
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Ray White’s Holly Jones is up two spots from last year, with an 11% increase in listings. She puts that down to a big team effort – she has five on her team, including herself and two new members brought on board this year.
“I think because we’re the market leaders in our area we get a huge amount of referrals and it’s sort of word of mouth. It’s good for momentum because people call us because they see what we’ve been doing.”
Real estate is in her blood. With her parents owning the Ray White New Brighton franchise in Christchurch, Jones grew up talking real estate.
That helped enormously, though she has been independent for some years. Degrees in marketing have also helped the business along, but the Christchurch market has not had the same falls as other parts of the country, so ticked along before picking up a lot after the second half of this year.
“We did about 80 sales in three months, I think it was.”
The team sells across the board but has a focus on first-home buyers. Christchurch is still an affordable city, she says, with most of her team’s sales in the $500,000 to $850,000 price bracket.
Being such a busy agent means there is not a lot of downtime: “You never turn off. You’re always on your phone. You’re always working, you’re always on your emails.”
Jones does not mind that, saying she loves helping people through what can be a stressful time and matching them up with the right property.
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Sandy Wang has leapt to number three from 11 last year, with a 39% increase in listings. While always busy, she said the second half of the year has been even more so.
Around half her listings are brand-new homes with the rest more lifestyle types, and the tender process has been working well for her clients, she says.
That’s because in a tough market, strong negotiation skills are required, and her background as a lawyer in China helps.
Because she gets results, sellers are confident in her skills and others see that: “If your performance is good, the neighbour will list with you, and especially in this type of market.”
Another reason for her increased listings is a larger buyer pool: “We create our database in different areas, from South Auckland, Central Auckland, East Auckland, and even part of West Auckland.”
Wang has a team of six and says everyone works “really, really hard”. She gets little time to relax, but she, too, says real estate is a job she enjoys. As an immigrant to New Zealand from Beijing, she is proud of her achievement in forging a new career in a new country.
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Cameron Bailey is consistently in the top 10 and was number one in the OneRoof rankings in 2024 and 2023.
Christchurch is seeing an even balance between listings and sales with prices staying pretty level, he says.
“I think we’re in the bottom cycle of the market. I don’t think things are going to change for a year or so yet. Interest rates are helping the sentiment, but they are not changing prices.”
He lists properties across the board, from high-end to units and sections in all parts of town and says, regardless of the type of listing, the basics of real estate always apply: “Choose a good agent, do a good marketing campaign.
“As a seller the results are still there, the premiums are still there, but you’ve just got to work a little bit harder so it goes back to promoting the properties so that’s advertising and presenting the property as good as you can.
“If you’ve got the wrong person driving the ship you’re not going to get the results, are you, so it all comes down to that as well.”
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Yvenna Yue, who sells in Hamilton with business and romantic partner Craig Annandale (number 21 on the list), moved from Harcourts to Lodge early this year, which has enabled wider coverage.
Yue says Harcourts has a lot of franchises, but Lodge, which is half-owned by Barfoot & Thompson, allows access to surrounding areas such as Cambridge, Te Awamutu and Morrinsville, and she says their income has increased by about 20% since the move.
She has noticed a lack of investors this year, which, when combined with the Government’s shift out of buying properties, has meant demand for new builds has been down.
But she says the workload hasn’t been down. With plenty of first-home buyers around, the team has been even busier as first-timers require more time and care.
Yue says she and Annandale do so well because they are skilled: “You have to have a large amount of experience and knowledge behind you to get the deals across the line.
“Just put your head down and do the basics – don’t chase the number, just knuckle down and get every deal across the line. That’s what we’re focusing on at the moment.”
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Ming Qin was formerly with Barfoot & Thompson but told OneRoof he had moved to Wallace Real Estate.
He said hard work was the key to getting listings, along with enjoying every day, treating people well and providing a good service.
He says he works across Auckland’s North Shore, as well as West Auckland and also other parts of Auckland, selling a variety of properties, from new builds to homes on large sections with older houses.
Qin says he used to be a social worker in China, so real estate has been a big change: “A very big difference because I used to be a social worker in mental health, so I help people when people feel very stressed in their lives and how to help them achieve their goal and have a better and brighter life.”
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Glenn Collins and partner Sonia Christison have been the top sales team at Lodge Real Estate in Hamilton for 21 years.
Part of that success is being well-recognised and well-thought of in the industry, Collins says.
“People know they’re going to get good, sound advice, and we will produce results for them, so people will tend to gravitate to that when times are a bit different.”
The 12 months covered in the OneRoof rankings has been interesting as each house has operated as its own market, Collins says.
“It’s almost like at the moment you can have one house come on the market and a very similar house come on the market – one will have buyers literally all over it, and the other one, for no rhyme or reason, is just not getting any attention.”
Being realistic has counted, with vendors finding success by not over-pricing. “Properties need to be competitive to attract interest. I think the word competitive is really important – not cheap, not underpriced, but competitive.
“I think the days of, ‘oh, look, we’ll price it at $30,000 too high because we’re happy to negotiate’ – the buyers don’t come to you. They go to the properties that are priced at that competitive level.
“I think the people who are taking on board professional opinion and getting a strategy and everything in place around that are the ones succeeding.”
