Transcript of “1 Year in Real Estate with Aaron Murray”
| Episode: | EP103 |
| Show Title: | 1 Year in Real Estate with Aaron Murray |
| Cast: | Aaron Horne & John McGregor |
| Guests: | Chris McGregor & Aaron Murray |
| Show Length: | 23 minutes 32 seconds |
Aaron M: Like I think this industry, the way you win, is by outworking everyone. I know you sort of touched on ‘work smarter, not harder’– I’m under the impression you can work as hard as you can and that’s how you sort of get to the top.
[intro music]
Going once… going twice… SOLD! You’re listening to The Property Pod.
Aaron: All right, guys. Welcome back to The Property Pod, your weekly engagement here into real estate in the Hobart marketplace. I’m your host, Aaron Horne, and I am joined by John McGregor at the desk but we’re in a brand new era; we’re missing one of the limbs of the team–but that’s not going to slow us down. How are you, J-Mac?
John: Mate, crashing it. Yeah, I haven’t been able to walk for the last couple of days because I went and visited a mate in Adelaide and he’s training for Ironman and so of course, like idiots, we went straight into his training regimen after not doing anything for at least a year–so yeah, getting round’s been rather painful.
Aaron: So you go back right to the start of the podcast and there’s John talking about John 2.0 [John agrees] There’s many iterations of John [laughter]–he’s been going to the gym, he’s been getting off the gym, it happens here and there everywhere, but yeah, I loved you came into the office; you looked quite ginger and I can’t move.
John: It wasn’t… It wasn’t fun.
Aaron: No, well. So I was saying, Adelaide is not a fun place.
John: Yeah yeah well… It was uncanny, too, because my partner, it was a late last minute booking and she was worried there was going to be some crazy wild weekend away, it was just with the boys. Little did she know because she’s never met my friend, I said, “Sweetie, you can calm down because it’s most likely going to be we’ll go and visit, we’ll look after the kids, we’ll probably go for exercise, and meditate” and that’s exactly what happened.
Aaron: Oh nice, well recharge the batteries and reset the body into the frame. Well let’s talk about who we’ve got on the table with us today. We got rid of Pat [John agrees] and we’ve brought in maybe the next generation [John agrees] and a generation of expert into the whole Property Pod.
John: We’ve got every end of the spectrum at the moment.
Aaron: We do, don’t we? So we’ve brought in your old man, Chris McGregor.
John: Hey, dad! How are we doing?
Chris: Welcome, guys.
Aaron: Welcome! Thanks so much for coming back on. It’s so good to have you back with us
here on The Property Pod!
Chris: Thank you, Aaron!
Aaron: We didn’t scare you off last time?
Chris: A little bit…
Aaron: A little bit?
John: *whispers* Just… just enough…
Aaron: No no, it’s really good to have you come and join us and use some of your use of expertise and bestow that upon our listeners, but talking of year of expertise, we’ve got our young whippersnapper– the freshest of fresh joining us here at the table, Aaron Murray, Welcome to The Property Pod!
Aaron M: Hey, guys! Single year is very important, there is just one under my belt, so… [John: mummy!] absolutely.
Aaron: Yeah well, just as we kind of sat down to talk about the show today, we kind of went back through the the calendar year and it’s basically been almost a year of the day since you’ve kind of joined the team here and and you’ve entered the world of real estate, so even we kind of thought we’d get in and talk about your cracking weekend of open homes, but I feel like we should, before we do that, dive into who is Aaron Murray? How’s his year gone? and how’s it gonna go in the future?
Aaron M: Yeah, absolutely. Well, just say finally, thank you for the invite!
John: Yeah [laughter] You need 12 months on your belt, mate. That’s the rule.
Aaron M: Absolutely. Well, I suppose getting into the industry when I first started, met obviously, McGregor to begin with. It was sort of a bit of really big eye opener because real estate was saying I was sort of tempted to but obviously, I knew there’s a lot more than what you sort of see from the average guy you see: Facebook posts, people driving the Lamborghinis, the fancy cars–
Aaron: See the interesting thing for me is that you showed up prior to becoming an employee in the real estate industry, already driving the flash car. [laughter]
Aaron: Was it kind of that ‘dress dress to impress’ so what’s it called where you’re dressed for success?
