The mindset of multi-million dollar home buyers

Transcript

Peter Fletcher

[00:00:00] Peter Fletcher: Welcome to another episode of the WA Property Q& A podcast. With me this week, and I’m a bit excited about this, is a real estate superstar, Peter Robertson. Peter is a director at William Porteous.

[00:01:02] Peter Robertson: International. William Porteous Properties International is our full official title. Otherwise known as, hi, welcome to Porteous.

[00:01:09] Peter Fletcher: Welcome to Porteous, yes. And so Pete’s a director there and at a very high level Pete sold. 147 million dollars worth of property last calendar year, 47 properties, which averages at about 3 million dollars per property. So he sells high end properties. Tell me a little bit more about

[00:01:33] Peter Robertson: yourself Pete.

Yeah, that’s interesting when you do the maths, is spot on. We always look forwards and we very rarely look backwards. So I don’t know how much we’ve written till we get to the end of the year and we’d run the tally. Average 3 5 million range. Typically we very rarely sell under. 750, but I’ve got, I’ve sold a couple of things, for example, in the four hundreds, which is investment properties for clients who have extensive portfolios.

And we are very customer centric. So we’re about helping the client and if the client needs help and it’s something that’s within our Typical catchment, we’ll sell anything. So, you know, Willie’s got an old saying, you got it, we’ll sell it. And that’s true. If it’s in the Western suburbs, if it’s beyond the Western suburbs or beyond, we’re actually not Western, so Western suburbs centric, we are.

Either side of the river, high value properties, either side of the river, up and down the coast and around the city. And that’s how I would describe it. And then unique and special properties anywhere in WA. So we sell, interesting things on the south coast, up north, you know, we get pulled into or invited into unique and special properties, wherever they may be.

So yeah, I, yeah, I think your number’s about right. So I would say average our bread and butter is between two to five. And then we obviously sell much higher than that. And occasionally a little bit under that.

[00:02:54] Peter Fletcher: I’m always interested talking to people like yourself because like my history was.

Started in Kalgoorlie selling 20, 000 shacks that were just about to fall over and you’re selling 3 million properties like that should be on, if there was an episode of Lux Listings Perth, you’d be on it. What’s the most expensive property you’ve ever sold? And can you tell me the story?

[00:03:21] Peter Robertson: Okay. In our space, clients value privacy, confidentiality, and discretion. Yes. I’ll give you, I’ll answer your question a little bit obtusely. In the last 12 months, I’ve tabled offers on properties between 15 to 25 million and they are cash offers. Most of those have not gone through because the people who own those properties they are, they tend to be destination properties, destination addresses, be it on the riverfront or on the oceanfront or something very, very special.

So for a house to be worth, let’s say 23 million in Perth, it means it’s one of a handful of homes. So I’m very fortunate and privileged to operate in that space and have the trust and, business of the people who own those properties. And also with that, I also deal with buyers who want to buy in that space.

The volume of transactions is very low because primarily when my, these people are my clients, but now also my friends having done this for a long time. And they’ll say to me, Pete, that’s great. And this person wants to give me 23 million dollars for my house. But, we deal with high net worth individuals who are worth hundreds of millions of dollars and for them having an extra 23 million in their bank account makes no difference, but, and they like living where they live and they would say to me frequently, that’s great.

If we sold this, where would we move to? And something else of a similar caliber has to come up. In order to make it worthwhile to make that move. And usually there isn’t something there. So those properties, when they do transact, it’s when people are typically leaving the state or leaving the country.

And we deal with a fairly international crowd. So those people, typically own multiple properties. It’s not the only house that they own or the only property asset they’ve got. And they don’t want to move if they like living there. And most of the people who quite likely if you’re in a 23 million house on the river front or on the ocean front, odds are it’s nice and you like living there.

And unless something has changed significantly in your life and there’s a big things that move the dial for people, births, deaths, marriages, divorces, the usual things, they’re staying put. So it’s been an interesting year of dealing in that space and trying to find properties for people. I’ve got a client at the moment that will put 25 million cash on the table, no trouble at all.

Not only that, let the person who lives, who owns it, or they’re buying it off, live there for 6 to 12 months. Rent free to secure the property and I’m struggling to find any of my clients willing to take their foot off what they’ve got because they tend to think very long term and they tend to think very multi generational.

So, they might’ve owned that property for 20 years or maybe they’ve only owned it for five years, but they have no intention of letting it go. Also the view and the understanding of the Perth market is that we are one of the cheaper luxury markets in Australia. And they all look at what’s happened up and down the East coast.

And you know, that is coming to a, Perth is building up in a really interesting space into an interesting space. And the expectations, those values, those properties don’t go down. So if they’re not going down and I don’t need to sell them, why should I? So that’s the space we deal in.

[00:06:24] Peter Fletcher: So do you know? In scare quotes, do you know all the top end properties

[00:06:31] Peter Robertson: around Perth?

Pretty much. Yeah. If it’s around the, the riverfront and or around the ocean front. Yes. I have a very good client of sole properties for him and to him. And he wanted to secure something on the riverfront. And we were talking about his properties in Hong Kong and Perth and other places fairly, fairly far flung.

And he was. Having a hard time over the phone from Hong Kong following what I was saying. And I said, well, tell you what, let’s meet at Mrs. Herbert’s park in Claremont and we’ll walk along the foreshore all the way around to Jutland parade and back down to Steve’s and I’ll run through each property and who’s got it with the story behind it.

