Rebecca Russell: how to dominate a suburb in Queensland real estate

On episode 16 of Raising the Bar, George sits down with Rebecca Russell from Place Kangaroo Point - the agent who went from bartending and selling cosmetic holidays, to becoming the number one attraction agent in Richlands with the highest average sale price and volume in the suburb.

Rebecca’s story is wild: starting in property management, building a rent roll from scratch, switching to sales, becoming a mum and still managing to out-perform an entire postcode through nothing but consistency, relationships and a seriously dialled in process.

We cover:

- The career rise: how Rebecca carved out a name in Richlands without being a local, her transition from property manager to agent to lead agent and her advice for anyone considering the same path.

- Winning in real estate as a new mum: Rebecca’s strategies, systems and practical tips for young mums who want to stay in the game without burning out.

- Work/life balance that actually works: routines, boundaries, non-negotiables and how she built a lifestyle that supports success, not stress.

Contact Rebecca: https://www.eplace.com.au/agent/rebecca-russell Follow us on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/empirelegal/ More podcast episodes: https://empirelegal.com.au/podcast/ Check out our blogs: https://blog.empirelegal.com.au Website: https://empirelegal.com.au

Transcript

Rebecca Russell, I've been wanting to get you in this chair for a while. Thank you for making the time out of your day to come along for season two of Raising the Bar. 

Thank you. Thanks for having me. 

Pleasure. Fun fact, when I met you, you had a different last name.

Yes. 

No husband. 

Yes. 

No baby. 

Yes.

Welcome to the Raising the Bar podcast, where we story tell excellence in Queensland Property. I'm your host, George Sourris from Empire Legal. 

So your world has changed since we became friends probably, what, seven? Seven years ago? Yeah, six years ago. Something around that. Yeah. Yeah. About that. Yeah. Well, we're going to jump into your journey, from before I knew you, until the powerhouse you are today.

Okay, thank you. So let's jump into it. I want to start by taking a trip down memory lane. 

Okay. 

I understand you haven't been in real estate forever. No. How many years do you think you've been working in the industry now? 

I feel like it's forever. I think it's, it's like eight or nine years now. Okay. 

Okay. But before that, I know we've spoken in the past, you did work selling like cosmetic holidays.

Yes. You were bartending Yes. All sorts of different skills you were developing. Yes. And I guess let's rewind a little bit from that point and how you got into real estate, and then we'll jump into your journey throughout the last few years in real estate. 

Okay. Well basically I moved down the coast with Michael, which is my husband, well now husband.

I was organising for females, males to go to Thailand for surgery. So it was a sales role. But basically it got to a point where I guess that wage was not really getting me anywhere. Right. And there was nowhere to really progress in it. I love that job, but it just didn't give me any kind of lifestyle.

I couldn't go out and do anything. And that's where I just had to start exploring my options. I spoke to one of my friends that works at McGrath and she said there's a property management role coming up. So I went for that interview. That interview turned into someone else, took this job. But we have a leasing position for you.

So like rentals? Yeah. 

Yep. Okay. And are we talking you on the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast? Where were you? Brisbane. This was in Brisbane, in Alex Jordan's, ah, yes. McGrath office. 

Okay. So that's Paddington, right? Yeah. Yep, yep, yep. Okay, cool.

So I think that was a really good experience being put into that office first, because I know if you go into the wrong office, you can be scarred from real estate completely.

You may never have lasted in real estate. Yeah. If you had a terrible experience at the start. Yeah, for sure. 

So I was in the Paddington office. Great vibe, great people, great procedures. I felt like the job was quite easy because they made it easy. And that's kind of how I started in real estate.

That was, oh, 2016, 2017. 

Okay. What made you pick real estate? Just out of curiosity. Is it because you knew someone, or like you already had the sales background? 

I had the sales background, but it was more, my friend that actually introduced me and got me the interview. She loved real estate whenever we caught up. She owned the McGrath over at Yeronga/Annerley with her parents. Her parents owned it,. And she was like partnership with it. Career agent. Yeah. Like lived and breathed it. Yeah. And she's like, well, you, you should get into real estate, you'd be good?

Yeah. Yeah. 

Okay, cool.

So she got me introduced to the head of property management there, at Paddington McGrath. And then I got that role and that's where I snowballed from there. So I did leasing for a year, and I was number one in the Queensland team within that first year. 

With no leasing experience?

No. Wow. Well that, and it was just because know that the volume, 

like there was, there was huge volume through their rent roll. 

Right. 

So I was number one in there. And my property manager leader was like, let's move you to the next stage and let's put you as a BDM. So they put me into their Bulimba office as a BDM, which is a sales role in the rental side.

But that office wasn't for me. They shouldn't have changed me from the Paddington office, which was a great vibe. Bulimba office was like a two minute walk from my house. Oh, wow. But it just was not the vibe that I wanted. 

Fair enough. Yep. And that's how I met Simon. 

Okay. And obviously we're talking Place Kangaroo Point now, that's where you are. That's where you've been for the majority of your career. Yeah. And did you start. Seven years. Wow. I think you must have just started there when I met you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you weren't married yet, and you've been married for about six. Six, yeah. Okay.

So that, that one year transition period. Yeah. Right. Okay. So you ended up over with Simon, and that's because your husband knew Simon. Did you have an intro? How'd you end up? 

Yeah, my husband lived with Simon for, I think it was like 12 months. 

