SPEAKER_00: 0:10

Hello and welcome back to that Homlon Hub. I've got George Love with me in the house today from Heartcourt's Carpeti. Hello, George.

SPEAKER_01: 0:18

Hi, Zebrunes.

SPEAKER_00: 0:19

So thank you for inviting Megan and I here today. Thank you so much for coming. So you decided to be, well, we sort of plonked you in a hot seat first, and we'll get to Megan shortly. But I'm all curious, and I know my listeners will be as well, going, who is this guy with this amazing accent? Tell us more. So, George, who are you?

SPEAKER_01: 0:40

Who is George Love? Well, I've been in New Zealand now 22 years, I think it is. Wow, as long as me. Yeah, is that is that long as well? Fantastic. Your English is as good as mine now. True. So so yeah, I came here 20 22 years ago just to for a visit and to explore. Before I was in real estate, um, I'm an ex-hairdresser. A hairdresser. Hairdresser, yeah. I heard there was a shortage over here for good hairdressers. So I came out here. I've been in the industry, what, 30, 35, 36 years as a young young person. I used to work in TV, catwalk shows, do all the West End shows in London. It was quite a glamorous career. And then it brought me out here.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29

That's like a complete flip, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01: 1:32

Because New Zealand is just chill. Well, it is. It's very chilled out here, but I think that's what I was looking for. I've been around all the big wild cities. I spent a lot of time in New York, London, places like that, where it was just crazy. And then I came to Wellington and I was like, it was almost like stepping back in time. I just loved it. You know, I loved this slower pace, the outdoor life. It was everything that I crave. And met my lovely wife Megan very soon after coming here. We shared a lot of similar interests. We're both keen scuba divers, so we were always out diving together, and every chance we got, and life was going pretty good. So I opened up a hair salon, had a big successful hair salon. Hello, my little friend. I could cut your hair. Wow. Very successful hair salon in central Wellington. But long story short, we had our first child, and I realized very quick that I was never around being a father. I was missing my child growing up. Yeah. Um, I was always at the shop. Long hours. Long hours, had to be there all the time. We had between 10-15 staff, you know, it was it was busy, busy. So we made the big call to sell the salon, um, which we did. And luckily we sold at a great time because not long after that, a few years after that, COVID hit.

SPEAKER_00: 2:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_01: 2:54

So you would have been um yeah, we were very lucky to get out when we when we did. So look, tried a couple of different sales jobs, again, very successful at it, but they took me on the road. I was traveling away from my family. Not ideal. No, so I had a few friends doing real estate, and I'd been talking to them about it. And so I say one of my good friends owns a successful company in Wellington, and I had a good chat with him about it, and he he thought I'd be great at it. So I told him we were moving to Capity, you know, uh when COVID was there, we wanted to move up to Capita, be the outdoors more. So we we did that, and he recommended that I go to Harcourts because Harcourts is such a big company and they offer fantastic training, which they really do, and it's just ongoing. Doesn't matter how experienced you are, there's always stuff that they can teach you.

SPEAKER_00: 3:47

How big is how big is Harcourts?

SPEAKER_01: 3:49

Well, Harcourts is international, but the company we work for at Harcourts, our CEO Marty Ritchie, he owns 14 of the franchises around Wellington. Whoa. So he basically has all the hardcourts from Wellington up to Levin, and then the other side from Wellington up to Upper Hut. So it's a massive part, but we're all connected as one anyway. We have a massive referral system, and that's why I grew so fast at hardcourts because I had this database from my hair salon from over 10,000 people. And when I told them I was getting into real estate, I I emailed it out to them all. I had all these people emailing me. Oh, we're looking for a holiday home up in Capte, or we've got family I need to sell there. So things all started happening really well. And after a couple of years, then Megan has always been helping me in the background. After a couple of years, we've got busy, we wanted to move to the next level, and that seemed the most natural thing to do was for Megan to come in full-time. So she got her license.

SPEAKER_00: 4:54

But but we both know, right? Without a great wife, there is no successful man.

