Whose Agent Are They Anyway? Alex Martelli Challenges the NZ Property Game

What Buyer's Agents Actually Do

Daniel: Welcome back to the next episode of the Blueprint Podcast. I'm very stoked to be joined by my co-host Rory, and very lucky to have Alex Martelli here on the podcast as well.

Alex: Thank you very much. I've had such a long day—my throat is just done after so many phone calls with clients.

Daniel: Of course. I'm just going to get you to read your own intro, if that's all right. Sorry, we pre-recorded that. I feel like I'm being framed.

Alex: Oh.

Daniel: Today we're joined by someone who knows the buying game inside and out: Alex Martelli from Martelli Buyer's Agents. Alex has built a reputation for going beyond the brief to secure dream properties, negotiate sharp deals, and advocate fiercely for her clients. Whether they're first-timers or seasoned investors, we'll be diving into what buyer's agents really do, how they can save you money, and some real-world stories from Alex's time in the trenches of the property market.

Alex: I like it. That is good.

Daniel: Thanks, Alex. Well, that was a hell of an introduction and I'm excited to converse now.

Alex: Excellent.

Rory: We've done a little bit of research on you and you're a bit of a globetrotter, you could say, or a woman of the world. You've done real estate in London, Hong Kong, Sydney, and you've come back to your roots—small town Auckland, New Zealand. What inspired you to move from the big smokes back to New Zealand and Auckland?

Alex: Good question. I had been debating what to do towards the end of 2021. I was living in the UK, and we were coming out of Covid by that point. I wanted to spend some time back in New Zealand with family because I'd been away for 11 years, and I sort of got stuck slightly because you couldn't leave the country, right? Once you were out, it was hard to get back in, and I was just down visiting. But I also thought, it is about time I came back to New Zealand. I wanted to spend time with family, as many New Zealanders do, and I thought, for all the years I'd been abroad, I'd always returned to New Zealand every year for holidays and I'd always thought there's a market for a buyer's agency. So I actually decided I am going to move back to New Zealand and set up this buyer's agency.

I did a bit of work for Colliers when I got back, which was really good. It got my feet back under a desk and made me familiar with the lay of the land again, doing some consulting work. But I'd always thought, I'm going to set up the buyer's agency. It was tough leaving those cities—they're fantastic places—but Auckland has also been a wonderful place to return to. If you can balance the lifestyle, it gives you such a good environment to grow and build a business from. Once you get through a bit of regulation and what you need to do, it's actually a really supportive, nurturing place for a business startup. So the environment was also a big factor in my decision to come back.

Daniel: Absolutely. That's brilliant. And I suppose, leaning into that, what you've done starting up on the buyer side—we've always discussed your positioning as so unique to our country, but overseas you'd seen it done quite successfully. So, breaking the mould here and leaning into the buyer side, what were the initial challenges you faced? Because it's not as prolific yet. We were telling our producer Jackie, and she's like, "I didn't even know there were buyer's agents in New Zealand."

Alex: The first challenge was culture. It was overcoming and educating the market. If you are the first person truly educating the market on a service, it's tough. You have to get out and I went out and spoke to the heads of all the big agencies and told them what I wanted to do, and I got all sorts of feedback—"That won't work" or "That will work really well." Some people were familiar with it, as you say, from overseas. They actually knew the concept from having worked and lived overseas, or they had seen TV shows and had a bit of an idea of the glamorous side of it. It's more like Location, Location than Selling Sunset. You are grinding out deals. You have to learn the market and learn the agents to know how to negotiate. It's not just looking at beautiful houses.

So there was the culture—overcoming that psyche of "we don't do it that way" and trying to instead encourage the culture that New Zealand should be and has been famous for, which is, you know, get out there, try something new, entrepreneurship, enterprise. And a lot of people will support you when you're setting up a new business as well.