Yep. 

So I knew Simon because I lived there part-time basically as well. And then Simon saw that I was in real estate. It was actually weird, because when I was looking for a job in real estate, I reached out to Courtney and said, do you guys have something coming up in your office or do you know anyone? And she said no. 

Yep. So at the time they didn't have any roles open?

No. Okay. But you ended up coming full circle and ending up with them. 

Yeah. 

And you knew Courtney, obviously, through Simon, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. Okay. Sweet. All right, so you're then at KP.  

Yes. So basically I met up with Simon at Story Bridge Hotel. We were there for like, not even 10 minutes. If you know Simon, he comes out with all these plans. He's like, we're going to buy a rent roll. No wait, you're going to start the rent roll. He just had 20 ideas all at one time, thrown at me. He's an 

action man. He makes stuff happen. Yes. 

Yeah, yeah. So within 10 minutes of being there, we were all of a sudden in this development down the road. And he's trying to go through plans while also having a meeting with his client. And anyways, I was probably two hours into this conversation, and he's like, okay, so when are you going to start? 

And I wasn't happy with where I was. Yeah. So he wanted me to start up the rent roll basically in his office. Right. So we started that rent roll up and Oh, so there was no rent roll at Place KP? Because Place KP I think is one year older than Empire. So it's probably around nine or maybe two years. It's about 9-10 years old now. 

Yeah. So at that point in time, there was no rent roll whatsoever?

Purely sales. Yeah. So you started the rent roll arm of the business? 

Yeah, there you go. I didn't know that either. Yeah. Cool. Okay. 

Yeah, so I started that organically. And I had a property manager as well. She was awesome. So the two of us working together was fantastic. And that's why I lasted three years in that role. But then it gets to a point where you are like, where do I go from here? Sales is a natural transition for, yeah. And when I met you, you had just started selling, I believe. 

Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. 

And were you in Simon's team?

I was working underneath Simon. But I think a lot of people, I feel like they don't see property management as, very desirable or don't, it's got a high burnout out rate. They don't take, yeah, they don't take it seriously. But for me, I was like, these are all my clients. You know, I was a relationship person. So my first year of sales, I actually basically sold through the rent roll. Off the 

relationships you had? 

Yeah. 

Yeah. Okay. Just for the listeners out there that may not understand. So BDM is a Business Development Manager. Yeah. So that primary role, I guess you, you'll be able to explain it better than me. What's a BDM do? 

So it's a sales side of rentals, so you bring on properties into the rent roll.

You sign up owners, lease them, and then it goes in for your property management team to look after it. 

Yeah. So you pretty much did the opposite of that though. You used the BDM relationships you'd already built, to go, oh, do you want to sell? 

Yeah. When I left property management, I called all my owners and said, hey, just so you know, I am moving into sales.

If you are looking to sell, let me know, but this person's going to be taking over from now on. And it was as the market was going up, just after COVID. So, people were looking to sell, they're like, great, let's cash out. 

Let's spend 30 seconds on what you just said. Yeah. Because I reckon, so you said you called all of the, the landlords that you had.

Yeah. Just to let them know. 

Yeah. 

Man, no one would do that. Yeah. I feel like that's a unique point of difference, for the relationship, right? Most people would just smoke bomb, go to this sales role, never hear from Rebecca again. 

Yeah. 

You totally, again, did the opposite, and it turned into obviously an asset.

That's how you started to get these sales. Yeah. Is that, is that right? Is that where we're going? Yeah. How good is that? Even now, 

I still do, maybe like one, at least one or two a quarter from the rent roll. And I've been out of the property management game for a while. But it's my old clients, they just keep coming back, which is nice.

Yeah, a nice thing, which is the power of relationships, hey. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. And I guess where we're going to end up is, you now predominantly sell out on the west side in Richlands, around that region? Yes. Which is, is that an emerging community? Is it new builds out there, or? 

It's a very new area. So when I started out there, it was a lot of industrial sort of areas. Simon and Courtney actually introduced me to a developer that's done seven little communities out there. They didn't actually introduce me to the first sale I did out there. They introduced me to an owner in Murarrie, which is actually Tim Robards, who's the first Bachelor of Australia.

Oh, okay. So random. I sold his property in Murarrie and then he said, I've got one in Richlands. Would you go there? I am like, I guess I had nothing really going on. I didn't have that many sales. So I went out there, I sold it for a really good price. At the time they were only selling for high three hundreds.

Are we talking like townies? Yeah, townhouses, yeah. What are they? Two, three bed or?

They're four bed, two and a half bath, two car. 

For $300K back then?

For, it was like $380k. 

Wow. For four bed? 

Yeah. Wow. So I sold his one for, I think it was like $425k. 

Smashed it. Yeah. And he was so happy about it. And then he's like, oh, my cousin's got one.

Anna, his wife had one. Someone else had one. And it was all in this other development, which wasn't owned by Azure. And then that onsite manager gave me six properties. So that's how I started in Richlands. 

Okay. So, Rebecca Russell, 12 months prior to that, would never have guessed that she'd be selling off the back of one property from a Murarrie introduction, on the other side of town. Yeah. And now that's your core area, isn't it? 

Yeah. 

Yeah. And for the listeners out there I'm going to say it for you. You are number one in Richlands. Yeah. If you jump online, you have a look, not only for volume, but also for average sale price. And is it, what's that other website that you guys reagent?