The probability based on that story in the history of its availability, et cetera, we’d ran that exercise. And afterwards he said that was a, an incredible experience. Cause he called me the, now he calls me the Google of the Google of high end real estate, which is a nice compliment from a fellow who’s, been extremely successful in his time and runs a few extremely successful businesses. So it’s nice. So yeah, I, I have, I guess, depth of knowledge and understanding of that space. Yes.

[00:07:33] Peter Fletcher: And that’s how intimately you get to know the market and the people.

[00:07:38] Peter Robertson: Yeah, it’s doing the right thing by people over a long period of time.

And they watch you closely and, from the sidelines. And I had one of the more interesting experiences in my career, and I want to come back to your selling houses for 20, 20, They were the expensive ones, by the way, I’ll go back to where I started which might be of interest to your listeners.

The where was I going with all of that? I lost my train of thought. What was your question?

[00:08:06] Peter Fletcher: Well, it was started out with a comment about the, how intimately, you

[00:08:12] Peter Robertson: know, your customers. So one of my, a fellow walked into my office and said, I’m here to see Peter Robertson and I, and my name is X, Y, Z, and I don’t have an appointment, but is he here?

I saw him sitting at his desk. So I came out and the guy said, Hi, I’ve just come to introduce myself. I’ve been watching what you do for the last five or six years. You don’t know who I am, but my name is XYZ. I’m here to introduce myself because you’re my real estate agent. I don’t have anything for sale right now, but when I do, I’m going to call you and I want you to know who this guy is on the phone when he calls you, because that’ll be me.

And we have quite an extensive portfolio and we transact infrequently, but when we do transact, it’s going to be through you. And that was a fantastic. Moment in my progression of my career to have that happen. It’s, it was a bit surreal actually at the time. And since then I’ve sold properties for them and to them and, other agents have knocked on their doors and they’ve said, no, thank you.

Peter Robertson is our agent. Thanks for your interest. Bye bye. And that’s a great privilege to, to have that level of trust. And it comes from, like I said, doing the right thing, putting the people first. Always playing the long game, not the short game, people will say, I get asked, what’s your commission on that?

And after I’ve negotiated the listing agreement, I’ve actually forget about the commission. I get, I start concentrating on the getting the deal done and getting the structure right. And, aligning a deal with my sellers requirements and. Prerequisites and wishes and desires. So that’s what we focus on and that’s all we focus on.

And if the right thing for the client is to say, look, let’s take this property off the market and revisit it in six months. That’s what we do without blinking. We don’t go, Oh, hang on. I’m going to miss out on 80, 000 worth of commission. If we do that. No, I was always played the long game, do the right thing by the client.

And this is a sophisticated, smart marketplace. And they watch, they observe, and they judge that you are measured and judged long before they talk to

[00:10:11] Peter Fletcher: you. Do you think that’s unique to the Western suburbs or do the, could that philosophy apply in. Canning Vale or Cannington.

[00:10:21] Peter Robertson: I think the philosophy applies right through the spectrum.

So I started selling real estate 30, almost 30 years ago in Claremont, but I did that for two years and working for a fellow called David McKenzie, who was my mentor and started me out in this business. And then very quickly I progressed to working in house for my family’s property development business, but that was down South.

So I started my career selling 105, 000 blocks of land. And so I haven’t always sold 3 million properties. I started selling five, 100, 000 blocks of land, then 150. And then they, we saw the market go from those 105, 000 blocks became worth 350, 000. And we thought, wow, isn’t that fantastic?

I was running a business on the South coast where we averaged almost a deal every two days for the year. And that was between sort of 2002 to 2006. So I have been in the lower price point, high volume market. And that’s probably to be fair where I started my, you know, the depth of my real estate journey.

[00:11:22] Peter Fletcher: Get gave you a good training ground.

[00:11:25] Peter Robertson: Can be a great training ground. And also the people you’re dealing with, it was their secondary properties a lot of the time. So you’re dealing with, you know, again. Smart, successful, nice people who value honesty, integrity, respect, good old fashioned values you’re there demonstrating by your actions that you’re looking after them, you’re putting them first, client first, you second, and that just builds up over time. So I think whether it doesn’t matter what market you’re selling in, do the right thing by people be patient and it will come.

[00:11:59] Peter Fletcher: Have you ever missed a listing and then either picked it up later or. Picked up the, the ongoing business of that family later on.

[00:12:10] Peter Robertson: Yeah, absolutely. Some couple of funny stories with that. I had a listing I missed out on. They engaged another agent. They had a bad experience with that other agent. And then I was getting these referral people calling me, asking me to come in and help them and saying, what made you call me today?

And we don’t, I don’t know you. We haven’t dealt with each other. Oh, so and so referred you and said, you are the agent that we should deal with. And they hadn’t sold through me, they’d done a transaction through somebody else. And they then sent me all of their referral business. And then when they did transact again in the future, they came to me and that has happened multiple times.

Yeah, it’s interesting to see that play out.

[00:12:46] Peter Fletcher: So in the, in some of the outlying suburbs you hear about agents getting losing listings over, it might be a thousand or 2, 000 in commission, like it such and such old. Do it for 1. 6 percent and you’re at 2. 2 or, like, and it’s literally pennies.

