Speaker 1: 0:28

Hello and welcome Hayden Walker from Voil Co. Hayden, thank you so much for joining me today.

Speaker 2: 0:34

My pleasure, my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: 0:37

I'm really excited about our chat today, actually, because I would love to find out more about who you are, what you do and yeah, let's take it away Tell me more about yourself.

Speaker 2: 0:49

So home, life, work, life, all of it.

Speaker 1: 0:52

All the private and juicy things. Now let's start with your job. Let's go with yeah.

Speaker 2: 0:58

So I have been a real estate agent for 17 years now. So I started just after the well, just before the GFC hit, oh wow. So that was a fun time in the market and I was working in the city back then, started with professionals, ended up at leaders and Ray White in the city and then following COVID because I've been living up on the coast for about 12 years I thought why am I driving into town every day and shifted business up here yeah, just after COVID and haven't really looked back. To be honest, it's you know, the lifestyle up here is a lot cruisier than the real estate. People seem to be friendlier. They answer your phone when you call them, which in Wellington City, you know it's probably a little bit busier, a little bit colder. People are always on the go and not necessarily have time to talk to an agent. So, yeah, I've seen a lot in my career and been in different teams and sold a lot of houses over the years apartments, big executive homes. So yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:06

I feel like I've probably sold everything, from little one beds up to big mansions and everything in between.

Speaker 1: 2:14

So no, it's been a journey. 17 years, I mean, that's impressive.

Speaker 2: 2:17

Yeah, I kind of feel like a dinosaur. Yeah, like you would be a dinosaur.

Speaker 1: 2:21

I mean, you know, if we compare dog years, cat years and human years? And I think there's real estate years, and human years as well.

Speaker 2: 2:28

I felt like I had more hair and less grades when I first started than I do now. But no, I mean it's a funny industry where you either kind of sink or swim. So, the turnover is quite high. So I felt like I've, yeah, earned my stripes and ridden out a few different markets and, yeah, got to a good place. And obviously, now that I work with my wife, georgie, who you'll be chatting with as well, yeah, we've got a nice balance and, you know, bring different skill sets to the table, which is nice.

Speaker 1: 2:55

Yeah, how's that? Tell me a little bit more about that Husband and wife. Yeah, how's that working, you know, in the team with your wife.

Speaker 2: 3:03

It's really good. I mean, Georgie is, she's one of those people that walks in a room and people just you know, gravitate towards her. I'm quite a systems-oriented person, so I'd probably like to do a little bit more of the background stuff. But no, as I said, we're very different in our personalities, which may be what makes our marriage work as well, but we both have very different skill sets, strengths and weaknesses that we kind of lean on each other to kind of plug the gaps and make sure everything that we're doing is what we should be doing.

Speaker 2: 3:41

I think probably the difficulty with the husband and wife team is getting the family balance right.

Speaker 1: 3:47

That was going to be my next question, because I know you guys have kids.

Speaker 2: 3:50

Yep, yep, three kids. So we I don't know we just have to put in boundaries and make sure that we set aside time, you know, and our kids have grown up with certainly with me doing real estate and then with Georgie coming on board as well, you know it's. I guess they're very helpful. We're like a blend of family. So we have a couple of older kids who, you know, one's left school, one's just in his last year at school, and then we've got a younger son together. So it's been quite helpful that we've had stay-at-home babysitters when we need them, because real estate can be quite relentless and you know we work very long hours.

Speaker 1: 4:27

Quite demanding industry when, yeah, you can't turn your phone off.

Speaker 2: 4:31

I mean, you know, guess, we, we always take quite a hands-on approach to the properties that we sell and we feel like we have a duty to our vendors. You know we're selling their biggest asset, um, so yeah, we feel like we, you know, we should always be answering the phone and replying to emails promptly and all that sort of thing. So you know, we care about the people that we work for, um, so yeah, I guess you know it's a hard balance, you know, because you don't want to fall into the trap where you're working 24-7. Yeah, but the nature of the business, sometimes we do, you know.