Rate my agent, rate my agent, realestate.com. Yeah. 

Yeah. So congratulations. Thank you. That's, that's really cool. 

This was like my number one thing to do this year. Just be number one there. Yeah. 

And I don't want to jump ahead too much, but again, a little teaser for another section we're going to talk about is in this time you've also, had a little boy. 

Yes. 

And you are very active. I know how much effort you put into being a mum as well. Yeah. You, you don't just dump your child. You are an active mum, and you've still managed to top that suburb. You're a boss woman that gets all this stuff done. Yeah. I know from my wife working in the same office as you, she'd say you're very organised.

So Rebecca, you, you work days in advance. You obviously, you must plan your week and stuff, right? Yeah. To, to do, do all this mum, business and be top of the charts. That's not a fluke. That's a process that you've built. 

Oh yeah. And I think it came from the property management side. To be honest, sales is so much easier than property management. 

You reckon? 

Yep. Because if you're in property management, you're dealing with like 300-400 vendors and lots of tenants, all at the one time. Where, when you're selling, you could have like a handful, to 10 at the one time. So it's a lot easier to manage.

Yeah, way way less volume of clients at the one time. And you do see a huge burnout rate in property management as well hey? Yeah. With the property management stuff, did you ever feel senses of burnout? Or was it more so you wanted to chase the sales for a better lifestyle?

I think with property management, towards the end, we didn't have enough staff. So I was probably doing 60 to 70 hours a week. And I was doing really late hours, to just be able to keep up with emails and stuff like that. 

So I wouldn't have been able to do that role as a mother. Like there was no way I could keep doing that because I was leasing, I was bringing on new business, and then I was managing the team. So doing that, it was a lot of work. So I feel like, doing sales, I just have to look after myself. And yeah. Yeah. So I guess for future proofing yourself, you are like, hey, this isn't, I want to be a mum, I'm married now.

Like, this isn't, well, I didn't think 

I was going to come back to real estate when I had my child. 

Oh, true. Yeah. True. You thought, all right. That's it. I've had a good run. I was like, I'm going to 

get a nine to five. 

Yep. Nice. Yeah. And then when I was on leave, I just kept getting more business, so I, I was like, I can't. 

You got to chase that, right? Well, you, you even just said with the property management stuff, you said we were so busy I was doing 60 plus hours a week. Yeah. And you built that organically within that office too. So there was no property management arm, and then you blink, and you guys are too busy. Yeah. How good's that? And then this same, this same process is now replicated with the sales stuff.

Yeah. 

What do you put that down to? Obviously I know you're a hard worker, I'm happy to say that on your behalf. If you were just to think, what's the secret sauce? What's Rebecca doing to, to be so popular that you run off your feet busy? What is it? 

When I started in McGrath Paddington, Alex Jordan was obviously, well, he's number one agent everywhere basically.

Yeah. If you don't know who that is, look him up. This guy is like absolute killer. And he's a gentleman. And he, yeah, he's 

so lovely. And I remember he said one day, I chose a suburb. I didn't try to choose three suburbs. He's like, I chose one suburb and really went for it. 

Yep. 

He saw a gap in the market.

And he really went for that area. And Aaron Woolard said the exact same thing. 

I was just thinking that. Yeah. Yeah, it was, it was the guest a couple weeks ago on the show, and that's it. Yeah, he wanted to be Mr. New Farm. Yep. 

And I found when I went to Richlands, there was no dominant agent there, and I already had some runs on the board, so I'm like, why don't I run with this?

Before you ended up in the Richland, did you have a farm area or a suburb where you're like, I want to take this section? Yes. So let's talk about that for a sec out of curiosity. I've always known you as, if it's out in the Richlands, it is Rebecca Russell. I don't even know who number two is. Yeah. 

I started sales underneath Simon. Just to get a feel for it, see what I was doing. He helped me with negotiations and stuff like that. So Simon was actually trying to get me into New Farm/Newstead. I did, oh, maybe like six, seven high-end sales there. I am like, great, I'm going to get into this market.

That market is so saturated. I was never going to get in there. 

Oh my God. I can probably rattle off a dozen names right now, without even thinking, of people that I know. And that wouldn't even cut the surface of all the ones that are all fighting over that pocket. 

Yeah. So I felt likea failure. Probably won't be able to do sales for that much longer. Really? 

So that's how you felt? Yeah. See this, this is cool for the listeners out there. So there's self-doubt even in a Rebecca Russell who, you know, you're top of your game where you are now. So at that point in time you were like, oh man, I, I'm a failure.

I don't know if I'm going to stick in real estate. 

Yeah. Yeah. 

How crazy. Aaron Woolard was told, you heard on the episode, he was told two times by his original boss at real estate, it's not for him. 

Yeah. Well. I was just like, how am I ever going to keep up - like I was getting these high-end listings because Simon put me on them.

Yeah. Okay. So you were basically trade, were trading with Simon. He was helping you. Yeah. He was, he was trying to get me into a market. These listings were from the rent roll as well, so they were both of our clients. 

Cool. 

So he tried to get me into that space and I couldn't get any more traction. 

Yep. So I'm like, well, because the competitors just had saturation in the area you think? Which is pretty much what you are now in, in Richlands, right?

Yeah. I'm sure if someone else comes along and then people Google or look up and they go, oh, I don't know this person, but look, that Rebecca lady sells everything. Yeah. I'm just going to call her. 