Aaron M: Yeah yeah [ __ ] it do you make it sort of thing. Well, I suppose that was the sort of theory behind it, obviously, being a little bit younger, I want to sort of try and look the part. Obviously, I don’t have the experience but if people can somewhat see you’re a little bit more successful, I’ve at least got that going for me rather than the experience side so that’s why I rely on these blokes for.
John: [laughter] yeah, big mistake. Well, mind you. I think when it comes to the way that you dress, it’s really about having some self-respect as well, and I know with even a review that I’ve got, where one client had actually said, “he actually turned up in a suit” and she was like, “it was nice to see that some people still have that depth of respect,” so I think when you’re…
From day one, dressing appropriately for the job was just more so a sign of respect for the industry and obviously the way in which you want to move forward.
Aaron M: Well, it’s pretty common, I suppose, you think of real estate agents–blue suits, white shirts, blue ties. So yeah, it’s gonna fall in line like pretty common stuff.
Aaron: So give us a bit of background on kind of where you’ve come from, what got you into us, I know you kind of talked about once before, finance was kind of where you thought you might be heading down, I know I’ve heard you talk about cryptocurrency. I know you’re
chasing– [Aaron M: –some dogecoins?] yeah, you’re chasing some dogecoins [laughter] [Aaron M: to the moon?]
Aaron: Can you tell us a little bit about your journey from kind of retail worker to superstar–one year?
Aaron M: Superstar? I like that title!
Aaron: Let’s call you superstar.
Aaron M: Well, I suppose it sort of started obviously, we won’t lie here. Obviously, real estate, you sort of see money is quite attractive–sort of idea of it, but obviously, there’s a lot more work that goes into it than just a big paycheck so at the end of the day. I suppose that’s sort of what it comes down to it’s sort of I saw that optional opportunity to be able to sort of look, you can sort of work and receive these results for you can for your big paychecks but obviously, you’ve got to put in the work for it and that’s what I found back in my previous job: you could work– basically work your bum off, get paid enough, no extra for just doing what you have to do. So here, there’s a lot more freedom, a lot more sort of sense of being your own boss–so you’re in control, and obviously, that will come back to you in regards to the bank balance, I suppose.
Aaron: Yeah, for sure.
John: Because I remember that was yeah, you did say that early on was it you just wanted the capacity to more effort you put in, the more you get out.
And so that way, it’s equal to the… it’s proportional to the amount of effort you put in, so you can just keep charging and yeah, it’ll make a big difference.
Aaron M: That’s it.
Aaron: So the thing I like about this industry too, it could be dumb as two and you can still make a pretty penny like you have these fancy fancy degrees and stuff, it doesn’t mean a lot so.
John: Well, it is what it is.
Aaron M: What’s the date? Well, no offense to you, guys.
John: No, it’s alright, mate. I don’t have a higher education so I’m good we finished grade 12, enough but yeah, not university. Well, I mean, can you relate to that a little bit, dad? Because, in the end, education aside, it really is a good level that provides you, if you work ethically and you put in hard work, you will be rewarded.
Chris: Yeah, it doesn’t really matter what background you come from. The real estate’s… the thing about starting from scratch and it’s what you put into us, what you get out of it, but when they’re talking about working hard, it’s not so much about working hard in real estate, it’s working smart in real estate. Because you can get a lot of people to put in the same hours that the sun comes up and goes down, the same time as everybody else does in the office, but why do some others achieve more in the office than others that don’t and that’s a lot of us to do with what they how they fill in their day and what training, what learning they’re prepared to take on… which is very important.
Aaron: Speaking of training across the gamut, did you guys cross paths in the training period of were you working as an REIT instructor whilst you were doing any of your courses? Did that…
Aaron M: No, I never met Chris in particular, I did meet Mandy Welling who actually had a little spark to begin with… so I meant I did meet some pretty, I suppose, powerful people to begin with, but obviously, these two McGregors went on the cards so…
Aaron: Yeah, just from there, let’s talk about kind of you, John, taking young Aaron under your wing and stepping things up into this year of… I’m going to say “a year of success”, you’ve had a really good year–things are going really really well for you. Let’s kind of talk further about what’s going on there.