The second challenge was regulatory, because our laws are set up in the way that the Real Estate Agents Act works, which I have to fall under because we are involved in real estate work. It's very much around the selling process. So there is a fiduciary responsibility to the vendor and a duty of care to the buyer, and I'm of course looking to reverse that. Typically we're dealing with a sales agent who's representing the interests of the vendor. So we have the fiduciary responsibility to the buyer. Being able to speak to the Real Estate Authority and go, "Well, what does that actually look like?"—they said, "Well, you know, currently real estate agents will work as a buyer's agent." I said, "No, they don't. Currently, there are sales agents who act as a buyer's agent, but they're ultimately still rewarded by the sales agent through a fee split." And there are all sorts of requirements back to the vendor's representative when you are doing that. I think a lot of people don't actually understand that.

So we are purely representing, rewarded by, and working in the best interest of our buyer client. Speaking to the Real Estate Authority and being able to say, "Look, how are we going to switch it?"—even things like, under the rules it says, in your agreement, you must state how you're going to market the property. Well, we don't market property. So I can't follow that rule; it doesn't apply. As a result, I ended up having to spend quite a lot of money getting my own legal documents drafted that we could then use and make sure the Real Estate Authority was happy with them, and say, "Okay, well this is how we are going to represent the best interests of buyers."

You're having to create some framework for that. I thought it was more robust than what a lot of agents were doing, because there are a lot of sales agents who I know will charge a buyer a small fee and they've kind of got a one-page form that you fill in. For me, that's not a robust agency agreement. I don't think it actually represents the best interest of the buyers either.

Daniel: Absolutely. So if there is an agent who's doing some buyer work, not formally as a buyer's agent, you're exactly right—they are indirectly representing the vendor.

Alex: Yeah, because that's who's remunerating them, right?

Rory: Yeah. Whereas, working with someone like yourself, you completely remove that conflict of interest, which is super important. People need to understand that, because often they think, "Oh, this agent's working with me, he's on my team." But it's not really like that.

Alex: A hundred percent. And it's interesting here in New Zealand, the agents can actually promote themselves as a buyer's agent. They're not, but I'll even see adverts on Seek where they say, "Successful real estate team is seeking a buyer's agent." It's misleading the way that they're marketing it.

Daniel: Very concerning, that.

Alex: Mm-hmm.

Representing Buyers Across the Spectrum

Rory: Interesting. We're already kind of getting into it and breaking down some of what you do, because when we're thinking about buying property in New Zealand, the status quo, as we've spoken about, is agents are real estate agents or listing agents or selling agents. You're on the complete other side of it. Some people listening will be a bit like, "WTF is a buyer's agent?" So what are some of the key differences? How do your roles differ?

Alex: I think with a sales agent, their role is obviously representing the vendor and representing the property. So a huge amount of their work is marketing. They are telling you, "This is a beautiful home, it's just had a renovation, it's in a great school zone." It's all about marketing the home. We don't do any marketing. Our job is we work with a buyer and we will say, "Okay, what is your brief? Is it attainable? What's important to you? What's really important in this property?" And then we go out and find those properties. We look at everything—pre-market, off-market, on the market. The biggest thing is saying to someone, "We've studied this home, we've looked into it, we believe it to be a good home." We're bringing in all the consultants that we can to give advice on that as well, and then understanding what's the accurate value for the property as well.

Because the sales agent is obviously trying to get the best outcome for their vendor. We are trying to get the best outcome for our buyer, and a lot of that's based on data. Being able to go and look at a property and go, "Well, I know what that one sold for, and I went through that one, and actually that one's got mould downstairs." There's a lot of power in having quite a lot of market knowledge and also being able to say, "Okay, well, I understand what the agent's promoting and telling you, but actually the property's already been listed three times in the last year. So in fact, we know that the vendor's expectations are too high." So trying to get a lot of information to help support your negotiation strategy or your purchasing strategy.

And then seeing that process right through from initial brief, sourcing the home, due diligence on the home, securing the home—are we going to bring the auction forward or actually should we let it run? If it's a tender process, how do we make the terms as appealing as possible without having to expose all of our financial position? Through to bringing in your consultants and then the pre-settlement and the settlement process as well. So it's holding the hand of the buyer through that entire journey.

A lot of people have assumed, "Oh, it must be for the uber-wealthy," or "It must only be first-time buyers." It covers the full spectrum of buyers, which is what always surprises people as well.