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. 

Great. 

I went on maternity leave, I was like, oh, I think I'm just going to get out of sales. Gabe is two, two to three. How old he now? 

Two and a half. Okay. Nearly two and a half. So this is, so this is about three years ago, roughly? 

Yeah. 

We're talking. Yeah. Yeah. So in your mind you're like, oh, I don't know if I'm coming back. 

Yeah. Wow. But then. As it got closer to me having time off to have my little boy, I just took off in Richlands with those sales.

And then as I was on maternity leave, I sold 12 properties there in a six month period. So Courtney showed them for me, but I signed them up, I did the contracts, like it just kept me going. Wow. So I didn't actively try to get business, but I did get business. But they were coming in. Yeah. And then is that when you just thought, oh, well you know what, this makes sense. Why don't I just double down on this? 

Yeah. I was like, even if I get one sale a month or whatever, you know, that's probably more than what I would've made in a nine to five job. 

Yeah. And, and the balance of, you know, being a mother now. 

Yeah. 

Being able to go, if you can do one a month and, and be in a better position.

Yeah. Why the heck wouldn't you, you've worked so hard to build your, your skills and your name makes sense. 

Yeah. Yeah. When I was on maternity leave, I just worked on my database. I pulled every sale that had happened in the last three years or whatever in Richlands, and went and saw if I had any of those buyer contact details.

And then I contacted every single one of those people that bought those properties and I just started picking up more sales. 

Unreal. And for the listeners out there, so, correct me if I'm wrong. I understand with Richlands, so these developments have been built now, basically all townhouses.

Yeah. Yeah. So they've been built, I'm going to take an educated guess and say they're no longer $380k. 

The three bedrooms are $775k. 4 bedrooms, $850-$875k, depending on what complex you're in. Wow.

Double They've doubled. Yeah. In, in what, like five years or something like that? Three and a half, four.

Okay. Do you then go, you ring your database, all your investors, and you say, hey, you know, your property's doubled, you're thinking of selling? Yeah. And you trade off the back of that. 

Yeah. 

Great. Yeah. So I sell, like this month I've sold, oh, mate, maybe six. You've, you've sold at least seven, because Empire Legal has seven contracts from Rebecca Russell in the last 30 days.

So at least seven. Well, I think, I think I've got like eight off market, off the back of one sale. Wow. So, yeah, I've, yeah, I sell one and I've got so many buyers, that I just move them to other properties. 

So that's just a matter of ringing up the database and going, I just sold this one in the complex for this much. I've still got buyers. Yeah. Are you interested? 

Yeah. Great. Yeah. 

So you don't need to overcomplicate it, do you? 

My process is so easy. Yeah. 

Well, but you say it's easy. You've finessed this over years and you've built these skills and you've obviously worked out what works for, for you.

What I've learned from having guests on this show, sitting in this chair, is it's always the fundamental stuff. Yeah. That works. You said, I called my whole database. I let them know that I was moving out of property management. Yeah. I let them know that I'm now selling in Richlands. Doing that stuff, it sounds easy, and maybe it's easy to you because you're just saying it like it's nothing. 

Yeah. 

But a lot of agents, I don't think people pick up the phone and ring everybody. They might say, oh yeah, I spend four hours doing a call block in the wolf pack or whatever it's called. But I don't know if they actually do.

That sounds like a key to your success. You actually pick up the phone and do it, and it gets you the result. 

And it's only like an hour a day there that, there you go. So if you 

focus on doing an an hour call block, you'll get good results and you'll get sales. 

Yeah. 

But that's just actually taking the time to black it out and going, I'm just going to make my calls now.

Yeah. If you don't do that, the well dries up, right? Yeah, yeah. Hmm. There you go. 

Yeah. 

We just unpacked a lot there. That was very, very cool. Alright, let's just wrap up this section then. I've got one more part I want to talk about. Is, obviously an attraction agent means people ring you as well, right? Yeah. You say you're doing outbound calls, but I got a feeling that people will ring you.

Do you do letterbox drops when you're selling in the area and stuff? Or how do they, how do they hear about, like what makes them contact you to..? 

It's crazy because I haven't, I haven't paid. Like a lot of people do a lot of paid marketing and stuff like that of course, to try to push themselves.  I listened to Ethan Petrie's the other, the other day and he said he put a lot of money in at the beginning.

His head in the letterbox, every week. Yeah. Every week. And eventually people go, oh yeah, it's that Ethan guy - sells in West End. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. 

I haven't actually spent a cent. 

Wow. 

At all to like market myself. 

Okay. So what's the secret, Rebecca? 

If I saw an agent selling a property, $50-$100k more than another agent, I'm going to choose them. 

Of course you are. As a vendor, you want to get that result. Yeah. 

And so for me, that's super important, and I've always pushed to make as much for those vendors. I know each complex. If you see my little book that I pull out, I have every complex site plan printed out.

I know exactly what their townhouse is, what it's worth. I pull it out. And that's how I can get the most money out of people. And people see that on realestate.com and then they call me. I probably get about five call-ins a week now. 

Inbound inquiries. Yeah. 

Sometimes they don't sell straight away. But they want you, they want to talk to you about, about their...

They want an updated appraisal or whatever. Yeah. They want to know about their property, because you are the Richlands queen. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. How good's that. The little book you're talking about, is this when you go to do like a listing presentation or an appraisal, you're saying you've got like a pitch deck? No, this is like my everyday book.