John: Well, there were even a couple of steps beforehand. It was sort of one thing that I’d always done for everyone who’s fresh in the industry. I made you do a lot of stuff before you came back and said, “Here’s some training, go to that, come back, we’ll have another chat.” And in the end, there’s only one other person that’s done it and he actually left the industry early but he was absolutely smashing it and everyone who’s come along and asked me and have put the same process and they said they haven’t bothered they’ve just got a job elsewhere, none of them are working in the industry anymore. And as it turned out, you actually went and did the work, you came back, we gave you more stuff, you went, you came back, you did the work, you come back, and it was that reinforcement…Because I suppose, in my mind, it was the idea that it’s to help obviously, you get a grip understand what it is and also, it’s a real tester from our point is like, “does this person actually want the job?” Because it’s not one we discussed it early on like this is not a ‘you don’t you don’t do it for six months, you commit to five years in this business’ otherwise, it’s not worth your time because it’s going to be at least 12 months before all that hard work that you’ve done and that starts to kick over and gain momentum and so I think then, once you started to showcase that you you wanted it, then we could really have a talk about… actually bringing you one as an agent.
Aaron M: So, just to dump that down a little bit just for people out there, what he’s saying is I work three months free labor for him…
John: Pretty much. [laughter]
Chris: There’s a lot of advantages in that, though. Because what happens when you start, you actually start. You’ve got some background with you where if you start from scratch on day one, you can easily fall into the bad habits of some of the sales people where when you’ve done some training beforehand, you do come into the office with a little bit more confidence than you would have done on just starting from day one.
Aaron M: Yeah, I can really see that with some other agents, you can see how they can quite easily be led astray depending on who your superiors are and who you learn from, so I’m glad I got you, guys, still looking after me so…
John: Well, I know how with that like 12 months it’s gone, mate, what’s your perspective like now, looking back for us, what your perspective was from day one?
Aaron M: Well, to begin with, you sort of see it sort of looks like sunflowers and rainbows to begin with, but then when you start getting really into it, like I’m probably pretty grateful for what you did to me, to begin with, give me all that extra paperwork just to sort of refresh the idea that there’s a lot more hard work in this than what this sort of seems to be. So it’s a lot more gritty than what you’d expect so that’s been a hard one and a lot of late nights but yeah, going into the sort of freedom like for example, like Monday night, I think we’re still going about nine o’clock at night catching what with the owners, but then, this morning, I not only watered in about 9:30 a.m so there’s just that bit of leeway, I suppose, a little bit more freedom but there’s a lot more hard yakkas than what I was initially expecting but a bit more fun, bit more of a challenge… [Aaron agrees]
John: Yeah, I know I can’t… there was a perspective shift you relate to me I think where
maybe it was the… I can’t remember exactly what you said but it was sort of that you don’t, correct me if I’m wrong, was about not chasing paychecks anymore and you’re just giving the service to the right people so that if you invest in the relationships, that’s where the success is, not chasing the dollar…
Aaron M: Yeah, so I’ve sort of now taken the approach now I sort of get an understanding that nothing really happens in the first few years. It’s more about getting that flywheel spiraling out of control, so the first few years are just more so building those relationships, getting those sort of little bits of experience early on, to then sort of change that mindset to really focus on long term.
John: Yeah, like just playing the long game knowing that this phone call today which will be two years before anything happens on that, but you keep nurturing that and that’s where the success is [Aaron M: that’s it] that’s getting that long-term perspective on the work.
Aaron M: From what I’ve seen, that’s sort of where some agents seem to like doing the sort of follow-up and those, I suppose, nurturing those relationships that sort of seems to be where I want to try and excel in because I can see some failure going throughout.