SPEAKER_01: 4:59

Absolutely, absolutely. And it was the same with the hair salon, even though Megan at that time was in banking, but she used to always be coming up to the salon because where she worked was just round the corner from our salon, which was in the old bank arcade in Lambton Key. And she would always be coming around, helping out with computer issues and helping out at the desk. And once she finished work, she'd come around there as well and help out. So it was always a team effort, you know, all always. But what what the big call with real estate has been is is is the flexibility that we have because first of all, we're parents, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 5:36

How many kids do you have?

SPEAKER_01: 5:37

We've got two lovely girls. How old are they? And they're 10 and 7. Wow, lovely age, beautiful age, you know, lots of fun, you know. So that that was the the main thing for the move for me was what job, what career can I do on my own, have my own business, and have flexibility to see my family every day and spend quality time with them. So that was a big pull for me. And and even though we it's a seven-day-a-week job, it's still so flexible that I do stuff with the kids every day.

SPEAKER_00: 6:08

You can still pick them up and drop them off and maybe take them to after school activities. Do you do their hair?

SPEAKER_01: 6:14

I do, they're my only two clients now.

SPEAKER_00: 6:17

Your VIP clients.

SPEAKER_01: 6:19

They're my VIP clients now. Yeah. Oh, how lucky for them. And they love dad cutting their hair for them, you know. Yeah. So, and uh not even Megan gets that order now. I ended up making her go to another hair. You fired her as a client. But she's she's fighting to get back in with me again now.

SPEAKER_00: 6:36

That's amazing. Like how lucky those girls are. I mean, this morning I was brushing my daughter's hair, and I was really frustrated because hair is not my thing, you know, and and I usually just cut off the bits that I can brush off. So my daughter's used to it now. That's my solution. Quick, sharp. Yeah, but I think it I think hairdressing requires a lot of patience, and I guess this is the transferable skill that you brought across the real estate.

SPEAKER_01: 7:01

Patience and also customer service. It's a massive one, customer service. And that's something that's just natural to me. Yeah, it's like breathing, you know, just like serve good service comes hand in hand. And I think when when we bought our first house and coming up here, we had a few bad experiences. And and that was one of the keys that made me think we we can do this, you know. It's it's the simple stuff that's but we can do better. Right, absolutely. That's what I meant. We can do better, much better. And we certainly have done, and we are, we're always striving to do better all all the time. But for us, first and mostly, it's the people, you know. For Megan and for myself, it's the people. We love helping people, we love trying to take the stress away from them, you know, and making the whole process easy.

SPEAKER_00: 7:50

I think that's the key, right? If in our profession we concentrate on people first, people can feel that, and people will trust you because this is their biggest asset. They're trusting you with their life, that's their life possession. Because a lot of the people that are selling, they're either selling to downsize and move into a retirement village, for instance, or they're selling because they have to move towns, or they're selling because they want to upsize because their family has grown. In either case, I guess it's a massive life stage for them. Absolutely. And I think working with the right real estate agent will help them to overcome those stressful moments in life. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 8:31

Look, look, but but what you you just hit nail in the head there with the the uh the elderly sort of moving into their sort of last place of vacation there. So we we we saw a market in that and helping them. You know, there's a lot of people we met whose partners died, they'd never made a sale or bought a house on their own. And it was like, who can they trust? One of the main things that we always did with them is try to get a family member or someone they trust to sit with them through the process, right from signing them up to going through negotiations to making sort of showing them offers and having support there with them all the time because we never want them to feel that they're getting taken advantage of.

SPEAKER_00: 9:18

Yeah, because they're vulnerable, right? Those are our vulnerable clients that we really have to look after and take the time.

SPEAKER_01: 9:25

Absolutely, yeah. So, yeah, Megan's exceptional with that as well. She's got a great way with the elderly, and I think both of us come from a background with strong family ties, you know. I I grew up, I had a lot of respect for my grandparents, they had a big part of me growing up, and and Megan was was the same, so that just carries on, you know. We we love spending time with elderly people, hearing their stories, you know, like listening to them and hearing the stories of their life. It's it's great, you know. Um who who doesn't love the chance to have a wee cup of tea in a bicycle?