Daniel: Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's exactly my next point. When I first became aware of your services, I was assuming that it was reserved for the ultra-wealthy, and the buyer's agent is a nice-to-have, rather than something that should be part of your real estate journey. You've touched on some really good points, which I'd like you to speak to, which is, it's not just for high-net-worth individuals.

Alex: No. It's for your standard first-time buyers, because even things like that point you just made—exposing your full financial position. I've been involved, even myself when I was a first-time buyer, as soon as you get a whiff of competition, you're so quick to let them know exactly what your true budget is, which the vendor agent, listing agent, can take advantage of.

Rory: Oh yeah.

Alex: FOMO is real. FOMO is so intense. Speaking from someone who's been going through property negotiations right now, the minute you can show there's competition, as a buyer, you react emotionally. Someone like yourself—that's such an important piece to have, to actually cool it down.

We've had a few inquiries where people have said, "Look, can you please represent me?" because confidentiality and privacy is very important to a number of our clients. But they said, "We've been looking and looking, and because we were naive at the start, we told all the agents what our maximum budget was, and now we feel like they know that information and they're holding onto it and we don't want it used against us." Which I can understand, because also if you don't feel confident that you really know the value of a property, especially depending on what's happening in the market at that point in time, you can feel like the agent's just going to go, "Well, go to your maximum budget," but the property may not be worth the maximum budget.

Often people come to us, they go, "That's our maximum." Very rarely do we end up going to the maximum. Often you can find something that's below the budget. So people worry that they've exposed themselves too much and given away too much information. I think most buyers are scared they're going to make a mistake. They're scared they're going to make a really expensive mistake, whether it's that they overpay for the property, or they're so busy, they've got other things going on, they miss something in their due diligence.

The majority of our clients are—well, in fact, all of our clients are—people who are, I want to say, time-efficient. They're time-poor, but they're people who say, "Look, my time is better spent doing other things, and finding a home is a full-time job." It's a huge amount of work, hence why we have a business that looks for homes seven days a week. We keep a very small number of clients because we have to.

It's not—I remember when I started the business, people would go, "Oh, it's like a property concierge." I said, "No, it's not a property concierge. We don't go to a client and go, 'Ooh, look at this one or this one.' We've already gone out and looked at them and said, 'Hey, look at that one, we really like that, and get rid of all of these because we've dismissed them for x, y, z reason.'"

In terms of the buyers, last year, 50% of our transactions were first-time buyers.

Daniel: Wow, that's incredible.

Alex: So a huge number of first-time buyers, and they say, "Look, I'm unfamiliar with the process. I don't understand the paperwork. I don't want to get ripped off. The two of us, or one of us, whoever it is, we're working really, really hard." We have such a cross-section of buyers, and when you say first-time buyer, we've had first-time buyers who are in their sixties because they've been overseas, they've come back to New Zealand, and this is the first time they've bought in New Zealand. We've had singles, we've had couples. We've seen a real increase in women buying on their own—really good decision-makers, really sharp, very quick to say, "I take your advice, let's get on with it." They're really, really good.

And then a lot of Kiwis who are based overseas wanting to buy in, so we would term them an investor, but really they're young New Zealanders doing really well up in the US or the UK or Australia, and they say, "Look, I've worked really hard, I've got this deposit, can you please help me find a nice little unit and set me up when I come home?"

Negotiation Tactics and Off-Market Deals

Daniel: Alex, working for buyers, you've probably got a large network of real estate agents, or at least you certainly have to go into plenty of negotiations. Do you ever get in situations where you are almost locking horns or you have to fight hard, and do you have any negotiation tactics or methods that you use to win for your clients?

Alex: Good question. Silence is a wonderful thing. I often find if you just go really quiet, people will tend to talk. You fill the room with silence, people will tell you quite a lot. You do end up locking horns with some agents, but for the most part—and I think what's been lovely over the last couple of years is we've got to know the agents really well and they understand we are bringing them qualified buyers, which tends to make the deal a lot more efficient. And because we're coming generally with market knowledge, and I feel sorry for agents—buyers can waste a huge amount of time for them.

