How to Break Your Limits in NZ Real Estate with Lawrence Kenyon-Slade

Launching Limitless Real Estate

Daniel: So let's jump in. Lawrence, super excited to have you here, mate. Obviously, you're starting a new venture, moving away from the old and pivoting to the new spot. Tell us a little about Limitless Real Estate and when you're planning to launch.

Lawrence: Thanks so much, Madhav. I really appreciate it. So yeah, we started Limitless Real Estate, and in two weeks we're going to be launching. This is basically a real estate agency that I've wanted to set up for the past four or five years, but I decided I needed to become a good salesperson first. So I said, I'm going to sell a hundred homes as quickly as possible and then set up my agency. Three years ago, I sold my first home, and I've sold 175 in three years. Now I've decided I'm ready to launch the brand and build my own real estate agency.

Daniel: That is super exciting. Look, we're big fans of young people doing big things when it comes to property, finance, any business essentially. I've seen your content, I know you work hard, but what do you think will be the secret sauce to take Limitless Real Estate to the next level compared to your past performance?

Lawrence: Yeah, so Limitless Real Estate is going to be about duplicating my systems. I've written about $1.9 million in the past 12 months, and I'm looking at how I can duplicate my administration, my systems, my marketing onto other agents so they can earn more money in the future. We want to give agents the opportunity to earn more potential income with the splits, and we give them full admin support. In terms of the backend systems, most real estate salespeople don't want to do administration.

Lawrence: A main pivotal thing we're doing is agent personal branding. What we see is people remember personal brands 67% more than just text. If you drive around and see real estate agent signboards, all their faces are really small. But if you look at one agent, they've got big signboards with their face and big photos on all the open home signs, and people remember those faces. It's all about that personal brand, because people don't stare very long at the signboards, but when they drive quickly past and see a big face, that's it—an impression in their brain. The more impressions they get, the more market share in their brain, and the more likely they are to call that agent.

Daniel: Wow, that's awesome. All about that personal brand.

Lawrence: We want to build backend systems with the administration and also give them hands-on mentorship with my system. So I'm just trying to see how I can duplicate someone's GCI—from, if they're doing $500k, how do I turn that to a million? If they're doing $200k, how do we push that to a million? How do we go to $1.5 million and manage that team structure? I think to succeed in real estate, just copy and duplicate someone else's success and pair up with them as quickly as possible.

Rory: That's super interesting, like the fact that you sell real estate in 20 to 40 days in one of, if not the most competitive real estate markets in New Zealand, which is the South Auckland market. We know in South Auckland it is competition galore when it comes to getting the best for your vendors, working with buyers as well. It's a fine balance, a fine dance. You're going to carry on that legacy, obviously moving forward into Limitless. How do you see attracting the right talent, who you'd give this sort of opportunity to work with you, with your processes they can replicate and become a great salesperson? Because obviously, you've got a hard job on your hands. There might be a hundred or maybe 200 people that you'd interview. So what would be the way that someone would stand out?

Lawrence: Yeah, for us right now, we are focused on agents that have a track record, that are starting at least eight properties per year, and that enables them to plug into our admin system and plug into the system without needing to be trained up and everything. So we want agents with existing skills, and right now I'm basically a recruiter and a trainer, providing value to agents. My job is how do I provide the most amount of value to agents to increase their income, decrease the amount of time they need to put into the business, and increase the leverage so that they can either increase their business or maybe take a step back if they want to have a bit more time on the side and let the team run the show. So essentially, I'm trying to see where I can create the most value for these agents. We're going to be working with agents that have got businesses already up and running so we can just tweak it and hopefully double or triple their business in the near future.

Rory: Alright, so if that's the goal, you obviously seem like a person that's really driven to have processes and systems in place. You follow the system, that process that's built, along with being coachable, and you'll most likely succeed. Obviously, you're taking someone that has a basic level of foundational talent and you're upskilling with the system or the processes that Limitless would have for them. So, I guess one thing that I want to ask you across all the firms and across all the agents, what would be the standard of Limitless Real Estate moving forward? What would it be that you would want to see in every agent in your firm?

Lawrence: The main standard that I want to see in agents is self-development, because that's one of the fundamentals that's increased my business so much. All my sales—selling 175, writing over $4 million commission in three years—it all came from self-development and practice and training myself to do better and better every day. I see a lot of agents try and freestyle. They walk in, think they can do a listing presentation, think they can cold call, but they never practice their skills. I've tried to focus at least 30 to 60 minutes every day, practising, watching videos, rehearsing, recording myself. I used to have social anxiety, I was afraid to record myself, afraid to do public speaking. I did two years of Toastmasters public speaking in front of a group of 20 people. It was terrifying, and I went again and again, and now I've done speeches in front of 500 people, like a 20-minute speech, and I feel this boost of energy and enthusiasm. But I've done the reps—I've done 200 reps, and now I've watched myself on video, rehearsed, practised, and then learned again and again. So the system that I want to push onto other agents is how do they implement self-development into their business every day. How do they get better at calling? Better at prospecting? Because this is not rocket science. We are selling property, but if you want to sell a hundred homes in a year, if you want to sell 15 a year, it's a different skill, a different game. You need to get better than other people. That's all we're trying to do—we're trying to beat them, so let's get better with the skills rather than just brute force.

Drive, Purpose, and Self-Development

Rory: That is awesome, man. I guess the key question that perhaps you've thought about already, but we'll put it into the limelight. So what keeps you aggressively motivated in such a highly competitive sales environment, being South Auckland's real estate market? What is the secret core? You've said that you've mastered the skillset of where perhaps there was a weakness and you've put in the reps—we agree with you. The reps need to be put in—maybe a thousand for some people, 200 for others, until they sort of see the light. So where's your drive coming from to keep going aggressively?