John: Well, I know like immediately, with you coming on saying that helping our business specifically because focusing on other elements and responsibilities, you’ve helped pick up the slack that we, otherwise, would have lost which is the whole purpose of building a larger team so you can service more people but I’ve certainly noticed that it actually does give me more confidence when we’re moving out because we’ve got more people of whole different levels of experience and energy that’s going to help provide a great service so it certainly helped our media business by having here as well.
Chris: Oh you’re a star, a team’s far better than the team of stars, that’s for sure. [John agrees]
Aaron: Yeah, a great way of putting it’s kind of yeah, you’ve got your little team of Team McGregor we’ll call it, operating in different ways–Chris using your years of experience and and just the wealth of knowledge across kind of just the community reach that you have is amazing and just being like, “oh no this block is through this and I know this block through this.”
Whereas, you’ve got young ads who’s just kind of boots on the ground just knocking on every door–he actually caught me the other day, I was walking my dog. I haven’t really told many people this one but I’m just going to let it out. The cat out of the bag or the dog out of the bag, I was walking along the other day when we had the mask mandate, what’s going on… I got halfway on the walk with my dog, I realized I wasn’t wearing the mask and I was like, “oh no, what am I going to do?” So being the [ __ ] that I am, I grabbed out one of the poo bags– not used, and I hooked each one over my ear and continued to walk so it was kind of a plastic face mask–it was a mask. But I was like, “this will be fine, no one will see me. This would be great.”
Chris: Well see that’s where you’re working smart, not hard. [everyone agrees] [laughter]
Aaron: Exactly! Thank you, Chris! I’ll take that… [laughter] I’m trotting along working smart and I thought I’d be fine, no one will see me–I’m only kind of 500 meters from my home, but not lo and behold, Aaron’s there with his flashcards getting out of the car and he’s looking at me like, “I think I know this guy,” and I just said, “uh, mate. I didn’t think I was going to see anybody I knew on this,” [laughter]
Aaron M: I was expecting like a little machete or something… [laughter]
Chris: Yeah, it was just ’cause his face was so red because he couldn’t breathe… [laughter]
Aaron: So no, let it be known that you are out there knocking on doors, you mean meeting plenty of people. I know you’ve made up kind of a map of Goodwood and some other suburbs where you’re kind of putting dots and flags in the ground like, “this is where I’m kind of setting myself up now and I’m just going to kind of spread my net from there.”
Aaron M: That’s what I like if we sort of discussed briefly like I think about this industry, the way you win is by outworking everyone. I know you sort of touched on ‘work smarter, not harder’. I’m under the impression you can work as hard as you can and that’s how you sort of get to the top, so…
John: Absolutely! And it’s like if you’re working hard and smart, well then, you’re just leveraging it on both scales and you know the results will just come that much faster. Well, I mean that with all the work now because you know, there’s so much you learn like both the background knowledge of the industry, we went to the council the other day because we got educated about granny flats because nothing comes in from day one. There’s so much that you learn on the go, are there any skills or activities that have surprised you along the way that you might have thought would be different than what it is?
Aaron M: I wouldn’t necessarily say ‘different’, just sort of… more of a sort of like an eye opener how this sort of process actually relays like how obviously when you’re in regards to sort of selling a property that obviously the owners entrust you, they’re more than likely the most valued worst that they have and then dealing with buyers and those sort of that negotiation period and all the different techniques you can use along those lines. That just sort of seems to be quite impressive and all.
Again, you can sort of see how people can be led astray by the sort of wrong touch-ups but just how I suppose, not legislation-oriented but how sort of by the book you have to be or because it will come back to bite you in the end which we’ve seen so…
John: Well I mean, we’ll take for example that this weekend just gone, what did you’ve got… you boys ran like three, four… four open homes? So how did that and I know like when we’re chatting on Monday, you could hear the fact that like you’ve been having that many phone calls over the course of that weekend following up offers etc. So talk about that process and you know, what happened from Saturday through to Monday night?
Aaron: Yeah, I’d love to hear about that.