The upside for us is that they know, "Okay, Alex and Karen have got qualified buyers. They've reviewed this property, they've done their research on it. So if they come to us with an offer, chances are they've already researched it, they've got the data, and this is why they believe it's a good offer in good terms." So I find increasingly it's almost like a commercial transaction: you've got a representative for the seller, a representative for the buyer, and you can come to a middle ground on terms a lot faster. And again, a lot of that's just market knowledge and building relationships with the agents, but there have been a few battles, prickly situations.

Rory: And when you say silence, do you mean just not responding sometimes?

Alex: Sometimes, yep. You just leave it, let the emails sit there for a bit. Exactly. And just sitting, listening to what people are really saying. People will tell you a lot in what they're saying, and then you read into it accordingly. There's a few tricks to the trade, certainly on the sales agent side, but a lot of them also just want to get the deal done. If you've got a good buyer, they want to close the deal. They want to do the best thing by their vendor as well.

Daniel: Absolutely. And those extra bits and pieces that you'd pick up from reading into those comments—as a first-time buyer, you'll just never be able to read that because you're thinking about so much.

Just for context, for any listeners who are listening to this in the future, we're in May 2025. In this last quarter, we've had a record amount of stock in Auckland. There's an incredible amount of properties on the market. But with our pre-approved buyers, a lot of them are actually saying to us, "Look, we know there's heaps on, but we're still not finding opportunities that are suitable for what we need." So, want to get your thoughts on that, but also want to talk about off-market opportunities. Is that something that sometimes comes across your desk, like someone in your network says, "Hey, I'm looking to sell, but don't want to go through the process"?

Alex: I'll cover the first one. In terms of the current market, there is a huge amount of stock on the market—record levels. Part of that we've seen is obviously so much new-build stock now coming to market, and that's a mixed bag. We see some good quality new-build homes and we see some really poorly built stuff as well, and that's sitting. It's sitting and sitting and sitting.

Daniel: Are we going to name and shame developers?

Alex: Not on this podcast. To be fair, some of the really reputable developers—there's a reason they've got a good reputation, and they have the warranties in place, the 10-year Master Build.

Daniel: Precisely.

Alex: What I find scary with the new builds is how many people just assume there's a 10-year warranty in place. A lot of them don't. You need to do your due diligence on these new builds. What's happening with the drainage? How many new—if you think about some of those sites that have been taken and say you had a thousand square metres and now there's six little townhouses on it. All that pressure on the infrastructure—not only have you covered a lot of the land with concrete and put little patches of grass and they always put griselinia, you know, those little bushes at the end of it—they're all the same. But there's a lot of pressure now on the services under that site. I've been to properties where I look at it and they've just finished it and after a heavy downpour you go, the water is just sitting. What's actually going to happen there?

Daniel: And that's a risk for the neighbours as well, isn't it?

Alex: Spot on. It's a real risk. And it's not to put people off new builds—we've bought new builds—but funnily enough, I find that they can take just as much, if not more, due diligence than buying an existing property.

Daniel: Absolutely.

Alex: So you've got a lot of new-build stock. A lot of people—it's the Kiwi thing—they all go, "We're going to sell in the summer." Everyone wants to do the work on the house over Christmas, summer, and then they want to launch in February and March. But you've just seen this huge push into selling. I think one of the other things, the Healthy Homes regulations coming through July 1st—a lot of people are going, "Hmm, I'd actually rather shift it." And the other one is a lot of people are still moving—a lot of people leaving Auckland, whether it's to move across the country or move out of the country as well. I deal with a lot of agents who are going, "Oh, the vendor's moving down south, or the vendor's moving down."

Daniel: Yeah, precisely.

Alex: So it seems to be a combination of factors. To your point where the buyers say, "We still can't find anything," you have to do a lot of filtering. Having that many options—if you think about how much due diligence we have to do on every property, there's so much filtering to go through all of that stock to find a real gem. So yes, it's a good time to buy if you can find the property.

Daniel: Absolutely.

Alex: On your second point about off-markets—they're an interesting proposition.

Daniel: I'm intrigued.

Alex: I said to Dan, "How do you find properties off-market? It sounds like almost mafia, sort of black market type."

Daniel: Yeah.