Speaker 1: 5:02

And I guess this is what sets you apart. You know in the realm of real estate world that if you've got the strong ethics work ethics behind you, then people will talk about you. They will say how awesome you were, you know, when you were selling their house or when they were buying a house off you, because I've got a couple of clients that have dealt with you in the past and I mean they're all singing praises. So that's on both sides actually vendors and buyers.

Speaker 2: 5:30

Carpenter is a small place so you know, I always felt like wellington was like two or three degrees of separation. Carpentry feels like one a lot of the time. You know you kind of um, you meet someone and they'll know someone that you know and and vice versa. Or you know you're running an open home and you know there's people catching up in the living room because they're, because they're friends, but they just happen to be looking at the same houses, that sort of thing. So yeah, we're very mindful that we're always on display. So you can't. You want to be always putting yourself forward as best you can but also showcasing the houses that we're selling as best we can.

Speaker 2: 6:08

So we want to make that experience really enjoyable for groups coming through, make the process easy for them. But you know, never forget we do work for the vendor. You know that's our primary obligation. So we're always working hard to make sure we're running good campaigns and, you know, nothing's falling through the cracks.

Speaker 1: 6:27

essentially, Tell me a little bit about your campaigns that you're running at the moment, like what's the strategy behind it? What tools do you implement? What are you seeing?

Speaker 2: 6:34

um. I mean we're big fans of of deadlines in the first um phase of marketing and you know it's when we get called in to do an appraisal. It is a little bit of guesswork. You know we're not valuers but we're looking at the tricky thing with real estate. You're're always looking backwards in hindsight of what's been selling for what and how comparable that. You know the house that you might be looking to market compares. So it's a little bit of guesswork.

Speaker 2: 7:06

So we probably focus on the process a little bit more and we've always sort of taken the approach like we don't want to be the reason that somebody doesn't buy a house. We want to make answer all their questions, always be available. You know, if somebody wants to go back to a house five times, that's cool. You know we'll do that. So it's just really trying to get people engaged in the process, not letting price get in the way of anything, particularly in that first initial phase. And, yeah, just trying to get people excited. You know there's someone for every house out there. You know we've sold some real quirky ones over the years, almost to the point it might even be our strong suit selling kind of out of the ordinary houses. But we like a challenge and you know I think we always have the. You know take that mindset of. You know can't wait to meet who might buy this house.

Speaker 2: 7:59

That's a good way to look at it, because if you've got an interesting house, the likelihood is that the person that buys it will be interesting as well.

Speaker 1: 8:06

Yeah, absolutely. What was the most expensive property you've sold?

Speaker 2: 8:13

I mean we've sold plenty up in the twos. I mean obviously we've got a big one in Otahanga at the moment which we have had under offer a couple of times. You know that's probably getting right up there for Carpity.

Speaker 1: 8:23

That's my dream home, by the way.

Speaker 2: 8:25

Feel free to come by it. I guess the you know at the moment, like probably where we're seeing a lot of activity, is the sub one million kind of market, particularly the family homes, and we probably really enjoy working with first home buyers.

Speaker 2: 8:40

They're just so excited, they don't know what they don't know you know, so we kind of look at it as our job to kind of educate them through the process because they don't necessarily know all the questions that they should be asking. And you know we take time to sit down with people, go through contracts, make sure they understand disclosures and you know building reports, limbs, all that sort of stuff. So you know there's a lot that kind of goes into buying a house and you know if you're on your third or fourth house then obviously you kind of understand how the process works a little bit. But the first home buyers they're just cool, you know they're, they're excited, they're.

Speaker 2: 9:15

it's like their first chapter, their first rung on the ladder um, and yeah, I, I think handing the keys over to them um is one of the more satisfying parts of the job.

Speaker 1: 9:24

Um, because, yeah, they've scrimped and say for a long time to kind of get to that position, um, and it's just a really neat feeling yeah, that's beautiful like I was was just talking about it as well the other day that when you help the first-time buyers get on the ladder, the spark in their eyes is just so beautiful to watch. Yeah yeah, you just can't replace and I think that's what keeps me going as well, is what I do. As you say, you know it's relentless, it's demanding, we're constantly on. There is no really break.