I have 17 site plans of complexes out in Richlands, so I know exactly what townhouse they're talking about when they tell me the number of the townhouse. 

Okay, gotcha. Yeah. And that's just being an expert in the area you're in, right? Yeah. Whereas an out of area agent that comes in, just that have no idea, they can't compete with you.

They don't know, you know, every sale. I imagine you'd know pretty much every sale. 

Yes. 

Certainly your own, but even the competitors I know are being definitely undersold. And if an agent comes into the area, I'm like buy off them, because you'll get it for $100k less. 

Wild. Yeah. Yeah. And then when you go to sell, it's the exact reverse.

Yeah. It's, hey, I know this guy doesn't sell as much as I can get for them. Here's the data. Pick me. 

Yeah. 

Yep. Let's talk about one more thing, your commission. So you wouldn't have to drop your commission, right? Because you're an attraction agent in the area. 

No. 

This is me, this is what I do. Is that fair to say? 

Yeah. Well, if you see the case studies, and I do provide them when I'm pitching. If you see the case studies. One agent, actually a really big agent, I'm not going to say who, but they sold the property at auction in the exact same complex, the exact same floor plan, exact same time.

$660k. I sold mine for $760k. Wow. 

Wow. 

And I had pitched for that one, but they chose that agent because they were charging 2.2%, and I charge 2.95% to 3.5%. And everyone can just pay me whatever they want when they get a contract. But it's a sliding scale based on result. 

Okay. Based on result. Okay.

Yeah. So yeah, they get to pick within a range. 

Yeah, yeah. 

Based on how you perform for them. 

Yeah. 

Great. And I'm sure if you do the math, that $100k, the whatever, the difference in commission. Yeah. The difference in the comms doesn't match the extra money they'd have in their pocket. No.

That's awesome. I think for whoever's listened to this point, how, how good's that? I know we've unpacked a lot of stuff. We've gone a bit freestyle. We could chat all day. There's two more main areas I want to talk to you about.

The first one is being a mum. 

Yes. 

So we touched on it briefly. There's certainly other real estate agents, many, many real estate agents out there that have maybe had a similar mindset that you had of, hey, I'm going to go have my bub, and I don't know what's next. Yeah, maybe I'm just going to be, not "just be". That's actually not the word I'm looking for.

It's not "just" a mum - being a mum's harder than going to work. Your wife will see this. 

Hi Anna. No, but truthfully, I'm witnessing it firsthand now. We've got a little three month old at home. Yeah. And I've watched my wife working for Simon and Courtney, which is, you have to be a high performer to work in team Caulfield.

Yeah. They have high expectations, and they get great results. And Anna's like, man, I'd rather just wish I could just go to work some days. Because that's so much easier than, than, you know, it's a break. The mum. Yeah, the mum stuff, right? So, I want to know, in the Rebecca Russell mindset, of how have you built what you've built and been a present mum? Because you've done a really good job. I think about your work life balance, which is the last point I want to touch on. 

Yeah. 

And you, you are, in my opinion, a textbook example of someone that's got it all worked out. I can bump into you at the Carindale shops. I can bump into you at the office. Yeah. You're doing stuff I see on socials with, with Gabe, with Mike.

Yeah. Let's just chat. Let's spend a few minutes just unpacking that, with what's coming to mind for you. 

Yeah. Real estate sometimes is hard with work life balance. Sometimes you do have to give up a lot. But I think we do have it quite figured out. Non-negotiable for me - I don't usually do any afternoon appointments. All my appointments are set in the morning first thing. So I take Gabriel to daycare. I do all my appointments in the morning, because going out to my area in the afternoon just doesn't make sense anyways. Because the traffic's awful. Because you don't live near Richlands.

No. You, you're living closer to the Kangaroo Point office, hey. 

Yeah. Correct. 

Yeah. Yeah. So it makes more sense for you. But you've built this, right? This is something that you've gone, I'm going to engineer this life I want. Yeah. Which is I want to do my appointments in the morning, go out to Richlands, do what I need to do out there.

Yeah. And then what, get back to be there for Gabe to pick up and stuff like that?

So I do pick up. And so we spend from like 4.30pm until he go bed at seven. So it's our time. Every now and then you'll have to do like a contract or whatever. Yeah. But you know, it's, you've got a team that can help with that as well, right?

Yeah, yeah. 

So it's not too often. But then at seven o'clock he goes down, and if I need to tidy up anything, then I can do that as well. 

Yeah. 

So sometimes I find myself on the phone to my vendors, or a buyer that's actually purchasing something after hours. 

Yeah. Oh, look, at the end of the day, you got to keep your deal alive and keep everyone happy.

But I guess you would now have a very good process of going, if someone wants to see you tomorrow, you go, oh, I'm actually not available tomorrow. I have this block or that block. Because it fits in with the gaps you've got when you are out on site on the other side of town. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. 

So, Gabriel is number one priority, obviously. But doing the right thing by your sellers, because they are paying a lot of money to have you sell their property.

So as long as you're doing the right thing from your sellers, and you're very open with that communication. I've lost a lot of listings because I'm a mum.

Really? People think, you know, I can't get the job done. But then, how I see it is if you've got a single agent, they're going to be going out getting wasted on a Saturday night. Where I'm here, my son's asleep at seven and I'm still doing contracts. A lot of my contracts are on Saturday night, Sunday morning.