Alex: An interesting stat: in November, 80% of the properties we bought were off-market. Now, that was an unusual month—it's not usually that high. And, well, this is the beautiful thing of statistics. To clarify, four of the five homes we bought in November were off-market, so it's 80%. And they were all unique in that one, the wife was ill—they just weren't ready to have open homes, that wasn't what they wanted. Another one was a divorce, another one was a divorce, another one was a very high-end property—they just didn't want people coming through their home.

Daniel: They were for a nosy.

Alex: Yeah, they just said, "Look, we're very happy to do a quiet deal." Interestingly, in that case, my buyers had sold their home off-market, we purchased this home off-market, and the vendors of that property purchased another home off-market. So you had three off-market transactions.

Daniel: So how do you find these deals?

Alex: Speaking to a lot of real estate agents—lots and lots and lots of agents. We are contacted from time to time by vendors who say, "Would you buy my home direct?" It's something we try to discourage. We prefer that vendors do go through a sales agent, because while I'm saying buyers, you should have a buyer's agent in your best interests, I'd like the vendors to have someone representing their best interest as well. There are a lot of really good agents out there, so we'll just say, "Go and find your own agent, we can give you a few recommendations. We're not getting involved. We don't take any referral fees, we're not going to do any of that, but have your own representation and we can have ours." But on occasion a vendor will go, "Nope, I've gone out, I understand the value." We've always got a private valuation in those cases as well—really important that everyone knows the value of the property.

Off-market deals—once upon a time it was, "Yes, you can buy my home, but you have to pay me triple what I think it's worth." What we tend to see from the off-markets now is the privacy, confidentiality, change of personal circumstances, and then also people who just go, "Okay, I've watched the market, I can see what's happening, I've got a pretty good feel for what it's worth, I don't need to test it because yes, I could go to the market and I could test it and I might end up $10,000 off and I'm better off, I might be $10,000 down for the sake of doing this deal now. I'd rather just sell quietly."

Daniel: And all those examples you had are personal circumstances, right?

Alex: Yeah, and in every market, up or down, or whatever time of year, things change, right?

Daniel: Precisely.

Alex: People need to take action, so it's good that you're there for that.

Auctions, Market Outlook and Advice

Rory: For sure. I've got a question—perhaps it's a little bit more general—but you certainly sound like you really know your stuff, which is great. And I love your entrepreneurial spirit, coming back to New Zealand, seeing this market work overseas, making it now work in New Zealand. Do you see the space evolving and growing? Is it becoming accepted and could this be quite normal as we move forward?

Alex: I think it will. I think it will grow. What it will be is that a group of people like myself will come together and say, "We want to represent buyers. We really enjoy that side of the transaction." I saw it grow in Australia. It's a truly well-established model up in the UK and over in the US. I think more people will enter the market and want to set up a buyer's agency. There are a few hurdles to overcome at the start, as we've all been through. It's quite a different process and way of thinking to being a sales agent. Just seeing my colleague Karen, who had been in sales, and I pursued her because I knew she'd be perfect for the role. I remember a few months into it, she goes, "Gosh, it's so different to selling real estate." I said, "I know. It's a very different way of looking at it." It involves a lot of empathy, understanding the buyer, and again, it's that due diligence piece and studying properties and finding opportunities, but it's not marketing—it's completely different to that.

So yes, I think more people will enter the market and I think it will become the norm, and I embrace it—the more people who enter into it, so long as they keep really high standards. That's probably the thing that worries me a bit. But so long as people keep high standards and they're giving a really good level of service, then it's something that more people will get familiar with and say, "I want a buyer's agent representing my best interest and being in my corner."

Daniel: It'll be interesting now—I wonder if it'll be initially more people doing what you've done, people that have seen it, been exposed to it overseas, as opposed to it coming organically?

Alex: Naturally, I think what needed to happen—because there have been a few people who had tried to set up buyers' agencies previously, but again, it was more the Selling Sunset approach. I think it was just, you get some experience overseas, you learn the processes, you overcome the hurdles here in New Zealand, and then you can get started and get moving. There's a couple of buyer agents down in Queenstown, Arrowtown. I was recently contacted by a group in the Hawke's Bay, who have set up a buyer's agency. So you're starting to see more of these little individual agencies pick up and go, "You know what? We're going to really get to know the market." I look at something like the Hawke's Bay and credit to the ladies who are setting up there—that's a perfect market to have a buyer's agency, because if I was looking to buy in the Hawke's Bay, I'd go, "Well, we know about the flooding and we know there's been a couple of issues, but we also know it's a tourism hotspot and there's beautiful wine down there." It would be great to have someone on the ground who goes, "Yep, we've studied this property and this is a good one, and we're going to help you secure it," because I don't know that landscape at all. I don't know the values down there. So, yeah, absolutely. Good on you girls.