Does that happen in the

[00:13:09] Peter Robertson: Western suburbs? Yes. The pennies are larger, but yes, it does happen. The, we always have an attitude. We’re not the cheapest agent. I don’t want to be the cheapest agent. The cheap, cheap comes dear, to quote my mom. She’s German. So loses a little bit, comes dear, cheap comes dear.

Yeah. Okay. The cheapest deal and the best deal and never the same deal, right? So the. Or the cheapest anything. The cheapest car is not the best car. The cheapest food is not the best food. The cheapest desk is not the best. Yeah. So cheap, cheap, the cheap and best don’t go together on the same subject in the same sentence, right?

They’re always separate. We aim to be the best value for money. So I say to a client, well. If I might cost a bit more, but if I can end up with a higher sale price, I’m a master negotiator and through that process, and I can role play that with people to demonstrate the skill that will move the dial on the end result significantly because a few universal principles, Kalgoorlie or Delkeith, Peppermint Grove or Cottesley.

That the, I really need to eat that banana for your podcast. Didn’t I, I said to anyone listening, I said to Pete, this is a bad time of the day for me. Cause I’ve been nonstop meetings until until this afternoon. And I’m hitting my lull, but I

[00:14:27] Peter Fletcher: actually feel pretty lucky to have you on board.

To be honest

[00:14:30] Peter Robertson: When you asked me, I thought I’ve been. I’ve been mates with Pete for a long time. So when you said, will you come do this podcast? I was delighted. I’ve cashed in all my credits here. No, no, no, far from it. But you know, the cheapest doesn’t come, the isn’t the best. We don’t want to be the cheapest, nor are we interested in being the most expensive with the best value for money.

So if I can negotiate to a point where you have got. A significantly higher sale price. And it’s costing you an extra, maybe 0. 2 of a percent or 0. 3 of a percent to use me. The actual end result is more money in your pocket at the end of the day. So I’ve actually been the cheaper agent. Yes. So if you’d use a cheaper, better value, I’m a bit about you.

So if you use this cheap agent who can’t negotiate their way out of wet paper bag, and we’ll fold it the first opportunity because they’re hungry to close the deal. Cause they’re only thinking about themselves. And they’ll say, you need to take this deal and put fear into your heart as a seller that if you don’t do this is the first deal is the best deal.

Sometimes it is, but it’s definitely not always the case. So yeah, that would be a mistake. So I don’t, I have lots of arguments and ways to demonstrate that we are not the cheapest, but with the best value for money. And most people, when you. Can communicate that effectively and can demonstrate that we’ll see that have that light bulb moment you get engaged.

So if you’re negotiating only on fee you’re missing something. And having said that there’s nothing is always, there’s always going to be that agent who goes, yeah, yeah, but there. 2, 000 cheaper. And after I run all the explanation for why I’m worth the extra amount of money, there’s still go, yeah, I just want to go with the cheapest agent.

Well, they’re probably going to get a result that’s commensurate with that. And you know, good luck to you. You deserve it. See you later. Bye bye. Probably not a good fit for you. Not a good fit for me. Sometimes the best business you

do is a business you don’t do. And we do pick and choose our clients as much as clients pick and choose us.

And we are not. Afraid to say, look, I don’t think this is, I don’t think we’re the right fit for you.

[00:16:24] Peter Fletcher: There’d be agents. Who would be listening to this and they would be going, well, that’s all right for you. You’ve sold 147 million worth of property. Your average commission is, you know, like in the tens and tens of thousands.

Of course you can afford to be picky. I would say that that’s a mindset, regardless of the market, being able to walk away from listings is, what do you say to that?

[00:16:54] Peter Robertson: To that I say. Your energy and your focus and your enthusiasm is critical to, it’s critical for you to maintain it and choose where you direct it.

And honestly, it doesn’t matter whether I’ve done, I remember being hungry when I started in this business, I was writing deals with 14 day settlements because I was paying rent. I had a car, a high, a car on higher purchase. I had bills to pay and I had settlement agents calling me saying, stop writing these ones.

Just thinking this. And I thought you’d appreciate it. Stop writing these 14 day deals. And I would say, I’ve got bills. I’m living hand to mouth. They don’t talk to me about the luxury of time and whatever.

[00:17:34] Peter Fletcher: And this folks is how short settlement dates happen, ?

[00:17:38] Peter Robertson: It is. I just had a, I just did a deal with a 10 day settlement.

I thought of you actually when I was writing the deal, ’cause both the buyer and the seller wanted to do it. And I’m like, I know you’ve got a bank that needs to discharge a very small facility against this. I think we’ve got 10 days. Every time. Anyway, we’re working on three. If it ends up being 14, no one’s even 20.

No, nobody’s going to be upset. But it doesn’t matter that the same principle applies. So if I’m young and new to the business and I’m hungry and I’m chasing those. You know, whatever it might be, pick the median price in Perth is mid

700, 000. Should we call them penny dreadfuls? The penny, I’m chasing the penny dreadfuls.

There’s still nice people to deal with who have penny dreadfuls to sell and transact. I actually think it’s very bad to get an elitist mindset. So something I respect the person who’s got the hundred thousand dollar property as much as I respect the person who’s got the 10 million property. If they’re a decent person, I’ve dealt with people who’ve got 10 million properties that are absolute Muppets that I don’t want.