Mate, all you need to say to them is go to realestate.com and look up Richlands and there's your answer. So, with a good rating. So yeah, that, if that's how they think, then they've, yeah. They haven't got it worked out. Yeah.

So I think we've got a pretty good process. I have my time with Gabriel. Sunday is non-negotiable with him. Afternoons and Sunday morning. Every now and then I'll have to do an afternoon appointment. 

You're a real estate agent. Yeah. It's, it's a six day, sometimes a seven day a week business. You're allowed to set those boundaries. And again, like you said, if you are upfront with your clients, I'm sure if you say to them, hey, just so you know, all the appointments are done on the first half of the day, I've got a process.

This process works. You can see I've got results. I'm sure nine out of 10 times people just trust you. Because the whole thing, the "T" word is my favorite word in in this industry. It's all trust based. Yeah. They trust you to get them the result. And you've already got the accolades for it. So is it fair to say that most people just trust what you say?

Because I've got a process, just trust me. I know what I'm doing. 

Yeah, and it's having that open communication from the very beginning, and just doing the right thing by people. If you do the right thing by people, and you always over communicate, they're going to trust you and let you do your thing.

They see the results online, they're just going to let me do my thing, and they're happy with the results after. Yeah. 

Yeah. And most of your clients are investors, right? 

Yeah. 

A fair amount of them, not even in Queensland, like interstate and stuff. Yeah. So you wouldn't meet most of them, would you?

I wouldn't meet any of them. Wow. So the whole lot's done remote, pretty much? 

Yeah. I think the last four years I've probably met like eight people in person. And they're return clients, so they're buyers that have bought the townhouse, and now they're moving into a house. So I'm selling the townhouse again.

Right, right. Yeah. So 

I don't actually really meet any of my sellers. 

That gives you more flexibility with mum mode doesn't it? You can be at home, you don't have to worry about going to meet them for the appointment. Just jump on the phone.

Yeah. 

Yeah. Do you need to do Zooms or anything, or it's just phone calls? 

Mainly phone calls. 

Great. That's awesome for your lifestyle, right? No one wants to be on Zoom. 

They, you know what? They don't., That's a whole nother side quest that I, I won't jump into. I do face-to-face meetings all the time. Yeah. I, I love face-to-face meetings. I actually hate Zooms. Yeah. A Zoom has a purpose if someone's on the other side of the world and you have to witness something or whatever, it's got, it's got a purpose. It's a good tool. 

Yeah. 

But humans like to connect, right? Yes. And it's as simple as that.

I love meeting people for a coffee or for lunch, especially with work stuff, to actually look at them and eyeball them and go, do I think they'd be a good fit for Empire? 

Yeah. 

So same thing. Same thing, right? It's that human connection piece. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you by the way, for all your support for Empire.

I know I've said that to you off camera hundreds of times, but yeah, thank you very, very much. You are one of our most valued referral partners. 

Thank you. 

I'm not sure what you say to your clients. You have a very high strike rate of how many actually get over to us. Yeah, and they leave us good reviews.

Well, I think it really helps, especially now that the seller's disclosure statement has come in. So I had referred a client over to you guys, but she wanted a Chinese solicitor because she couldn't really speak that great English. Yeah, that's, that's super common. Yep. That solicitor took two and a half months. 

Months?

Yes. I'm not even joking. Two and a half months to get this disclosure back. It was a new complex, so I'm like, I get it. There's a few, you know, issues that have to be dealt with. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

But I think you guys like took two weeks, which is like a long time, but two weeks compared to two and a half months. Like that's crazy. So I know that you guys always try to do things as efficient as possible, and you always get back to everyone so quickly. So that's very helpful. I get sent referral cards all the time, even though, oh, I remember you telling me this.

Yeah. Even though I, I don't refer to these people, but my buyers or sellers will use these other people. They send me a referral card in the mail. I'm like, yeah, that's great. But when they were doing the deal, they would never respond. You could have ruined my deal because you are just not responsive.

This is my passion point. This is the whole point. Yeah. This, this podcast is called Raising the Bar. We story tell excellence in Queensland property. 

Yeah. And then the little tagline is: because the industry deserves better. 

Yeah. 

And I truly believe it. It's having guests like you on this show, and I, Abi and I created this show because we want people out there listening to be able to cut through the noise of, ooh, I got given a $50 gift card. I'll just send my business there. Like, what's 

$50 when you are going to lose a commission of, you know, a lot of money? We're not talking a hundred bucks or 200 bucks.

Yeah. We're talking thousands and thousands of dollars. And you've got to protect the deal as well right? It's, forget the 50 bucks for a sec. Your job is to look after your vendor. Yeah. Your number one job is to protect your vendor. And if they end up with an operator that's subpar, your deal's at risk.

Yeah. 

I totally get that. And I thank you for helping to try and make the industry better. Yeah. And this is, this is a long game, Rebecca. We're only episode 15 or 16 now of a very long road I have ahead, to try and raise awareness on how we can make the industry better. 

Yeah. 

And I, and I'm very passionate about it from the solicitor side to the agent side, to the brokerage side, the buyer's agent side.