Daniel: And I think just seeing an industry grow is so important. Like you mentioned, just the high standards staying there, which I'm sure they will. Like in the advisor industry—one of my favourite pastimes is this Facebook group, Kiwi First Home Buyers.

Alex: Oh God, I follow that.

Daniel: You've probably been in there. Amazing place to hang out.

Alex: There's some scary stuff in there.

Daniel: There's some scary stuff. But it's a very pro-mortgage advisor group, which I'm very, very happy to see because you don't see fellow mortgage advisors as competition in that sense, because there's 40,000 people in the audience who are now seeing the true benefits of having an advisor—not even that specific person, but just one in general to guide you through the process. So the same way you're a property advisor, guiding people through the process.

Rory: I'm going to steal Rory's question. It's about something maybe a bit controversial—auctions.

Alex: Oh yeah, the A word.

Daniel: I was hoping for something more controversial.

Alex: No, yeah. This is controversial for us.

Rory: It's a very vanilla show, but this is something I love talking about because I love the auction environment—but not if I'm a registered bidder.

Alex: Oh yeah.

Rory: Sometimes that's heart palpitations stuff, isn't it?

Alex: Heart palpitations. I know sometimes I've seen clients get very good deals at auctions, but I suppose it's a case-by-case thing and how you navigate this if a property is being sold by auction and your client is interested. How do you navigate that?

Alex: You've got to know the value of the property. Going in and saying, "That's what the property's worth." We always say to our buyers—and this applies not just to our clients—we are increasingly getting people just ring us, saying, "Look, I found a home, I've done all my due diligence, but I'm terrified of bidding. Can you just go and bid for me?" We sit down with them and go, "Okay, you've got three figures. What's your idea of the dream price? That would be lovely. What's the maximum price?" And they give you a number and you go, "Yeah, okay, okay. And what's the figure, if it sold for a dollar more, you'd let it go?" And that's always different to what their maximum budget was going to be, because when people are really pushed, they go, "Actually, that's what's important to me."

For our clients who we've been working with, we say, "Look, we've been out and studied the property. This is the range in which we think you should buy it, because if it gets up at this point, we'll walk away. We'll go out and buy something else." Because auctions are all about emotion. People go in—I'm amazed by how many people go into an auction with no strategy. They go in, or they just go way past their budget. I was in an auction recently—it was really sad. There was a couple sitting behind me and she was crying as they reached a point, and the husband was looking and you could tell that he obviously felt awful, so he kept bidding because he realised that she desperately wanted the house, but she kept crying. I suspect because she was thinking, "We haven't got the money to buy this house." And I'm watching, I thought, "Oh, it's just a nightmare. It's just awful." And the terrible thing was—

Daniel: It's so in the moment as well.

Alex: It is, and the regret—the buyers, the pain. It's so painful. That's why I said, I'm giving advice to the screen here: if you're going in to bid, have a strategy and say, "That's the dollar where we cap out and we are comfortable to do that." Don't go home and have regrets. Don't go into the auction going, "Oh, we'll just see how things go and we want to bid to about this point." It's a risky thing to do. The hard thing with an auction—there's one winner. Everyone else loses. There's no second place in an auction. So you need to be prepared for that and say, "We have decided, we've agreed, we're going to bid to that point." All the auctioneers are going to be like, "Shut up, Alex. Stop saying that." But that is the truth. Go in and have what your budget is going to be, because you don't know what's going to happen in the room.

The other bit of advice I've got for people is if you miss out on a property—if you miss the auction, don't beat yourself up going, "Oh, we missed it by $5,000." You didn't miss it by $5,000. You missed it by $5,000 below what the other buyer was willing to go to at that point. For all you know, they would have kept climbing and climbing.