Collins runs a team of six and says experience counts, with most of their work consisting of repeat business or referrals.
“You work hard to earn the right to get repeat business and have people refer that business to you, but you never assume you’re just going to be given that business, either, so you still go about it in the same way.
“I think the big bonus that we have is we don’t have PAs so what that means for a client is they’re always dealing with us as the agent. I do think that’s really important to our clients.”
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Kitty Long works from the Highland Park office for Barfoot & Thompson and says there are many reasons for her strong showing in the OneRoof list, including Barfoot & Thompson reaching its highest level of stock for 10 years in June through August.
The poor economy was one reason for so many listings: “The whole economy is quite bad, so lots of people cannot handle the mortgage, they have to sell up.”
There was also a new category of seller generated since last year – people moving overseas, and “lots” of them.
Most were heading to Australia, and Long has vendors already in Australia who she was selling for, with feedback they were not seeing positive change in this country.
Another group she has been dealing with are investors who are finding the rental market hard and who were struggling to get good tenants.
“They have to pay high mortgages, so under those circumstances, some are opting to just sell up.”
Another group, in suburbs like Pakuranga, Halfmoon Bay and Howick, were people who had been living in 1970s and 1980s builds for 30 or 40 years who were downsizing or moving to a retirement village.
Long says more listings have also come in the form of new builds on the market. She says about 40% of her sales are new builds, explaining that in 2021 at the market peak, people bought land for subdivision potential, then held on when the market declined, only to finish the development at the same time as many others, leading to a lot of competition.
A consequence was that it was a challenge to get what they wanted: “Sometimes they really have to reduce their price to sell.”
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Fiona Li is up from 17 last year and opened her own business in January, Harcourts Property Ventures in Epsom, telling OneRoof that over the last 12 months, she has been helping a lot of good people move on with their lives in a challenging economy.
Change comes with challenges, but she says opening the new business was one of the best decisions she has made.
“It has really helped my business move forward and as a result I am able to have better conversations with prospective clients, which has led to more listings and opportunities to help people all over Auckland.”
Her team played to their strengths in sales, operations and marketing, but she says she has learned that no one has control over what is happening in the market.
“Our job is to use our expertise and knowledge to help them make good, informed decisions and get the result they are after.
“My instincts are that we are starting to see more momentum, and I believe the bottom of the market is behind us.”
She deals in a mix of different types of stock, from new builds and apartments to residential homes, sections and lifestyle blocks.
Li came to New Zealand from China aged 20, initially working in a restaurant. Life is a far cry from when she was a single mum juggling four jobs.
“Real estate continues to be my passion, and I love helping and meeting people.”
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Sabrina Zhang has seen a 53% jump in listings in the period covered, putting this down to opening a Ray White franchise in the new booming suburb of Milldale early in the year.
She had previously been with Barfoot & Thompson, where she competed with this year’s number one, Bob Qin, in the neighbouring Millwater office.
They both had great relationships with the building industry, so much so that if builders had two listings, they would give one to her and one to Qin, but changing her branding meant she had doubled her listings.
People have been drawn to Milldale by the brand-new homes, she says: “All different stock, some of them duplex, some of them freestanding, some of them townhouses, all brand new.”
She says the key to her success is the trust she has built with builders over 10 years.
“We are local, they are local, so we know each other very well.”
Zhang brought her team with her and now has 10 members, plus there are another 10 agents in the branch.
She is proud of them all and says everyone works hard. After 13 years in real estate, Zhang says it’s part of her life, joking she doesn’t really have any life.
“It’s hard to find a balance between life and real estate but I like the sense of achievement. I like people trust me and I can close all the deals easily because they trust me. They trust my experience and my reputation, everything.”
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Tejinder Singh has rocketed up the list from 32 last year, with 49% more listings than the year before.
Barfoot & Thompson’s top salesperson for the Otahuhu branch has a team of six now, but says he came from IT with no real estate or sales experience.
Motivated by a sick daughter, Singh wanted a career that would give him flexibility and landed in real estate, only quitting his previous job in 2020.
He initially worked with another team but more recently started his own and quickly became the top salesperson in the branch, saying even though the market has been flat, he has had the “best years” in real estate.
“We work hard. We run around a lot, to be honest. I don’t sit. Like, day and night, that thought is real estate, and I have a good team that is also very hard working.”
Singh’s team sells a lot of new build terrace homes, which have come to market over the last couple of years. Because there are so many such properties, they can take time to sell and require a lot of effort, to the point Singh says some agents don’t want to take them on.
While standalone houses tend to sell themselves, he says Kiwis are still a bit suspicious of terrace houses and side-by-side living where driveways might be shared with seven or 10 other houses.
There are advantages, however, and one is price: “They’re not that costly anymore. The developers are very flexible when it comes to pricing, etcetera.
“They meet the market quickly because they’re in the business, right, so they have to move on, whereas if you’re living in a house, you don’t have to move on that quickly, and if you don’t get the price you want, you can just continue living.”
Another advantage is that terrace houses are new, often roomy with three or four bedrooms and two or three bathrooms, and they are insulated and double-glazed, compared to standalone houses that are old and might have mould or condensation.
Singh says the trend he has noticed most has been sellers finally accepting the buyers’ market and adjusting prices accordingly.
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