Speaker 1: 9:52

even if you go away, there's never a break yes but what keeps you, uh, afloat is moments like that that just give you that boost of energy, um, adrenaline, endorphin, whatever all the happy feelings yeah exactly.

Speaker 2: 10:06

And yeah, I mean we always try to meet our clients at a house and hand over the keys, you know, because it's kind of like that, that final signing off yeah you know, keep in touch with them from that point onwards.

Speaker 2: 10:16

But yeah, we're always trying to kind of, I guess, take that personable approach where you know we've taken them on this journey or they've taken us on this journey to get to that point. It's just a really cool feeling. So I don't think you'd. You know, people talk a lot about real estate, about earning money. If you're just in it for the money, you wouldn't last because it's too demanding you know, so there has to be an aspect of wanting to help people and, you know, wanting to provide good service.

Speaker 1: 10:45

The bigger. Why right? Exactly exactly Because, as you said, you've been in the industry for 17 years. You've been through various cycles economic cycles that you would have seen. You would have seen the. Covid as well and then what happened after COVID, when the properties weren't selling probably as much? What are you seeing right now?

Speaker 2: 11:04

So obviously we've had a little bit of good news on the interest rate front. So yeah, the last couple of weekends have been pretty busy at open homes. We had a couple where there were close to 30 groups coming through, which was really encouraging. We're probably meeting because a lot of our buyers come out from Wellington. The end of last summer, going into winter, there was a lot of people that had been on the market for a while in Wellington that finally sold. They were hesitant to put an offer subject to house sale. They waited until they had their sort of budget in place. So we had this bit of a flurry over winter. So I think July, september we sold 15, 16 houses over that kind of period. And then what we're seeing at the moment it's probably the next wave of, you know, the spring market in Wellington.

Speaker 2: 11:51

All those people have just gone on the market down there, coming up the coast, starting to look around. There's some that have sold. We've probably seen a few more subject to house sale offers again coming back through the process, first-time buyers. They've been there the whole time. I think a lot of them have realised they're probably at the bottom of the market. Now's a good time to buy and interest rates are going the right way.

Speaker 2: 12:18

Probably the stickier part of the market is once you get up over 1.2, 1.3, 1.4,. We've noticed that buyers are getting a little bit pickier in what they want and Carpenter Coast has always been really popular with the downsizer market and you know, typically they have good equity and a good budget but they're very selective on what they want so they won't rush in and just buy the wrong house, you know. They'll shop around until they find the perfect. So, yeah, some open homes you know will get almost all three groups first home buyers, the kind of the young family market, and downsizers, all looking at the one property, wow. And I think that's why Carpity often bucks the trend with a lot of, you know the general market around the country is because we have such a diverse range of people looking here and we're propped up by that downsizer sort of retirement segment.

Speaker 1: 13:11

Yeah, exactly, and do you see a lot of investors coming back by any chance?

Speaker 2: 13:16

Starting to come out. Starting to come out, I mean, the yields probably aren't quite there yet, but certainly, you know, if there's a property that they can see future growth or somewhere they can add value and they're not too worried about yield, then, yeah, I would say probably 99% of our houses, though, are going to owner-occupiers that we deal with Not out of choice. It might be more just the type of properties that we've been selling. Yeah, obviously, there's been a few big developments that have finished recently, so that might be starting to soak up a few of the investor types buying a new build. Not sure, but it's a balancing act for investors, right? So, as interest rates come down further, you know they may all jump back in.

Speaker 1: 14:01

Exactly, it does make it more appealing to get back before the prices go up.

Speaker 2: 14:08

Plus, you know, the bringing back of the bright line as well. Well, that helped. Yeah, that's always a positive. So yeah, swings and roundabouts, I mean I guess we never go into one property campaign thinking this house is definitely going to sell to this buyer. We're always open and we try to cast a relatively wide net and not try, I guess, preempt who may be the perfect buyer. Because we're surprised all the time who buys houses? And you know, and I guess you know it's probably a testament to the emotional attachment that houses kind of bring to people, because plenty of people have they, you know, have bought a house. They've said to us look, I never would have thought I would have bought their house. You know, if I had kind of looked at it on paper I would have thought no, that's not going to suit. But as soon as they get in there and they kind of the heartstrings go and they feel that kind of, you know it's the heart that kind of buys houses.

