After working day and night in the hospitality sector and years later left financially "wiped out", Simon McGrath was looking for a new direction. After chatting to a customer at the plumbing business where he was helping out, McGrath realised that real estate was a career he could excel in.

How did you start out in the real estate profession? Have you always worked in the industry, or did you do something else previously?

I started on 10 August 1998 and at the time was not sure what I was going to do with my life. I’d been in hospitality and had built up several very successful café restaurants in Perth that I’d sold for a record price/earnings ratio.

I had thought I was bullet-proof and had found my calling. This was around the time the compulsory superannuation contribution was introduced and the big superannuation companies were flushed with funds. They were building and extending shopping centres all over Perth and I opened three themed cafés at the same time.

What at the time looked like a great opportunity turned out to be a disaster, as I walked into a retail slump the likes of which Perth had never seen. In essence, there were around 700 new shops opened and no new shoppers to go around. The discretionary dollar had just been divided by 700 new shops.

Over a period of a few years working day and night, I managed to sell off the three loss-making businesses and not actually go broke. I was however financially wiped out.

I was determined to rebuild but wasn’t sure what to do next. I was biding my time and working at a mate's plumbing business, when a real estate agent walked in to buy some tap parts. I had a chat to him and asked what he earned, and when he told me, I knew I could do much better than him.

That chance meeting proved to be very fortuitous, as last year I won the number-two spot in Western Australia for unassisted sales agents with sales of $55.594 million.

So there you have it, I’d lost my capital base but amassed a huge amount of intellectual and emotional intelligence and I was looking for a business where you don’t own the inventory - real estate provides exactly that.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

I just love the people I meet and I have so much fun with my clients. This adds greatly to my day and I really dig helping people, so it’s a really good match for me. It’s a great feeling when, at the end of the day I know I’ve influenced and guided someone’s life in a positive way.

You work in Perth’s upmarket western suburbs. Can you tell us how that market is faring, and what’s your outlook for the next 12-18 months?

My market's good at the moment and the challenge (as always) is getting enough quality stock that’s priced correctly.

I predict things to continue pretty much unchanged for the next 18-24 months. The only 'fly in the ointment' that I can see is the possibility of rising interest rates. After many years of cheap money, I’m confident that many families have leveraged against their home (often their biggest asset) and if interest rates rise, we’ll see distress and lack of confidence in the market place.

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Right now I’m seeing a rise in buyer confidence and this is leading to a mild increase in prices and a decrease in days on market. The basics of real estate will always apply and those agents who work the hardest and maintain their reputation will always have stock.
 
Can you tell us about an interesting property you have marketed?

I’m probably at around 1,000 homes sales now and the homes quite frankly are not the interesting part of the transaction. It’s the people who make this job so interesting and rewarding.

Last year I helped an elderly client who was a past headmaster of a prominent Perth ladies college in the Western Suburbs. This couple had been on my data base for several years but on my mind on a daily basis and I really wanted to help them. When I listed the perfect easy-care home for them that was single level and allowed the husband to continue his piano teaching, I knew I’d hit Nirvana for them. Their brief was almost impossible but I had eventually found their perfect home and they are overjoyed.

As a spinoff of this sale I had three additional sales from this one transaction. So all those blind alleys with an elderly couple in my car eventually payed off in an emotional sense and a financial sense. It helped that they were outrageously funny and always up for a joke.

If you could change one thing in the real estate industry, what would it be?

More accountability of agents around their claims would be a great start, as I see a lot of marketing is quite plainly a lie. I’ve also now worked for nearly  20 years in the industry, and I’d really like to see less ego and more humility.

Is real estate a good profession for work / life balance and equal opportunity?

Money and ego are a toxic pair, but if you can keep this combination in check it’s a great business. If you really are comfortable in your own skin and can take the knocks and disappointments, there’s plenty to make up for it.

After losing my capital base, this great industry has allowed me (with the help of my business partner Carmel Gardiner) to build a valuable business, employ and feed around 50 families, help countless people move on in their life, gain many friends, educate my two sons, live in one of Perth’s best locations, and go to bed at the end of the day feeling great about what I do.

There are literally no barriers in this business and race, age, or sex will not stand in your way if you want to make it in this business.

The work life balance is the hardest part for me. I’ll work until I become sick and this is not a good trait, but over the years I’ve managed to make sure I take awesome holidays with my family, but there have been times when I didn’t listen to my body and hit the wall. The trick is to rest early and protect your mojo.

I now use my iPhone to tell me when I need to go to bed and it wakes me up to birds singing. Meditation is also a great help to staying on track with your mojo. Float tanks can also revitalise you in a short period of time. So if I’ve a big charity auction or a major presentation, a session in a float tank a few days before works wonders.

Exercise is not only good for one’s body but is a major factor in protecting my energy levels. I live near an SAS base and use their track for my morning walk/run. There’s exactly 127 steps to the top of Melon Hill!

What advice would you give to someone just starting out in real estate?

Don’t turn into a dickhead! We sell real estate, we’re not Nobel Prize winners or thought leaders (I love that term). Be prepared to work harder than you ever imagined you would, be prepared to talk to more people than you would ever imagine, park your ego, pick up your phone and ask people how you can help them.

Be ruthless with building your data base, it’s your new best friend. Listen to people who you respect, not who have impressed you. Not everything is the truth and you will have to find your own moral compass and use it to guide you every single day.

Where do you live now, and what would be your dream home, anywhere in the world?

I’m lucky enough to live in Cottesloe, and only 7 minutes on foot for dipping my toes in the Indian Ocean. I walk my dog every day between 6-7am and I’d miss my morning buddies (if I moved).

However a grass hut on Telos Island overlooking Max’s Right with a head-high swell would be seriously cool, a renovated castle in the Eiffel Mountains just outside Frankfurt would be pretty exciting, not because I love frankfurters or schnitzel, but because it’s the home of the Nurburgring, the words most challenging race track, or a historic townhouse in  Florence where I could waste away my day with cooking lessons, nana naps, or drinking white wine gazing onto the eyes of my bride.

Read more about Perth real estate:

The worst seems to be over for the Perth property market: REIWA

Perth property prices could tick higher this spring: REIWA

Perth real estate: "We should just hang in there" says David Arnold of Ethos Property