Why did you start your firm in the Docklands area?

I worked for about three years with MAB Corporation, the developers of NewQuay, selling off the plan. When the first towers started settling, MAB set up a real estate business and I was involved in the set-up of that. My past life was as an agency-based agent. I guess I got to the point where I’d decided to move on from MAB and one of the developers of MAB asked me to sell an apartment in the Nolan building down here, which settled, and then a lot of the owners asked me to look after their properties, either selling or leasing. So I started basically working from an apartment in the Docklands and within a month, I had that many clients down here that I took a small bit of space down here and Lucas Real Estate actually began.

I think the reason that occurred was that people were looking for an unaligned real estate office, like Metro Real Estate was MAB’s business, while I was independent. I could sell in any precinct within the Docklands area, so that’s really how my business began, I was independent and wasn’t aligned with any particular developer. I was able to give them some honest advice about what their property was worth rather than trying to maintain any square metre rates for future projects.

Within probably a year, Mirvac approached me about buying their rent roll that they had in their Docklands precinct, along with their sales business, so I entered into that with them and bought that. We began in 2006 over at the Yarra’s Edge side of Docklands and were very successful over there. There were about eight of us and having a shop front over there really assisted with the business.

The market forces are really about what property is about, especially resale.

How have you seen the Docklands change since you started the firm?

Certainly it’s been really exciting watching the buildings develop over a period of time, watching them go up. When I was away, I really couldn’t wait to get back and see what else had popped up out of the ground, it was really quite amazing. Seeing the residents move in and start to connect with the residents and the community down here has been really satisfying.

Why did you decide to live in Docklands?

I bought in 2006 and lived in Docklands for about six years which was really fantastic. You do make a lot of friends and you do see that the community really does care about Docklands. Certainly when there’s adverse publicity about Docklands, they all take it to heart and you can see they really do enjoy the area down here and feel they’re not being given a say in how the media perceives us. Part of the growing of Docklands down here was watching the community develop down here, we’ve had a lot of fun down here.

Why do you like apartment living?

I love living in an apartment. I’ve got a holiday house down the beach and Friday night I’ll lock up the apartment and head down the beach. The apartment lifestyle really does suit us. We’re fairly active, we go out a fair bit, so it’s jus a different lifestyle. I’m not saying it’s any better but it’s certainly an acceptable lifestyle.