To deal with, I don’t want them in my life. I don’t want the energy. They’re toxic. It’s like, thank you. But no, we, you’re on agent. I try and refer them to my main competitors. I think so and so can help you. Well, go down the road. But if you’re, you know, we are here to help people. And if you.

If you dive into this business with the mindset that you are there to help people, the more you can help people, the better you can help them. They will tell their friends and it will grow. So if you have an energy vampire or someone who every time you deal with them makes you feel like having a shower afterwards or just.

Ticks you off, makes you angry. It, am I allowed to swear on your podcast? Yeah. If it pisses you off and it, that pissed off ripple is going to affect the rest of your afternoon. Don’t deal with them. Take, cut them out. They don’t exist. They’re now invisible to me. I’m going to make a, pick up the phone with positivity, energy, enthusiasm.

And my general love of life coming out through my voice. And I’m going to talk to the next person who wants to talk to me and wants to do business with me. And I want to find all those people. And I’m going to do service as many of those people as I can. And my business will grow positively off a positive trajectory and a positive base.

Because I’ve done the right thing. I’ve dealt with people who want to deal with me. But what I would say to people, you need to find your tribe. You need to find people who click with you, who you get along with. There’s people you can be a bit of a chameleon. So you need different people, communicate different ways.

Different things are important. You can be, you can broaden your base.

[00:20:05] Peter Fletcher: Just being emotionally intelligent, isn’t it?

[00:20:07] Peter Robertson: You can be emotionally intelligent and broaden your base, or you can try and stay really narrow. I would say broaden your base, but there’s still parameters where I’ll go, you are clearly not my people and I’m, we are not a fit.

And that’s okay, because unless there’s something seriously wrong with you, you’re going to find plenty of people who go, Pete’s a great guy. We enjoyed the experience, and then we feel that we can trust him. Someone said an old mentor of mine in this business, who’s quite famous, I’ll leave his name out of it, said to me, people are quite classic saying, they need to know you, like you, trust you, use you.

Once they’ve been through that journey and you’ve done the right thing by them, they will recommend you. So know you, like you, trust you, use you. Refer you. And if you apply that principle, you are going and you are relentless at work ethic. Okay. Everyone talks about the young people don’t have a work ethic these days.

When I was young, I see plenty of young people with plenty of work ethic. I work. Damn hard when I started, I was working seven days a week until I was going to burn out and then I’d take a two or three days off and then I’d go hard again. I was in my twenties though, so I could do that and I didn’t have, you know, family and commitments.

I was a single gunslinger and I was there to go hard, go fast, go far. Today I work. Harder than most, my mates might say, yeah, the hardest work in the room, I work hard six days a week, solidly, I just said to you before we came on air that, you know, I wouldn’t walk in my door before seven o’clock on any given night work life balance is, I don’t believe in it, I think it’s work life flow, everything flows around everything, I’m now a father with two little boys and a dog, my phone rings, I know when my youngest son says, don’t answer that, it’ll be on a Sunday, and he’s right, I don’t answer, it goes to voicemail, that’s what voicemail’s for, but I will, I Look, if there’s a deal running, I say, no.

George Daddy’s solving problems for people and we like living where we live and we like having what we have. And that all comes from daddy’s solving problems for people. So, you know, when we bought our house, how we nar and said, is this the right house and is this the right neighborhood? And is this, you know, the right mix of things that we wanted?

Does it have three trees in the swimming pool? There’s one of the criteria in our shopping is, funnily enough. That’s what I’m doing for these people. So I’m going to be, I’m going to need an hour and then I’ll be back. So I. My life is a blend. I’m a bit like you. I get up very early in the morning to get the exercise out of the way because you know, nobody else, nobody typically wants to talk to me at five o’clock, but you would be amazed how many messages I get from clients between 11 PM and 4 AM.

Yes, they are. I get a bit of a kick, a bit of joy out of responding to them at five o’clock in the morning. And you’d be surprised how many people go, what time were you up? What time were you up? And I said, what time were you up? Well, they’re in a different time zone. So it landed for me because they say we’re in wherever we’re in Sydney or we’re in Singapore or we’re in wherever we’re in the U S we, you know, we’re 12 hours behind you or ahead of you, whichever it is.

Anyway, so yeah, work ethic, work hard. With, and I think it’s like match fitness. I jokingly say, cause I’ve got a new team member on our team at the moment is hitting his seven month mark with us is doing great. And it’s match fitness. So I can go longer and harder than most because I’ve been doing it longer and harder than most.

[00:23:25] Peter Fletcher: Yeah. Yeah. You get to be like some of these. Old, old dogs in AFL football that they just seem to like Joel Selwood Geelong, you know, he was an older player, but he could still run rings around all the young kids just because he was so tough.

[00:23:41] Peter Robertson: It’s match business. Yeah. Match business it comes.

[00:23:45] Peter Fletcher: Tell me Pete scripts and dialogues, where do they sit in your world?

[00:23:50] Peter Robertson: They are essential. I did all of Lee Woodward’s scripts and dialogues training the salesperson’s course, the master salesperson’s course, did all of that. Josh Fegan brilliant scripts and dialogues trainer, knows what to say.

