At an age when work is a distant memory for many people, Jim Mays is still going strong at almost 83. He’s sold about $1.5 billion of property in his career and commutes from his home in Tauranga to Takapuna and Matakana every week to sell luxury homes for Premium Real Estate. His reason for still working: “I love it.”
How long have you been selling real estate?
Forty-three and a bit years. I did a few other things beforehand. I left school shortly after turning 15 and went to work for a general warehouse merchant, then I went to a firm that sold hardware and homeware lines, things like plastic rubbish bins, cans and buckets, New Zealand-wide.
I did my compulsory military training at 18 and loved it, and I was going to go into the regular army. But my company offered me a job on the road, selling their products, and a brand new Vauxhall car to drive. That swung it. Damn the army, I wanted the car!
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Did you enjoy selling?
I did. I went right through the country and I got to know the buyers from the major retailers and wholesalers everywhere.
At 22 I set up my own import licensing agency. You had to have a licence for everything you imported — clocks, crockery, glassware, you name it, everything was under licence. But a lot of firms never spent all of their licence. So I’d go to the buyers I knew and buy their unused licence for about 20 per cent, then I would go to Hong Kong or Singapore or Jakarta and import goods in my own right using their licences. I did very well and the world was my oyster. I loved it, but I had a hankering for real estate.
Why the interest in real estate?
I realised the value of it. I got that from my dad. When I was 15 and had just started working, my dad bought a section for me in Exmouth Rd, Northcote, back in the days when it was a goat track. I think it cost about £125, and I had to pay him back. In those days I was more interested in buying a car so I wasn’t very impressed with my dad telling me, “You owe me money for this bit of land.”
I paid him a bit every week — if I earned £3, he’d take £1, and I was able to pay him off with the £12 cheque I got from the army. But he wouldn’t give me the title until I was 21. He knew I’d sell the section to buy a car.
Later, I ended up buying about five or six villas in Fleet St in Newton and renting them out. After a while I got an offer so I sold up. That’s when I decided to go into the real estate business myself, and joined a firm called Scholes Oakley on the North Shore. I had a ball.
How different was the industry then?
Completely different. The only ads you had were the black and white print run-ons in the Herald. If it was a really good property you might get a black border around the ad. People would ring about them and I learned to qualify them on the phone — what were they looking for, where did they want to live? When they came in to see me I went to the office card system and sorted out no more than four properties to show them. Invariably, they’d buy the third.
You would drive them around in your car and you had total control. That all changed when they introduced the Melbourne system of selling at auction. Open homes changed things too. Suddenly you lost control of the buyer. Your whole strategy had to change.
And, of course, technology has changed everything. I remember when I was at Bayleys in the early 1990s and my colleague David Rainbow had this big box with a screen on his desk. He said, “Jim, I believe computers are the way it’s going to be in the industry.” I said, “If that’s the future of real estate, I am out of here.” But I learned to use them. You adapt.
Tell me about some of the highlights of your career.
There have been a lot! One was getting approached by the Auckland Area Health Board, who said, “Jim, we’ve heard that if we have difficult things to sell, we should give you a ring.” They were going to become a district health board, and they had three years to get rid of their surplus hospitals, mental institutions and clinics. They gave me a portfolio of 28 properties, millions of dollars of real estate. By the end of the three years I had sold every property in that portfolio.
Later, after John and David Bayley had asked me to come and work for them, I could see an opening for someone to specialise in waterfront properties, be it oceanside, lakeside or riverside. So that’s what I did. I put out a magazine called Waterfront, listing 17 beautiful properties throughout New Zealand. I later did a second one with 30 properties and a third with 36.
I was the only true specialist in New Zealand who could authoritatively talk about property in places like Matauri Bay, Waiheke, Taupō, Lake Wānaka, Bay of Islands, Takapuna, Pauanui Waterways, Awhitu ...
Did you also sell overseas properties?
I did, in Fiji and Rarotonga. I’d charter a boat and take buyers out to look at islands.
But after a while I’d had enough of all the travelling, it was hard on my family. I did one more Waterfront magazine and sold 98 per cent of those properties, then I went to Premium Real Estate. It’s a boutique firm with a huge wealth of knowledge and I am proud to be part of their team.
You’re no longer working on your own?
After being a one-man band for most of my working life, I have teamed up with two wonderful agents, Jelena Freeman in Takapuna and Linda Smith in Matakana. They are so professional, dedicated and hard-working. I do everything 50/50 with them. Linda and I have achieved some of the highest prices in the Matakana region.
Jelena and I have sold one Takapuna property for over $22m plus another for $29m, records on the North Shore.
I pass on what I know about the business to them but I also learn so much from them.
What’s the secret of your success?
Loving what I do. And stickability. This job is not all beer and skittles. There have been times when I have gone for many months of not selling anything and not getting paid. Many years ago I sold a hotel complex in Hawke’s Bay but the vendor went bankrupt and instead of the fee of $150,000 I was owed, I got a payout of $5000.
Will you ever retire?
I am looking at calling it quits on March 31 next year. I never contemplated retiring at 65 because I loved what I did. I’ve known men with interesting jobs who retired at 65 and three years later they were either dead or the most boring fellows. I didn’t want to be like that.
I am still enjoying it but I am about to turn 83 and I think it is time. I can hand everything over to Jelena and Linda, who will continue to do a wonderful job, but I will be here to support them, if they want me to.
What do you like to do when you’re not working?
My wife, Lynne, and I have a caravan and we love to drive somewhere, park up and go off exploring. We love walking and cycling and seeing different parts of the country. Earlier this year we went to Shelly Beach, north of Coromandel town, and explored the whole of the coast around there. Then we did the same from Whitianga. It’s a beautiful country.
And finally, whatever happened to that section your dad made you buy at 15?
I eventually sold it in my mid-20s. I advertised it myself and got £2000 cash for it, half of the price of my first house in Wellington. It made a big difference having that cash. I wished my dad had taken every spare cent I had and committed me to buying more land. That’s when it really hit home that the future is property.