SPEAKER_00: 9:57

I was about to say, I was about to say the same. But that's that's I think either makes a great real estate agent or not. Yeah, you know, it's not about rushing the process, pushing people into doing something. And just like you mentioned in the other episode that we've just done around the escape clause, you know, if you prepare people early enough, and then when they're ready to push the button, and that could be six months later, it could be three months later, you know, it doesn't have to be done here, right now. It's about allowing people to work with day timelines. And I think that's super important because a lot of feedback that we hear in the market is that, oh, the real estate agent pressured me into this, or the real estate agent pressured me into that. I mean, let's face it, you know, I'm sorry to say, but the real estate agents on average don't have the greatest reputation. And I'm so, so happy when I meet amazing operators like you, like Megan, you know, and a few other real estate agents I know that are good friends of mine now that operate from a place of heart.

SPEAKER_01: 10:54

Yeah, that's right. And and that's it, and that's what our job really is it's giving people all the correct information so that then they can make their decision. And we can help advise them, but the most important thing is giving them all the information so that then they can make a good decision.

SPEAKER_00: 11:14

Yeah, no, I love that. So, George, what are your goals for this year? This is a new year, 2026, the year of the horse. Yes, we've just shedded the snake. Yeah, yeah. That's gone. I don't know about you, but 2025 has been very difficult for a lot of people, you know, a lot of stuff that they needed to get rid of. Now finally we got rid of that. So this is the year to work like a horse, run like a horse, be graceful like a horse. What are your goals and visions for this year?

SPEAKER_01: 11:42

Well, look, I I think for us, it's it's business as usual, sort of. You know, we've we we we had the best year ever last year in business, and it's we we we always work hard. That's just our ethic. We all we work hard, you know, we work hard and we also have great time with our families as well. So it's it's pretty much the same as usual, but just trying to do a little bit more and do it better, and that's what we're always trying to achieve, just to do it a little bit better than we did before.

SPEAKER_00: 12:14

Have you heard of that theory that if you improve yourself 0.01 every day, that by the end of the year you will improve yourself, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 12:24

That's right, and that that's what it is every day. You just try and do what you're doing a little bit better, and we seem to be getting a bit better. The kids are getting easier, dropping off at school and things like that. I don't know if that's just because they're getting older and naturally, or we're getting better at it. But but yeah, I mean, now for us, I mean, I've been in real estate, moved up to Capit five years ago, and I've been in real estate that that amount of time. So I feel like now we're we're getting a name for ourselves. The phone starts ringing on its own now. People asking us to come and appraise their properties. So it's like, and and we love doing that. We love going in some of the houses we see are just beautiful, and whatever type of house it is, we we love seeing the opportunity there helping people to make the most out of what they've got, to get the best that they can from what they've got, and and that's what we love to try and do all the time.

SPEAKER_00: 13:16

I love that. I love that. Thank you so much. And just before we part, what are your hobbies? What are you into?

SPEAKER_01: 13:21

Well, Megan and I are keen scuba divers, although we haven't done a lot of it over the last few years with the kids and stuff, but we're really hoping pretty soon to get back back into our scuba diving again. I love golfing, not very good at it, but I love it. So I I golf golf quite quite a bit there and uh just generally keep me fit. I go for a run most days or try to, and and I keep fit with the kids anyway. You know, we're always doing activities with them. Um, we were away rock climbing the other week. They love climbing, my girls, you know, they're big climbers, so I get them on the the the rock flame frames and that they they they love it, so they do.

SPEAKER_00: 14:00

Love it, love it. George, thank you so much for coming. And I hope you become a regular guest to come and update us on what's going on in the real estate market.

SPEAKER_01: 14:08

I'd love to come back. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 14:10

That would be awesome. Thank you so much, and I hope to see you next time.

SPEAKER_01: 14:13

Thanks, Evernessa.

SPEAKER_00: 14:14

See ya.

SPEAKER_01: 14:15

Bye.