I what was Lee’s book? What to say and when to say it was something I consumed very early on. Training, training, training, training, training. Yes, with the best scripts and dialogues guys. Who do I deal with? Who do I work with now? I work with a guy called Rick Rushton. Rick’s fantastic. I’ve worked with Rick for five years now.

He’s more of my holistic approach to real estate and life. So Rick is a great all round coach. So I’ll do a session a week with Rick. So I have a trainer now

who’s Rick. I work with Ryan Thompson real estate brilliance. Ryan’s, I’m doing some work with Rhino at the moment, Ryan and I are old mates.

And when I brought on a third member to the team, I said, Rhino, you’re, you’ve got the. I’m always, I’ve always been one to say, who knows what I w I want to go in this direction. Who’s been there. Who’s done that. Who can I learn it? What’s the fast track. I don’t want to reinvent the wheel. So I rang Ryan.

I said, Ryan, I don’t want to reinvent the wheel. I know you’ve got a structure for this. I want it. How much engaged Ryan, we’re doing that. We’re working through it. It’s going brilliantly. So working with Rick, working with Ryan, as I said, Josh, you’re going to think one of the best coaches in Australia. Lee Woodward Tom Panos, Tom’s great, Tom’s really, I was a late comer to Tom and his real estate gym until I saw him live, I saw Tom live in an audience and he role played a bunch of stuff.

And I was like, wow, you’ve got great dialogue. I’m now going to suck everything I can out of your brain and assimilate it. Into what we do. So there’s just a spare room. I think some of the top coaches and dialogue trainers in the country. So my dialogue training is ongoing every week.

You might say, look, he sells 147 million worth of property and all of that. You know, I want to sell, I want to sell. I want to double what we’re selling. So if I can sell twice as much, we’ve had, I’ve had growth on growth every year for the last four years on the volume of deals that we do. And I’ve never stopped training.

I’ve never stopped learning. I’ve never stopped pushing the envelope. So I would encourage everybody to think about that because what is scripts and dialogues? It is. Communication. So how can I communicate and influence people better to help them better? If I can communicate with less distortion from what I have in my head to what you have in your head, I’ve got to use my words and my language, my body language and all of that, my communication to you to get that across.

If I can do that as efficiently as possible and as effectively as possible. It’s better for me and it’s better for you because let’s go back to principle. Number one, I’m helping people. So if I miss something, or if I see after the event that the client has let’s say made a wrong decision, that’s got to be to some degree on me.

Cause maybe I should have communicated something along the way better to help them arrive at a decision that would have been a better decision for them. So description dialogues, that’s all all over it, across it. And think it’s very

important an objection to it. People go, Oh, but I want to say it how I, that’s not how I say it.

Or I don’t use it in my voice. Yeah. You need to evolve how you speak and how you communicate for it to be more effective. Learn, never stop learning, never get to a point where you think I know it all. And with that, if you take those scripts and dialogues. And then you run them through your own unique filter of your personality and how you naturally communicate, lean into your strengths.

I always say to people, work out what your strengths are and lean into them and try and mitigate and neutralize your weaknesses. But don’t try and ever make your weaknesses your strengths because they’re not going to then you’re going to, then you’re going to communicate better and you’re going to use the core of those strips and dialogues.

Like my very first one was Lee Woodward’s program. And I thought, God, this is, that’s a great way of saying it. And do I say it exactly like Lee would say it? Probably not. But do I say a version thereof? A hundred percent.

[00:27:59] Peter Fletcher: So you’re a naturally. a naturally very confident person and you come across as being you know, very, very confident, relaxed and capable.

But I detect in what you were saying, there are really strong undercurrent of humility because in, in order that, In order for you to approach training, you need to have a a level of humility to recognize that you don’t have all the answers.

[00:28:28] Peter Robertson: Yeah, that’s a good point. Interesting point. Never thought of it that way before.

I always want, I’m hungry. I’m still hungry, I think Steve Jobs saying, stay hungry, stay, stay, stay curious, stay hungry, right? Listen, there’s a few great people from recent history the old Mike slogan as well, just do it, I love that, just do it, stop, just, you know, stop the blah, blah, blah, and just do it.

Everything else is the bullshit story. You’re telling yourself an excuse, so just do it. But the the stay hungry. I want to grow. I’ve grown from, I’ve grown from writing 200, 000 worth of common a year to, you know, over one and a half million dollars worth of common a year that didn’t happen by me repeating the first year again and again, I was hungry then I’m hungry now.

I see people who I’ve mentors in this business or people that I look up to who are writing 3 million a year. And I think if they can write 2 I can write 2 million a year. I just need to work out how, and I need to, this is a great one from Rick Rushton. It’s not time management, management, it’s choice management.

So I manage my choices, which means I choose what I say no to as much as what I say yes to. And I pursue. Excellence in the things that we say yes to and how we can do it. And if the better I can do that, and the better my team can do that, the more people will gravitate to us. I mean, we are, we’ve seen in the market in Perth that, you know, falling volumes, I think it’s worth it.

What are we down to? 3, 600 listings, historical lows. And there’s a bunch of people walking around going, Oh, a bunch of agents walking around going, Oh, there’s no stock. There’s no stock. I do. What are you doing? There’s no stock. I’m being pushed down on commission. No. We are listing more than we’ve ever listed.