Aaron M: Yeah, so basically… so we’ve got four open homes on the weekend, so we have the property up in Herdsmans Cove for say obviously, with that sort of area, you’re not more so looking for people that are looking to move in, it’s more sort of investor hotspot. And obviously, investors like to crunch numbers and work out that perspective so there’s not as much emotional connection, so properties like that, I think we only had about five people turn up to the open home, but we still got a really good result in the end for the owner. But it just sort of reflects because then we made it on down to Glenorchy and that had 25 plus people for a home, that’s sort of dictating more for someone to move into and sort of cater for a first home buyer in a nice area and sort of a budget where they sort of see value and then obviously, we had a couple properties in Claremont which I brought Chris along with me for because we’re expecting quite a nice turnout. In the end, we did get around about average about 10 people through, but again, they’re still sitting in the market and we haven’t had that as much interest as we’re sort of hoping for to begin with, but again, that comes back down to the pricing and sort of I suppose a little bit of greed coming into the market. Obviously, the market’s hot so owners expect the highest price
and sometimes it’s just not not possible, I suppose.
John: Yeah and look what a good way to think of it that way is it: I call it like, oh you say use your word of an apex where you’ve had 50% growth in the market and so the the property is positioned there and then they’re expecting another 50% above the 50% already and so then unfortunately, it’s just through the expectations, they’re trying to beat the market versus meet where it’s at, so sometimes, it’s that element where yeah, sometimes ‘greed’ can be a good word, but might… maybe Dad, you might be…
Chris: I think it’s more like unrealistic expectations. There was one in the 2001 to 2003 boom in in Catherine Street in Berriedale where it stayed on the market for two years. They were so far ahead of the market and price that it was in a boom that was rising all the time, it never sold. They just said a price that was far out of the market that nobody’s ever going to take it on, so…
John: Yeah, gotcha!
Chris: You got to learn from that experience.
John: I know I heard once there’s like: ‘there’s a time, there’s a price, there’s a price, there’s a time’ and sometimes, too, where we would bem providing advice, doing as best as we can, can sometimes be a little bit excited about the potential of the property based on results that we have and it just means then we have to be a little bit more patient because you know when I started, the average days of market was about 60 days and so the idea that you wouldn’t have anyone to the first four open homes was just normal. But now, if it’s not getting under contract within the first seven days, we’re like, “oh my god, what happened?” “is there something wrong?” it’s like, “no, maybe another week’s necessary”. [Aaron agrees]
Chris: Can be a buyer’s experience too, because if you’ve got to buy this have been bumped off on a couple of properties that have missed out, the negotiating strategy is going to change. They’re going to get sick of missing out and they’re going to end up going a bit harder the next time. They’re the great ones to get if you’re the one getting that particular buyer at that time, then we can get some great results.
John: And so when like then… at the end of Glenorchy, mate ,with what was happening after that one. Obviously, that was the most intense property you had over the weekend and that spilled into Monday. Talk us through that.
Aaron M: So sort of the follow-up you’re sort of referring to? [John agrees] So obviously, there’s sort of a little bit of an impatient aspect in the market at the moment because obviously, as you touched on, you want to have the properties under off in seven days or what’s wrong with the property. But yeah, following on from that obviously, we had 25 people came through, so it’s quite a lot of phone calls on the Sunday night and the Monday morning but it was just that constant communication people were after me on Sundays, Monday they just just had that hot interest but it was just sort of get to the point where you sort of get overwhelmed it’s just this amount of buyer inquiry. Everyone has all these different questions–these different bits and pieces about the property, but then sort of just dictating and obviously, the level of interest sort of getting pushed and people are getting frustrated that if my offer is in here but now they’re sort of getting beat in by the next person and just sort of reassuring you we haven’t caught up with the owner just yet but this I’m just trying to help you, guys, and obviously, it’s our job to help you buy the property, we’re just trying to give you the right feedback to be able to do so.
John: And have you found that because the way that Tassie outcome within our code, obviously, you can’t disclose the terms of the other offers yet everyone still wants their second and third opportunities and I know the way that we do it is really ours is very labor intensive because everyone gets those multiple choices–I’m sorry–multiple chances and that what sort of led you to still finishing up at nine o’clock just giving everyone those second and third chances?
