When did you start in real estate?

It’s officially my seventh week with McGrath, and I’ve been in the industry about 14 years. I’ve just left another company locally, I was at Place Estate Agents for four years and before that I had my own agency called Address Estate Agents and we did both project marketing and residential sales. I’m originally from Townsville. When I had my own business I was based in Brisbane but we did projects all the way from Cairns down to Byron Bay. We covered Mission Beach, Innisfail, Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast, literally everywhere.

You’re known as a prestige property expert. How is the prestige market in Queensland now?

It is quite a stable market. At the end of the day people always want to buy new homes. It was a bit tough at the end of 2011 and 2012; people were genuinely very, very scared about spending their money. Now a couple of years later everyone is very comfortable and everyone appreciates the market is the market and the world isn’t turning upside down and inside out. We are selling lots of beautiful homes all day every day.

What price point are we looking at for prestige property in Brisbane?

Anything $2 million to $4 million is certainly prestige here in Brisbane, and that could be a house on a large parcel of land, or an old Queenslander, or an apartment.

Are you seeing more interest from interstate buyers?

One hundred percent, definitely, and also overseas buyers. We are seeing a lot more ex-pats buying sight unseen and also a lot more Chinese buyers. I had a Chinese buyer this week with a property that was a two-bedroom apartment on the river for $750,000. They sent their Chinese friend over to have a look at it and negotiated with a translator.

Do you think you’re seeing greater interest from overseas buyers because Brisbane is still a lot cheaper than Sydney?

I don’t know if it comes down to affordability but certainly the lifestyle is a very prevalent factor here, people appreciate the sunshine. I do think in a lot of people’s minds there is still the glitz and glamour of the Gold Coast with women in bikinis on the beach. There is that lifestyle. We have beautiful clean air, our streets are safe, and we have good schools. I very rarely do this but I have a convertible and I’ve just been driving around with the top down because it’s such a beautiful day today.

What are your favorite things about working in real estate, is it the flexibility to do something like drive a car in the middle of the day if it’s a beautiful day?

It's just driving in between appointments! But I would say that it is a great industry where you get to look at beautiful homes all day every day, you get to meet really good people whether they’re first home buyers or people who’ve made a great success of themselves who are selling up their home that they’ve worked very hard for so they can buy an apartment on the river. You just get to meet really good, genuine people. For me, what I love about my job is the heart-to-heart transactions with people, getting to know someone. That’s really the nice part of my job.

What’s your advice for a young person considering getting into real estate?

Don’t expect to be making a lot of money straight away. There are a lot of really big hours; sometimes you’re working seven days a week until 8pm at night. It’s just really a matter of networking and building up your base and making sure that you do really value people and that you’re going to honor that.

What do you think are the biggest issues facing the real estate industry today?

Obviously the way we market property is extremely different to how it was ten years ago, with digital most certainly at the forefront. That could be a problem if you have a property that’s in a suburb that isn’t highly searched so it is a lot harder to get your property out there. Digital has really revolutionized the way people buy and sell property today. Australia’s biggest hobby is real estate, we love it. We watch all the shows like The Block and we go on Instagram and social media looking for “house porn.” People are genuinely quite intrigued by it.

Why did you join the McGrath group, who is obviously very prominent in Sydney and growing in Queensland?

I’ve been watching the company for quite some time, for over two years, and I thought that it was a company that had a lot of integrity. My business is all repeat clients so I wanted to align with a company that would honor that. Secondly, I see there’s opportunity. I just really believe in the way they market the product and I think there’s really an opportunity for us to carve out that business model here in Queensland. John McGrath is very hands on and people do obviously really warm to him.