Our phone is running hot. We are appraising like fiends. We’re listing like fiends. We’re launching. We’re selling. We’ve sold, I think we’re going to try and sell four properties this week and it hasn’t even hit Australia Day yet. Some people go, Oh, the market doesn’t come back till after Australia Day.

Fantastic. Stay on the sidelines. Stay asleep. We’re cutting your grass and we’re eating your Breakfast. So I’m ruthlessly, you might get from that. I’m ruthlessly competitive, but I guess I stay, I mean, you say I’m humble. Yeah. I don’t know everything. There’s people who are better than me, not many, but I want to, is that confidence coming through, but it’s, you know, yes, you’ve got to be caught.

Okay. Great. Same for my brother. My brother, Sven Robertson is also a real estate agent. So shout out to my bro. Who I love dearly. We’re very close brothers. We used to be in business together when we were down South. He’s specializing now in project selling. So it’s probably one of the best project sellers.

As he says, what’s he saying? He sells Toyotas and I sell Bentleys or something like that. So he’s in the body market. But he said people want to deal with someone, and this is a key, a bit of gold, a gold nugget, if you like. People want to deal with someone who is confident, relaxed, successful, happy.

But focused and knows their stuff, that’s that person. If you imagine that person, someone who’s confident, relaxed, happy, busy, not flustered. But moving fast

and self evidently knows their shit, that’s who you want to engage in anything. If I’m dealing, I’ve just had my hip replaced, I dealt with an orthopedic surgeon.

Great bloke. Shout out to Dave Wysocki. Good on you, Dave. Great best surgeon ever. And you know, Dave’s confident. Calm, across it, knew his stuff. I asked him if he said, do I think I’m the best? Yeah, I do. He said, and you want some, when I’m cutting your leg open, you want someone who knows that they’re the best, right?

He said, I got that vibe. I got that impression from him. And I was like, Dave, I’m a hundred percent relaxed. Whatever you want to do, let’s do it. I trust you.

[00:32:03] Peter Fletcher: Last thing you’d want from a hip surgeon is, I haven’t done too many of these, but I’ll do it cheap.

[00:32:09] Peter Robertson: I’m not sure, but could I, could you, if you, I’d really like to have you as my patient.

Would you mind? Nah, you don’t want that. So the confidence is not, it’s not an act. I am, I’m a confident guy and I’ve done this for a long time and I’m very good at what I do and we have. Our track record reflects that. So I have every reason to be confident, but when you’re starting out, you know, to some degree, if you’re like in complete newbie in your twenties, fake it till you make it and find something in yourself to believe in yourself.

If you don’t believe in yourself to a degree, you can’t, it’s not about loving yourself. Well, you’re okay on the holistic. Yes. I think you should find a different story. Yeah. Find every story. If you don’t like yourself and believe in yourself, who, what do you do, what business do you have asking someone else to so trust yourself, back yourself, like yourself, believe in yourself and without being cocky, without being an arrogant little shit and people will feel that people pick that up and they go, it’s good.

[00:33:08] Peter Fletcher: Tell me, how are buyers getting their name on a title in your neck of the woods, in your sphere? Like it seems to me that it’s really hard to get, get your name on the title. it’s hard to be the top of number one offer in just about every purchase. How are they doing it in your neck of the woods?

[00:33:30] Peter Robertson: Look, I often say to people, if you want to own this property, you need to be prepared to pay a little bit more, at least something more than the person standing next to you or they’re owning it, not you. That is understood. So the deals that you see, I think it’s important to remember that any, and it doesn’t matter that I’m in Canning Vale, Armadale, Rollystone or.

The person who’s on the title is a person who’s prepared to pay a little bit more than the person standing next to them. So then what’s my involvement there with as an agent? Work out what people want, why they want it, what’s important to them. And I often say one of the strongest skills an agent can have is the ability to position and then reposition an opportunity such that the right.

People can see it usually. Thank you for helping them be that guide and secure it. So look, there’s lots of people running around. Perth is a very wealthy town, so there’s a lot of people running around with plenty of capacity, but there’s a limit as well. I mean, I deal with people. I’ve got one at the moment, a 2.

6 million deal, and they’re tapped out at 2. 6. That’s they’re stretched, they would have liked to have spent 2. 4, but they’re happy to spend 2. 6 because they’ve worked out that this is the right opportunity for them. They might’ve missed out on a few times and they’ve gone, right, we’ve got to go that little bit more, get a little bit uncomfortable, stretch ourselves to secure the right place for myself and my family.

And that’s what people do. So we help them make that decision and we find who rises to the top of the heap.

[00:34:55] Peter Fletcher: The worst thing to do in this market is chase the market as a buyer.

[00:35:01] Peter Robertson: I would, well, you need to decide when you’re going to buy, and if you want to buy a great mate of mine, who’s an accountant said it well, you buy what you can afford to buy when you’re ready to buy it.

And I would use that advice. And right now, I mean, I deal in a world and ourselves as well. When we bought recently, changed houses again, and you know, mortgage brokers are going, it’s fantastic. We can lend you all of this money. Look at your figures for the last three years. And I was like, no.

Thank you. But no, and interesting. A lot of my mates who are professionals, be them engineers, doctors, accountants, lawyers, et cetera, educated, smart, switched on cats won’t go as far as banks and mortgage brokers would like, would encourage them to go. So they go, no, we’re not debt adverse, but we’re not going to stretch ourselves to reach for the highest value property that we can reach for, because there’s some, you’ve got to balance risk and reward and all of that.