Aaron M: Yeah well, I really… as you said, touchdown obviously we do work for the vendor and obviously, in the end of the day you want to give him the best possible price because word to mouth and you just want to do the best job you can [John agrees] and obviously, giving people those multiple touch paces of those clients and such, that’s where you get the extra little dollar from them so building out the relationship but it’s just a lot of hard work to get to that end result in changing interest and touching base of everyone again and again just to make sure everyone’s had a fair opportunity.
John: Yeah, absolutely. And it’s really hard to actually talk about this process without sounding like a bad guy, but the reality is that someone’s employed us to extract the best deal they can from the market rather they do it themselves–
Aaron: –oh yeah, a thousand percent! And that’s kind of yeah, your role in, you know, you can’t make friends with everybody but you’ve still got to be able to say like, “well, I’ve got to look after my vendor, they’re the one who’s employing me” I want to help out. I know that you want to help out all the people that you come across and you kind of keep that in the back of your mind for, “oh, I’ve got actually a good buyer for this one” from all the people that you’ve met, so it’s amazing that you can kind of split those off into different streams of being like, “I’ll still be aware of this person that’s missed out on this last one, but I’m looking out for my vendor– that’s what I’m paid to do.”
John: Yeah, definitely. And I think the best outcome we can sometimes have in these really intense multiple offer negotiations is that at the end of the day, every single one of those buyers can go, “you know what? I had my best opportunity and didn’t pan out.” I think it does– we’re not perfect but it probably frustrates me the most when they’ll say, “well, I didn’t get a call back” or “that wasn’t my best offer” or “I didn’t even get an opportunity” or any one of those minutes, but for us, we just take longer and Aaron’s work this week is testament to that–that every single one of those people could go and say, “you know what, we had our best chance and we’re okay with that.”
Aaron: Yeah, most definitely. I guess finishing up, I was just going to ask, mate, like if, I just said one year ago to you that you’d be running for open homes by yourself while John’s off meditating and training for an Iron-man, [laughter] would you have thought that that was a possibility?
Aaron M: Honestly, I had no idea what I was really getting myself into. Obviously, my idea was to be the best of the best and I had no idea what was going to come of it, but I’m just sort of glad we’re here and what the opportunities have come, so…
John: Well, here’s one thing that, like if you were to meet yourself, let’s, you know, give one piece of advice to your day one self, what that might be?
Aaron M: You’re definitely not going home at five o’clock at night. [laughter]
John: Yeah, that’s fair. That’s fair.
Aaron: I like that. I like that a lot. Well, mate, thank you so much for coming in! Congratulations on being here in the industry. You guys are doing a super job across Team McGregor. It’s amazing to see you, guys, and hear you, guys, in the throes of “I’ve got this covered; you’ve got this covered” we’re all sorted, so yeah, congratulations on your year! Good luck moving forward…
Aaron M: And I really appreciate you for having me on, so…
Aaron: Not a problem, my friend. Anybody else that’s out there that listens to The Property Pod that hasn’t come across it every Friday night at about 6 p.m, as it will be in this studio recording the weekly wrap-up [John: absolutely] yeah, always a highlight!
Yeah, little shout out for him there, so yeah, jump on there! Hopefully, he’ll mention us on the property on his wrap-up this week.
Aaron M: You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.
Aaron: Exactly! That’s the way it works, my friend.
But yeah, thanks, mate! Good luck with all your future endeavours.
Aaron M: Thanks, mate!
Aaron: Awesome! See you!
[extro & disclaimer]
You have been listening to The Property Pod, recorded and edited by 4one4 Media House in conjunction with 4one4 Property Co. This podcast is general information only and the thoughts and views expressed are the opinion of our panel and listeners should always seek to use their
own investigation into any topic we discussed to ensure they fully understand their own situation.
It does not constitute and should not be relied on as purchasing, selling, financial, or investment advice or recommendations, expressed or implied, and it should not be used as an invitation to take up any agent or investment services. No investment decision or activity should be undertaken on the basis of this information without first seeking qualified and professional advice.