There's a lot of cowboys around, and I don't like dealing with them. I, I don't. And look that we're always going to have this. It is, but it's up to us to, to set the standard on what excellence looks like, and yep, we think you're excellent. I don't know how you, you do it, I think about yourself, Courtney when she had her bub. I look at you know, my business partner Abi, she was eight months pregnant when we opened Empire with the first baby, and I was a green solicitor back then. I think. How do you, how do you ladies do it? 

Yeah. 

I'm happy to be a guy because it's, it's, yeah, it's, you've got two jobs.

You've got two jobs. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Let's spend a couple more minutes then on this last point, and then we'll wrap it up. And it's on work life balance. So we sort of already touched on this, right? Yeah. It feeds into the mum stuff. It's, it's same. Same. 

Yeah. 

But let's say the audience member is a real estate agent that maybe was or is working those 60, 70 hours a week.

Maybe they're thinking about being a mum, or maybe like my wife Anna, who's on maternity leave in your office at the moment. Yep. That time is going to run out. Her number one priority is to be a mum. But she still loves being a real estate agent. Yeah. Still loves working with Simon and Courtney and you guys.

What advice would you have to those sorts of people that are listening in? Because you've lived through this. Yeah. And you've come out the other side more successful than you were before, which is crazy. I know.  What's the secret sauce?

When I was on maternity leave, I put in a really good plan.

I worked on my database and I knew exactly what my plan was, of how I was going to do it and how I was going to get number one when I came back. Obviously there's logistical issues with like drop off, pick up with your little one. But when you're a mum, if you don't get it done, you don't get it done.

So I didn't fluff around anymore. I didn't really socialise in the office. I just got my work done. And once I got it done, then I would socialise if I needed to. But my priority is my child and then it's my vendors, and keeping the deals together basically. So I feel like when you are a mum, you have to be in such a good routine, with the baby, with work as well. Because if you don't get things done straight away, it's just, it might not get done. 

Yeah. Wow. I have one specific example. I remember you called me and it was a pre-contract advice while representing a buyer of yours. And I just love the way you navigated this. You called me and you said: you guys said it'd be done by the end of the day.

I think it was like three or four o'clock at this point. It was almost the end of the day. I'm just checking in how you guys tracking. And I said to you, I said, it's on our radar. It'll be done before five.

Thank you for not just ringing and yelling, because the industry has gone a bit haywire since form two, since seller's disclosure. People have gone a bit wild. So thanks for being a kind person. 

Yeah. 

And reflecting now, we're talking about this live. You must have had in your "things to do today", this has to be done by five. I need just to confirm, I you need to go, you know what? I know it's coming by five.

I just want to get that green tick that it's going to be there. Yeah. So I can go and do pickup or go into play with baby mode, because from 4.30pm I'll dip back out. 

It's like it's over until seven. There you go. Yeah. But you still have this deadline of, you want this buyer to get that advice so the contract can get signed.

Yeah. Because I imagine if you didn't do that, it would probably be pretty hard to be present with Gabe, right? Yeah. Because you're thinking about this deal. because you, you want to look after your vendor. 

Exactly. 

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that's just process. This all comes down to you building a process that works for you.

Yeah. And we've only had one or two of these conversations through the four years that we've been working together. So it's not like I have to call you all the time. 

No, no, not at all. And you know, luckily, I think exactly the one time. 

Yeah, that, that's the one time I can think of in a long time.

But you know, you all also respectful of our process. I know you ring up, you talk to Chanel, you talk to the file handler, whoever's looking after your deal. And I'm always around. But honestly, all I'm going to do is ring them anyway. You've obviously worked out that process. Yeah. So going, I'm just going to call the file handler.

Yeah.

Yeah. So this is process. Process is the word that I'm hearing. Exactly. From everything you've said, it's you building processes and also setting, oh, not negotiables, but maybe a framework or guidelines. Where you're not going to go out to the other side of town at 4:30 PM, because that's when you're with your baby.

Exactly. And that's okay. I think if you're honest with people,people will go, oh, okay, cool. She's a mum. She doesn't do 4.30pm appointments. 

Mm-hmm. 

You just give them the options that you have, and they work with that, right? 

Yeah. And they, and that works, doesn't it? No one ever says, no, we can't do that either.

And you know, if I can't do it during a weekday after hours for some reason, I do it on a Saturday after my open homes, or before my open homes. So sometimes I'm out the door at 7:00 AM on a Saturday to make sure I get, you know, pre resettlement inspection or something done. Yeah. 

Okay, cool.

Yeah. Yeah, that's, you can fit it in. That's, yeah. Because I imagine Saturday, my 

husband has Gabriel on Saturday. You took the words - I was going to say, it's daddy daycare, isn't it? Yeah. Saturday's daddy daycare. Yeah. And mum's got to go. 

Yeah. 

Do her appointments. Yeah. So he takes Gabriel and Saturday's for me. It's game day.

Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. I'm just reflecting on these boundaries that are being set, right? Yeah, with myself. We moved to the Gold Coast 12 months ago. Yeah. Which was a big adjustment from living in, in the Valley two minutes down the road. Yes. And I've had to learn, I was coming up five days a week.

Have to get up at 4.30am to beat the traffic. Because traffic on the M1 now starts at 4.45am, believe it or not. 

Wow. 

Courier Mail had an article saying that's the first of the four peak hours, 4.45am. All the tradies trying to get to site. So I get up early and I go, but I've now got that down to three days in Brisbane and then two days at home.