Speaker 1: 15:01

Yeah, exactly, and that's what I often say to the ones that are looking to invest is I said remember when you're an investor, you know, try to keep your head cool your heart cool, you know. Just look at the outside of the beautiful kitchen that you're falling in love with. Think about it as an investment property. But you're right, a lot of people they fall in love with the property and that's what then drives them to sometimes the crazy offers.

Speaker 2: 15:29

So that's what we always try to do in our job is make people fall in love with places and get emotional and try to keep the brain out of it too much.

Speaker 1: 15:36

Yeah, that's interesting how we both sit on different spectrums of the same thing really.

Speaker 2: 15:42

Oh yeah, it's that balancing act right, and I guess it comes back to people getting good advice and making sure that they're not overextending themselves and getting too carried away.

Speaker 1: 15:51

What questions should a first-home buyer ask you, if they?

Speaker 2: 15:55

come to an open home.

Speaker 2: 15:57

So I guess probably the first thing is around the process. You know the type of sales process and what they need to know about that, so you know if they can just make an offer whenever they like or if they're working towards a deadline or if it's an auction. Obviously there's a few more hoops they have to jump through to get to the point that they can put their hand up and bid, you know. And then it's probably just generalised information about the property. So you know, we typically always have a limb in the council files for a property. We do encourage vendors to provide building reports, but it's entirely up to them. So you know, probably one of the big things in our industry is disclosures. So we have to be upfront about the information that we know that we hold in the property. We can't be seen to mislead people. So it's a good starting point just asking those simple questions to the agent, like settlement date, when are the vendors looking to move?

Speaker 2: 16:48

We get asked a lot what the motivation is for the vendor as to why they're selling, and we have to be a little bit careful because we can't put our vendors in a situation that puts them on the back foot. But most people are selling for genuine reasons. And then you know, we're normally asking them look, have you got your finance organised? You know, are you working with the broker? Have you got a solicitor? Have you got friends and family that have gone through this process that you can talk to and just making sure that we're getting all those little questions answered for them and getting all the information across? So you know, quite often we're drafting up contracts that they've never seen before. You know, so we're talking them through. You know the legalities of what they're signing. You know because it is a binding contract. So we want to make sure that it's crystal clear. Legal advice is probably the big thing that we encourage, particularly first home buyers, I mean all clients. We encourage it.

Speaker 1: 17:43

But certainly First home buyers.

Speaker 2: 17:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah because there's a lot of stuff that they just don't know. That they don't know.

Speaker 1: 17:49

Exactly. So now you can actually tell them hey, look, go on that Home Loan Hub podcast and listen to the episode that I've done with you, because you've just listed everything.

Speaker 2: 17:59

Exactly, yep, and you know I can talk to you about finance and you know, because that's a whole, there's a lot of intricacies to do with that and yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:08

Because, from the bank point of view, we don't really like auctions, especially for our first-time buyers, especially if they don't have 20% deposit.

Speaker 2: 18:14

Yeah, hard to get them, unconditional right.

Speaker 1: 18:16

Well, we can get them unconditional, but normally they would have a point of, let's say, 800k. That would be the absolute max that they can bid on, and they will have to get all their due diligence done right beforehand. So that's spending money on registered valuation, spending money on builder's reports, spending money on LIM lawyers, etc.

Speaker 2: 18:35

Yes.

Speaker 1: 18:35

For a chance to be able to win at the auction. Yeah, yeah, you know, and that's why we normally say look, stay away from them if you can, but can they go and put an offer after the auction has ended? And if there have not been successful bids, can they go and put an offer after the auction?

Speaker 2: 18:52

Yeah, I mean we've run. I mean what you're trying to do in an auction is isolate the unconditional buyers, give them a head start. But we're always trying to, I guess, gather up that conditional interest in behind. So if it doesn't go at auction you've got those fallback people who can jump in, put something on paper. You know, and they might already have an offer on paper sitting there that if it gets passed in we can present straight away. So yeah, I mean certainly you know that buyer group. We see the most conditions, you know in any process, whether it's priced by negotiation or running a deadline. And you know, and it's tied into a lot of the. I guess they're not. They don't want to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on due diligence to keep missing out, you know.