So, it’s interesting. To see that happen because you don’t forget banks want to make money from lending money. They make money by lending money. You need to choose how far you go down that rabbit hole.

[00:36:09] Peter Fletcher: The difference between being in position one and position two in terms of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars can be

[00:36:18] Peter Robertson: very

[00:36:18] Peter Fletcher: close.

It can be close. Can it also be a big difference?

[00:36:23] Peter Robertson: Can be okay. To give you an example on this, how on a property I sold for 5 million last year offers started coming in at 4. 8 and then four range from 4. 8 to 9, something like that. We run a transparent as possible at multiple offer process. I’m not going to tell you what the other offers are cause I can’t but I can tell you, I can give you a guide and the three key elements of an offer, price, timing, terms and conditions.

They’re all, all in, in the mix. And what can we do to improve your offer? And occasionally I get people go improve, improve, improve for the seller, improve for me. And what can we do? And they’ll spread. On that instance, two offers stepped up and went to 5 million cash unconditional and the other person said, no, I’m not budging off 4.

8. That’s it. So you can be, there can be, you know, it can be a couple hundred thousand dollars in the mix. I sold a property for 6 million and offers started coming in on that from at 5. 4 through to 5. 7. So quite a big spread. And then it all zeroed in and narrowed down and there was a few people who fell away in the mid fifties.

Fives and a few people who stepped up to the high fives and one person who picked everybody at the post by going, okay, tell you what, I’ll go to six and they, that was the successful purchaser. So that, that, that story plays out time and time again, but it is interesting quite often how close people come without any collisions.

So you’ve got buyers judging the market, judging the property, judging the opportunity, weighing it up and saying, Hmm. I can afford to pay more, but I think that’s property is worth 3. 35 million. And interestingly, they’re all clustered around that 3. 3 space. The ones who get down to the nitty gritty.

And look, we also, I would say on that. I can’t remember the last time or very, very infrequently do we sell one property to one person? Most of the time it’s multiple offers and multiple buyers and us working that dynamic and that crowd to our seller’s advantage.

[00:38:20] Peter Fletcher: Peppermint Grove, it’s the. As I understand it, the smallest local government area in Australia.

[00:38:26] Peter Robertson: Yeah, interesting. Tri is right up there with it as well, but yeah. Is Pepper Grove and Trig? Yeah. Yeah. Google that. It’s good. Anyway, pepper Grove. Yep. Mm.

[00:38:35] Peter Fletcher: And there, it strikes me as being, having zero bad streak. Would that be right? Or there a good and bad section of Peppy Grove or, more favored section of Pepe Grove.

[00:38:44] Peter Robertson: It’s always the river end of those streets is more favored than the non river end. So on every street, there’s still definitely a preference for people to have a north facing backyard. So that’s a real thing. They’ll pay more, the same property on either side of the same street, you’ll get more for the one with the north facing backyard than the south facing backyard.

Interesting. If there’s choice in a tight market, maybe that’s it’s a hard thing to judge because I’ve got no other choice. I can’t go and buy one on the other side of the street. So it’s a hypothetical question, but North facing backyards, probably more river ends of those streets, more closer to parks, more if you’re next to a primary school, like directly opposite of primary school, or if you’re close to the highway ends always worth less.

The place opposite schools is always worth less. People don’t. Mobile phone towers, there’s very few mobile phone towers through the western suburbs because everybody wants their phone to work, but nobody wants a mobile phone tower in their backyard. Everybody wants to send their kids to those private schools, but do they want to live on top of the private school?

Not so much. So there’s still high value properties in the desirable. People live in them, transact them, et cetera, but they have schools and busy roads and train lines. So train lines, Cottesloe you know, Cottesloe is our most expensive suburb dollar per square meter in Perth, usually is. Close to the train lines, it has a suppression effect on the value.

So yes, there’s always a better end of the street or a less bit desirable end of the street. And there’s discerning buyers. There’s people who just want to get into

Pepe Grove and they’ll, this is my price bracket. I need so many bedrooms, what’s available to me. And then there’s the very discerning. Like my couple who have got, you know, 20 plus million dollars to spend for the right thing, who will only buy the right thing and not interested in compromise.

They only want just the right thing. And my job is to find just the right thing for them.

[00:40:29] Peter Fletcher: So when you stare into your crystal ball, what do you see for them? The market in the Western suburbs over the next two to five years?

[00:40:37] Peter Robertson: Ooh, two to five is a big question. Can I break it down to smaller lumps? Feel free.

Thanks. 2024, I see growth. It’s great. Growth is happening now. One of my meetings this morning was talking to some clients about something of a phenomenon that I’ve observed over now decades working in this space. When the market moves, and right now the median house price in Perth is one of the lowest in the country.

So do I think we’re going to have capital growth? Do I think Ree was right and we’re going to see that median price move north 100%? Yes, I do. Absolutely. It doesn’t make sense that we are. On par with some of the lesser cities around the country we’ve got population growth, we’ve got high building costs, material costs, that’s all still that dynamic hasn’t changed.

Population growth is driving it. We’re a prosperous town. We have fantastic connectivity, both from time zones and so for communication as well as transportation to all of the emerging markets across Southeast Asia, from India to Indonesia to, to Singapore and across to Japan. There’s just too much going on that’s positive in Perth and WA.