But that took a lot of work. When you're like, oh, hey George, I'm only available on a Monday morning to shoot this podcast, for example, and Monday is a Gold Coast day for me. Yep. That's hard. Because if I just say yes to everybody, I end up, up here scattered all over the place, five days a week chasing my tail.

Yeah. So we had to plan this gosh, from months ago to make it work. But that's because you are busy and you've got not negotiables. Yeah. And I'm still learning those boundaries. But together we future planned. And months ago I asked you if you want to be on this show. 

Yeah. 

And it's only coming to fruition now.

Yeah. 

Because we're busy people. Busy. Yeah. And yeah, you've got that mum layer on top. But hey, we made it work because we wanted to. Because I wanted you as a guest. 

Yeah. Oh, thank you.

One more question for you and we're done. 

Okay. 

It's called the Golden Nugget. I feel like you probably know about it if you've listened to a couple of the episodes.

So it's basically, just for the listener out there, one golden nugget, one piece of advice. Doesn't have to be necessarily about real estate. It can be business, mum, personal, anything you like. For whoever's listening on the Raising the Bar podcast, to add value to their lives. And you can have a second to think.

In personal life and work life, I think you've just got to do the right thing by people all the time. I do the right thing by my sellers, my buyers. Even though you're working for the seller, you need to still do the right thing by the buyers and people always come back.

This is giving me goosebumps and I'll tell you why.

The whole point of the Raising the Bar podcast, right? We're talking about storytelling this excellence. One of my pet peeves, and it doesn't happen too much, but it still does happen. You get these poor first home buyers that ring us in a tizzy because some agent has managed to let them sign a cash unconditional contract for a first home, waive cooling off. These poor kids, they don't even know what they're doing. And then we get this contract and we're like, uhoh. 

Yeah. 

You saying looking after the buyers is exactly that. You got a duty to your vendor first. Yeah. But you can't let these poor first home buyers. Yeah. You wouldn't be able to sleep at night, would you? 

No. 

You wouldn't be able to go, oh yes, just sign this and waive that, and not explain anything.

And these poor kids, they don't even know what's happened to them, and they're on the back foot. That's such a bad experience in property. Yeah. 

Well, you always want to make someone feel comfortable with what they're buying, so I always tell them to come to the building and pest. A lot of my product is great, so I don't really have too many issues.

You're not stressed. Yeah. You're not stressed about that. Yeah.

So, you know, I have the building and pest guys explain to them. Because building and pests come through and they can be quite, you know, feral. They can be doom and gloom. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And like they have a liability as well.

Solicitors do too as well, right?

Yeah. You get your buyers, if we're not representing your vendors, to come through us. And as you know, we're not taking any shortcuts and yeah. You know, we love Rebecca Russell, but at the end of the day, if you refer a client to us, sorry mate, our primary duties for that client. 

Yeah. 

And you, it, it's great that you can confidently do that going, I'm going to give you to a good firm that's going to do the right thing by you.

Yeah. And we're not afraid to say stuff like, oh, this first home buyer needs a finance clause.

Go back and ask Rebecca. And then on the other side it's, I guess it's up to you to then manage that expectation with the vendor and stuff to keep the deal alive. Yeah. 

So I think it's just always doing the right thing by everyone. 

I love that. Yeah. That's very, very cool. 

A lot of my buyers actually hate me initially because I do get a lot out of them financially. But the market's just been going up and up and up. They're happy with me now. 

When they turn to sell, they love you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. 

But I always did the right thing. I'd always explain things properly. We'd always go through everything. So I think we always had like a really nice relationship. I've always had a really good relationship with both parties. Oh, that's such a good point. Because you think about if you've bought and you've paid, let's call it top dollar.

Yeah, true market value. 

Yeah. 

That buyer remembers that when it's time to sell. 

Yeah, 

they do. And they look at you in the number one spot, and they go, I've got to get this lady, you got to get Rebecca to sell my house. Yeah. Because she's the best at getting the most money for the property. 

Yeah. 

Which again, who cares if the buyers hate you?

They'll turn into sellers that love you. It's a long game. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. 

Well, they're happy once they get into the market. Hate's probably not the right word is it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. They, they may have wished they got some out of suburb agent that got it for cheaper. Yeah. But at the end of the day, the experience they're getting with you is, is tops.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I talk them through everything and I make sure it's as smooth as possible, so they're not having a freak out. They ask me questions whenever they want. Actually one of my sellers, he says he knows that he could get a property cheaper through someone else, but he's like, no agent responds to them, ever.

Yeah. 

That's stuff, yeah. That's a whole, yeah. Or like they'll get the deal done and then they just don't hear from them again. So ghosted. Yep. Yeah. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. 

Alright, so you are a living, breathing example of, started in property management, and now you're dominating a suburb.

Yeah. So to whoever's listening out there, if you are in the property management space, if you're thinking about being a mum, if you are a mum, here's living proof that it can be done, and it can be done with excellence. Thank you. So thank you, Rebecca. Thank you. I will link up all of your information. If anyone wants to connect, obviously if you have a property in the Richlands, you would already know who this lovely lady is.

If you need any help, I'm sure you'd be happy to have a chat with investors and all that sort of stuff, right? Yeah. Yep, yep. She knows all about that part of the world. Yeah. And yeah, that's it. We'll leave it there. Thank you very much. 

Thank you. 

And yeah, looking forward to having you back in this chair in a few years and seeing where you're at.

Yeah. Thank you. 

Thank you.