Speaker 1: 19:40

Yeah, exactly Exactly. I had people that wanted to go to two, three different auctions, you know, one after another, and I was like, please Calm down, calm down, let's go back a step a second here, because when you actually give them the cost of how much it's going to cost them, then they go.

Speaker 1: 19:55

Oh, I didn't realize that A lot of my first-time buyers get confused. You know with different terminology that we use Obviously the deadline sale, the tender, the you know price by negotiation, and they often go oh, I don't know how much it costs, how much do I need to make an offer? Can they ask an agent of a ballpark figure how much the vendors are expecting to get?

Speaker 2: 20:17

Yeah, I mean it's over properties priced, property's priced right. We're making our vendors fill out a form saying look, any offer over that amount has to be taken with serious consideration, with a deadline. It can be a little bit tricky because you kind of, in essence it's a bit of a blind auction because you don't know what other people are offering. Legally we can't disclose that between parties. We also have to be careful not to, I guess, jeopardise our vendor's position if we know what they might accept and trying to, I guess, fish for offers under that.

Speaker 2: 20:53

So you know one of the main parts of running our processes. We're always asking people coming through our properties where they think the property sits in the market in terms of price. So we find it quite helpful to be relaying that back to other buyers who are interested just saying, hey look, this is where other buyers are seeing it from. That's never a guarantee that's what it's going to sell for, but we're just trying to get a bit of a finger on our pulse.

Speaker 1: 21:17

So you know we.

Speaker 2: 21:19

Obviously, when we're appraised we're thinking, okay, it might sit in this level, but it comes down to the market and what value the market sees it at. So if we can give that kind of real-time feedback back to potential purchasers, a lot of them find it very helpful.

Speaker 1: 21:34

Because we've got that phrase in our world, doesn't it? The house is only worth what.

Speaker 2: 21:47

What someone's willing to pay, right, yeah, there you go, yeah, and, and that's, that's never going to change. You know, and you know I get, I guess you know we're always trying to find, you know, the absolute best price out there and competition is what creates that. Um, you know, now and again you'll get like a unicorn buyer who just has to have a house and will pay whatever. Um, but you know, a successful campaign from the vendor's point of view is us being able to generate multiple interested parties, because I guess we're always trying to keep the vendor out of the process and just make it buyer versus buyer. But sometimes it's just we're quite upfront. If buyers ask us hey look, are there any other offers in? We're not going to lie to them. If we don't have any others, we'll just say no, you're the only one on the table. And likewise, if it is a multi, we'll make sure that they understand that and what the implications are.

Speaker 1: 22:30

The question that sprang to my head is again something that I see people sometimes asking me why should they use an agent if they can sell it themselves? Do you see more private sales these days? Do you see more sales through the agents? What do you see?

Speaker 2: 22:47

I think in the last couple of years there hasn't been a lot of private sellers on the market and I think during the boom right, you could be the worst agent in the world. If you had the house and you put up a flag. It would sell In a more normalised market. Or you know, we've gone through quite a trough where the prices fell off a cliff and every deal we've had to chase, you know. So you just have to stay on people and the phone rings and emails.

Speaker 2: 23:18

And I mean our advice to someone who's wanting to sell a house privately. You know, if they've got sales skills, then sure they can give it a crack. It's not just opening up your house on a Sunday and then, you know, waiting for offers to roll in. You know there's a lot of answering questions. I think a lot of buyers go into those, into private sales. In their mind they're thinking well, we're going to get a reduction in price because they're not paying an agent. And you know a lot of seasoned investors look for those private sales because they know that they're negotiating skills and their knowledge of the market is probably a lot greater than the person selling it.

Speaker 2: 23:56

Who's?

Speaker 2: 23:57

you know they might have been in that house for 10, 20 years and so, yeah, if you've got the skill set, absolutely have a crack. There's a lot of different platforms that you can use now for photos and signs and putting on trade me, all that sort of thing. But yeah, it's a skill in what we do and you know our process is honed over hundreds and hundreds of sales processes that we've run over the years. So I don't think you can substitute that. You know some houses will sell themselves, but typically you know a lot of it is off the back of the agent and the blood, sweat and tears that we put into it.