Daniel: Exactly.

Alex: So you haven't necessarily missed the home by what you think you have. You've just decided, "I'm out, I'm calling it."

Rory: Totally. I've heard you say elsewhere, Alex, a strategy of yours is pulling the auction early. What did you mean by that? Can you explain that?

Alex: If you find a good home and you've got a pretty good view as to what it's worth, you're really comfortable with it, you can put a pre-auction offer forward. Now, the interesting thing—and it's such a balance—because a pre-auction offer, you have to know why are people thinking it's going to sell at X price? What's being promoted and why do they think it's going to sell at a certain value? What value do you actually think it's going to sell for? If you can do your due diligence—you get your building inspector in, get the legal review, get any other consultants in—if you can move at a good pace and you feel that you've really ticked everything off, you put forward a pre-offer. It's a fine line, because it has to be an offer that makes the vendor go, "Yep, I'm going to take this offer, I'm accepting it, and if someone else turns up in the room, that's fantastic."

Typically I do it where you see—if you go into a property and there's 120 sets of shoes out front, well, people are thinking it's going to sit in a certain price point and you already know that's not accurate. It's likely to sell above that price point.

Daniel: That's right.

Alex: You don't see too many of them at the moment because it is such a saturated market and buyers are all over the place and there's a lot of buyer nervousness. We're talking to a lot of people who go, "I don't want to spend all my budget because I'm worried about job security this year. I'm worried about the economy." When I lived in Sydney years ago, it was such a hot market. Everything you did was a pre-auction offer, because you were just trying to jump in the ladder before it took off even further and everything was selling under the hammer. In Sydney, this was back in 2012, 13, 14—the market was just going crazy.

Daniel: Another hot market, eh?

Alex: Really hot market. But yeah, if you've done your due diligence and you think, "Well, I want to get ahead of the competition, I want to get ahead of everyone else doing their DD," then you can bring the auction forward. It very much depends on what's happening with the property and how confident you are in that price point.

To give you a very quick example: property I was looking at recently, people had assumed it was going to sell in the $900,000s. There's a couple of reasons as to why they thought it was going to sell in the $900,000s. I had appraised it at $1.25M to $1.35M because I just know that market, I know how those sort of homes go. They had a lot of registered bidders on the day and all those people had gone out and done all their due diligence. They sold for $1.3M.

Daniel: Oh, wow.

Alex: Interestingly, the opening bid was in the late $900,000s, immediately knocked five bidders out.

Daniel: Wow.

Alex: And that just shows how many people didn't actually understand the value of the home.

Rory: But do you think that perhaps they were misled by the listing agent? Not to—

Alex: I dare not say. I think they obtained information that they want to hear.

Daniel: That's spot on.

Alex: They hear what they want to hear. I think also people assume that everything's a bargain at the moment. It's not—good homes will sell for a very fair price at the moment.

Daniel: That's very true.

Alex: They're not all made equally.

Rory: Good homes are still getting a good price.

Alex: It's true.

Daniel: And just before we move on, one point I really want to reiterate around buyer's nervousness. I've noticed from my side that people are just so terrified of overpaying, like we were discussing before, because of the changes that have happened in this market. Looking back three years ago, everybody knows someone who's in an awkward position because they bought at the peak of a market and now they're struggling to refinance or move on. So I think that, almost because that's so recent, adds to that nervousness and uncertainty of those environments and auctions.

Alex: You're spot on. And to add one to that is our reliance on CVs. I get so many people, they contact me, they go, "Oh, we want to buy something, but we want it to be 20% below CV." I said, "That's not how it works." There are still plenty of properties selling above CV and selling way below CV. But people are trying to gauge the value off that as well as, as you say, the fear of overpaying and seeing what's happened and now having too much stock. So a lot of people are feeling very stuck.

Rory: That's right. I suppose we've just been talking about the market, so as a sort of final wrap-up before we get into some more fun questions—although this is very fun, actually—where do you see the market going over the next 12 months and perhaps a bit beyond?