So yes, 100 percent we’re going to have growth for the next 12 months. That is going to feel, that’s going to flow through the entire market, and that’s going to flow up through into the western suburbs as well. In the western suburbs, an observation that I’ve discussed many times with valuers and old real estate agents who have now retired, who were my mentors back in the day, It’s like a wave, it hits Cottesloe first, and then it sort of flows through Cottesloe, then it flows through Peppermint Grove and the better half of Mossman Park, and then it laps around the bay and hits Claremont, it starts to get into East Frio, and then it hits Delkeith, and starts to run out of steam when it hits Crawley, and then it hits West Perth.

But it’s a wave, and it’s a wave of, and right now we’ve observed phenomenal growth in Cottesloe, great growth in Peppermint Grove I think that wave will continue to wash over the suburbs, it will wash over Delkeith, so I’m just negotiating some of that property for 2. 6 million, 2. 6, 2. 65 is about a quarter acre land value in a decent street in Delkeith at the moment.

That, I expect that to go up at some point over the next 12 months. Let’s go out two years, so I think that wave of positivity is probably going to flow on for the next couple of years. Beyond that, I don’t know, and if anybody who says that they can tell you, I think they’re kidding themselves. That is tempered by a few big global things, so There’s more wars going on at the moment than there has been in recent times, so Too much conflict, too much global debt, not a lot of leadership from a geopolitical point of view in the Western world, strong leadership in China questionable leadership in Russia, obviously, you look at Europe and I look at, mainly I’m talking Europe, England, North America.

And Australia and there’s no impressive politicians out there. There’s no impressive monetary policy. Everybody’s trying to over promise and then end up under delivering. So we have. A significant issue with trillions of dollars worth of global debt that’s a little bit musical chairs the moment it’s being passed around.

What happens, do I foresee that at some point there has to be a correction of some kind, now that doesn’t necessarily mean property prices crash, it might mean You know, we forgive debt to these people. We’re going to reset the board. So the board, I think, is getting to a point that sometime in the next five years, it needs a reset somehow.

I don’t know what that reset is going to look like. But people, this Australia is a great place to live in. Perth is a fabulous city to live in. And I think right now what we’re seeing with the geopolitical unrest in Europe. Maybe some concern in America about the upcoming presidency elections.

There’s more elections happening globally this year than historically has ever occurred. Interesting little fact subscribe to the economist guys and read it in the morning. So that, that all has to play out somehow and I’m sure that it will. I don’t think interest rates are. Are, I mean, I remember as a kid, my dad’s a property developer when interest rates went to 18, 19%.

And he said to his business partner, how are you sleeping at the moment? And his business partner, who’s a, is a retired senior lawyer in this town said, like a baby. I cry. I sleep for now. And then I wake up crying and then I go back to sleep. Then I wake up crying, then I go back to sleep. Right?

So, and I talk to the old guard that I deal with and they’ll remember interest rates being in the teens. Everybody freaking out. That interest rates got off 2.5%. I mean, really. People look from historical context when they say interest rates at historical lows, you’ve got to budget on that going up. I remember when interest rates were 6 to 8 percent common as mud, that was how it was property was going up at about 10 percent per annum, something like that and happy days apples.

So I think it was, I felt sorry for some of the young people who. Geared up into mortgages and didn’t get any advice and thought it was going to stay at 2. 9 percent forever and freak out when it goes to 5. 5 percent or 6%. Yeah, it’s, that was an unrealistic expectation. So I’m waffling.

[00:45:47] Peter Fletcher: I’m going to finish off with a lighthearted question and you have to answer it.

[00:45:54] Peter Robertson: Okay.

[00:45:55] Peter Fletcher: Hit me. If we had. You’ve seen Lux Listings, Sydney. Yes, I have. If we had Lux Listings, Perth, who replaces, who plays Gavin Rubenstein? Oh,

[00:46:05] Peter Robertson: look, there’s a good question. Gavin’s a little powerhouse of an operator with a heck of a team. Who replaces Gavin Rubenstein? You want me to tell you that it’s going to be me?

To be fair of the male agents. In the Western suburbs, I’m probably the, I’m probably Gavin. Yeah. And there’ll be look, there’s a few female operators to choose from who are all very good at what they do. They’re my fierce competitors. Gosh, a bit of personality, a bit of personality in the Western suburbs, it’d probably be my friend, Jodie Feuster and arch rival, Vivian Yap.

Yes. Would be in the mix. My colleague, Olivia Porteous, she’s one she’s an amazing operator. I love Liv. She’s a mother of four. She matches me stride for stride. One amazing operator as well. So yeah, Liv would, Olivia would be in the mix as with those other two.

[00:46:56] Peter Fletcher: Well, I think we’ve got to get this show out of the, off the ground here, Pete.

Mate, this has been awesome. It’s now nearly two o’clock when you just about fade away. Lovely to chat with you. It’s been a real eye opener. It’s and it’s not

often people get to listen to a legitimate, like high performance real estate agent explaining. Like being so open with where you’re at and what you do.

And it’s been greatly appreciated you spending some time today. So that’s all we’ve got time for you for on this week’s episode until next week. This has been Peter Fletcher, the WA property Q and a podcast.