Speaker 1: 24:31

Oh, totally. And I mean look, I made that mistake years ago when we were selling our house in Palmerston North.

Speaker 1: 24:37

You know I thought I could. I'm a great sales girl, I can sell a house. You know why should I pay the agent 20k? Um, and I just put the house on, trade me, you know, took some photos myself, etc. But then I soon realized, as you say, that the, the work that goes in behind the scenes was you know, when buyers are calling you and you have to, um, give them this whole spiel about the house, and you know, give disclosures, etc, etc. So that was what 12 years ago I about the house and you know, give disclosures, et cetera, et cetera. So that was what 12 years ago. I think I was like you know what, actually, no, I don't want to do this. And then I passed it on.

Speaker 2: 25:09

It was probably a little bit easier when it was back with. You know buyer beware. You know where all the onus was on the buyer to kind of uncover faults. And there is now. You know a lot of the legal ramifications fall on agents. When we're selling a house, you know we need to know what we're selling and be able to point out you know potential faults in a house.

Speaker 2: 25:31

Someone doing it privately you know that's on them, you know, and there's always going to be that emotional attachment to the property and you know they're slightly biased in the sense that they want to sell their own house. So they you know are're tempted to hide things that they know about the property.

Speaker 1: 25:44

Uh-huh, yeah exactly.

Speaker 2: 25:46

Potential minefield.

Speaker 1: 25:48

And that's the thing right. I'm always a believer of give the work to the specialist. You don't go and treat your own teeth. I mean you go to the dentist. Why should it be any different to your health, to your house, to your car? If you want your car to get the warrant of fitness, you go to professionals that do warrant of fitness.

Speaker 2: 26:08

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 26:08

Or change the tires. So I think it shouldn't, and when it's your biggest asset that you have, you should really take it.

Speaker 2: 26:14

It's a big risk, right? Yeah, yeah, and I think with the value that an agent add. You know, obviously everyone always tries to attack our fees, but you know you pay for what you get you know, the fees are a minimal part of you know the premium we can potentially add at the end.

Speaker 1: 26:34

Exactly because you could sell it by yourself at $500 or you could use an agent and sell it for $600. And yes, you paid, you know, 20, 30, 40ks in fees. You still walked away 60 K more than you would have had otherwise Totally. And that's where your superpower comes in, I guess. Yeah yeah, to be able to negotiate that higher price range Me and Georgie.

Speaker 2: 26:50

We're six, seven days a week sometimes, you know, so we're always at it, always available, you know, and just chasing people down.

Speaker 1: 26:59

So give us. This is your five seconds of shout out to yourself. So where would people find you?

Speaker 2: 27:06

How do people find you? So we're obviously at Vorling Cove down in 33 McLean Street. You can find us online, hayden and Georgie. We have a good social media presence. Otherwise, always on the phone. My phone number is 0275 872621. And yeah, if we don't pick up, we're probably in an appointment. But we'll call you straight back.

Speaker 1: 27:26

I love it and I love how I see you guys on the back of the bus Every time I drive. There's always your bus.

Speaker 2: 27:32

Well, our youngest kid is quite excited when he sees them, but our older ones I think it's a bit cringey. You can't win them. And the last question that I always wrap it up now is what fills your cup, um, what brings you joy? Family? I do a lot of fishing, um just being in the outdoors, and you know I feel quite privileged that I get to work with my wife. You know we we operate well together and spend a lot of time together, obviously. So so, yeah, I think we run in a good operation and we enjoy each other's company and we enjoy helping people and trying to facilitate their move.

Speaker 1: 28:03

So yeah, that's awesome, hayden, thank you so much for coming along today. It was awesome to get to know you.

Speaker 2: 28:09

Likewise.

Speaker 1: 28:10

A little bit more, and I'm excited to see what this year well end of the year brings, and the next year that brings us all.

Speaker 2: 28:17

So thank you, I appreciate the time.

Speaker 1: 28:19

Have.