Alex: I know there's a lot of people saying, "Oh, interest rates will be cut and then the market will take off." I still think the factors of the uncertainty for people and there is a bit of movement still in and out of the country. I think personally the values will probably stay relatively flat, just while there's still so much supply of property. I think vendors will adjust in their values and their views of what their home is worth, which will be hard for some, but also palatable for others. As I say, good homes are still selling for a good price anyway. So I don't see the market suddenly racing off the way it has previously, and I think, again, people will just hold out, do their research, look for good homes, and it'll get there. But I don't see any great massive jumps up and down and sideways—a bit of a plateau for a period of time.

Daniel: That's not a bad thing.

Alex: Which is nice.

Rory: I think as a person in the industry, it's nice to operate in a pretty stable environment.

Alex: It's very nice for us.

Daniel: Good way to put it. Because, obviously, comparing to a hot market where your pre-approved buyers are under so much stress and there's always time pressure, urgency to get ready for an auction, it's nice for them to have a bit of choice and get properties under contract, do their due diligence, and feel a lot more positive and less stressed about the whole buying process.

Alex: Yeah.

Rory: But no, very well said. We are going to dip into our favourite part of the podcast. We just want the listeners to know a bit more about you, Alex. So this is actually not property—maybe a couple of property questions, but Rory, take it away.

Rory: Okay, question number one. After a hard day, you've been butting heads with real estate agents and just grinding out your due diligence, you come home and there's a lovely home-cooked meal. What cuisine is it?

Alex: If it's been cooked by my partner, it's a steak. If it was me—half the nights you get in so late it's scrambled egg on toast. Otherwise, I am a huge fan of Chef Ottolenghi. He's an Israeli chef based in London, and he does amazing things with vegetables, with fruit, with all sorts. He does beautiful, beautiful food. So, a bit of Mediterranean, I think.

Daniel: Oh, very nice. I'm going to check that out. Now we're going to put a record on. What sort of genre are we listening to while we enjoy this Mediterranean?

Alex: I listen to all sorts. In fact, at pub quiz, my designated category is music and cinema. I would say there's probably a bit of blues. I'm a big fan of blues and probably a bit of a sucker for eighties music as well.

Daniel: Nice. We ask all our guests this question, but I already know what you're going to say. For context, we get a lot of business people, a lot of people in real estate, who come as guests. So, property flipping or long-term property holding? What's your preference?

Alex: Long-term property holding. All about long-term. Buy land—they're not making more of it, as they say. I just think property flipping is—I mean, I know plenty of people do it, but I've always thought you're better to hold, buy something good and hold it.

Daniel: We a hundred percent agree. Protect your money from inflation. Now let's go back to you starting Martelli & Co. What piece of advice would you give yourself knowing what you know now?

Alex: Damn good question. I would say be patient, be a bit kind on yourself. You don't have to do everything perfectly at the start. You're trying to do so many things, you're trying to be all the things all at once. For example, it's been two years on and we don't do anything on Instagram and Facebook, because most of our social media, per se, we've done via LinkedIn, because that is typically our audience. At the start, I would have said, "Oh, we need to be on all the platforms, we need to promote this and that." There just isn't the time. You don't have the ability to be all things to all people and cover all the platforms. So probably the best thing I did at the start is say, "What are our core competencies?" and we're going to focus on those and drill in on those and just skip out everything else. So, at the start, I'd be like, just be kind on yourself—all good things in time.

Daniel: Absolutely. That's great. Well said. Stepping into our shoes for the next OCR review, do you think we're going to get a cut? Do you think we're going to get an increase? Do you think it's going to stay the same?

Alex: I think there'll be a cut.

Daniel: You think there'll be a cut?

Alex: I reckon, yeah. I think they'll want to stimulate, and you know, that's their call, but I think there'll be a cut.

Daniel: I agree. I think everything outside of our industry as well is still hurting and we're not seeing the growth we need.

Alex: I agree.

Rory: Well, Alex, thank you so much for joining Rory and I.

Alex: A pleasure. Thank you very much for having me.

Rory: We really value what you do for the buyers in New Zealand, so thank you very much.

Alex: Appreciate it, appreciate what you guys do for the buyers as well. The partnership we have with financial advisors is absolutely critical and it's a journey together.

Daniel: Brilliant. Thanks, Alex.

Alex: It's been a pleasure.