Lawrence: With myself, I've always been quite a competitive person, so I've always tried to win at competitions, win at sports. I actually went down quite a bad pathway when I was 18 to 20. I went to a lot of festivals, substances, went down a really bad pathway, and it was really good because I went down such a dark pathway that my life needed to flip. By flipping, you start to realise you need to get your life in order. That's when I started on the self-development journey of trying to get over social anxiety, speak, do public speaking, and just get over all of those nerves. Once I found I had the problem of this nervousness and not getting out there, then I needed to try and fix it. So I've always gone on the self-development journey to get better, and also, the reason that I wanted to do this is because of experience.

Lawrence: We can either live a life of just average goals and average things. Then I read Grant Cardone's book, The 10X Rule, and he's just like, 10X your goals. I was originally thinking I want to earn a hundred thousand dollars per year, as you do, and then he says, 10X. I'm like, all right, I want to do a million. Then I read the book again. He says, 10X. I'm like, I'm going to do 10 million. If I look at money, I only spend maybe 13% of my income on myself right now, the rest goes back into the business.

Lawrence: I wrote $1.9 million, 13% saved, and basically I'm just looking at how do I squeeze the most amount of experience and fun out of life? When you get a lot of money and assets, then you can do a lot of good and create value. If you want to create a massive organisation and create a movement, you need funds, capital, influence to do that.

Lawrence: So I think in the long term, once—let's say you achieve a billion dollars—money's quite worthless. It becomes worthless, where time becomes extremely expensive.

Daniel: A hundred percent. And what do those people do to get value? Well, they start to create this company and organisation that's created a movement. You look at Mark Zuckerberg—he could have stopped working 10 or 20 years ago, but he's like, what else would I do? I want to just keep building this company.

Rory: Well, purpose is a big thing, right? And I can tell that you've got purpose. There are people that speak, that are clients, that are very purpose-driven, whether it's in business or even in their career, or just, you know, they're doing things where the time is ticking, but they're not ticking their patience. So what I think from that, based on what you've said, is that it's become so natural to you. And look, you might get to a point where you've mastered real estate to the point you've fine-tuned, replicated it, trained a hundred agents, 200 agents that are making great GCI, and then you might find some other bigger problem that you want to solve. Because like you said, you've got the capital and funds to perhaps think for bigger purposes that are not yet crossed your mind, I guess.

Lawrence: Yeah, and also coming back to the name of my company, Limitless Real Estate. I like the name. We are held by limits in our own brain. If you want to achieve something in life, if you decide that you want to do it and focus, have intense desire—a burning desire, and that's from the Think and Grow Rich book—have a burning desire and take action and surround yourself with people that have achieved similar goals. You're going to eventually achieve that, you just have to believe it a hundred percent. So I try and look at sports people, people that have achieved great things. Let's just pick a crazy big goal and let's go for it. And if you fail, you're going to fall over and you get back up and try again. And you just keep going. And if you can't get up and you die, then you're dead anyway, because everyone's going to die. So just keep going.

Daniel: Well, you're dying every minute, right?

Lawrence: That's it. Everyone's expiring, everyone's going to die, so may as well just go hard. Let's just do things. Be safe, try to live as long as you can, but let's maximise that experience. Let's squeeze the lemon and have a really good time.

Navigating the South Auckland Market

Daniel: Lawrence, you know first home buyers are active in the market. Property investors were a thing, and they were doing things until sort of 2023 kicked in, and the handbrake was pulled and interest rates went back up. Now you must deal with a ton of people that are either selling their existing property and upgrading to a new place because they would have bought pre-2020, there's capital gains there, haven't been cashed in, now they want a nicer place to live. So if you look back at the last 12 months in this dynamic market, you know, it's hard for agents as well, for anyone that's working in this market. Where do you see most of the transactions? Is it first home buyers? Is it do-uppers? What's sort of going through?

Lawrence: In terms of just the real estate stats, there's probably around 20 to 25% that could be first home buyers. There are investors, there are developers, second home buyers. The type of buyer fluctuates. As the interest rates drop a bit more, there are more first home buyers that come into the market, which is good. One point to raise is that if we look at all real estate agents, yes, the market has been lower than it was. I sold my first home when the market dropped a hundred K, so it dropped a hundred K, and it's the only market I've ever known. So my reference point is only this market, and I've achieved our goals within this market.

Lawrence: A lot of people say, oh, it's a bad market, real estate agents are struggling. Look, if you're a good agent, you don't struggle in any market. You create the market, you reinvest in marketing, you boost things up. I mean, the first year I spent most of my money back in the business on marketing and training, building admin support. So, personal brand. I'd say looking at the market side, I think this is, right now, a very normal market. The amount of buyers coming through properties is normal. Auction rates are normal. Prices are flatlining, they've just been flat for two years. So I'd say it's quite a normal market. It's not dropping, and it's still up about 10%, 15% more than 2019. I'd say the confidence in the market is that people are looking to make that upsize because they see that they may as well do it now before the price goes up. And then the first home buyers, let's actually buy a property before the pricing does go up, because if it does go up about 20% next year, then you're priced out of the market. So it's actually a really good time to buy right now.

Rory: So, flipping the script now on vendors, right? Sellers, what are the seller expectations that you have to work with and perhaps knock down or realign the expectation from the ground up? Considering they have the mindset perhaps of a 2021 market, and obviously we're in 2025, what's the most common stuff that you reset for vendors wanting crazy prices?

Lawrence: Yeah, so with our reset time with vendors, we find that the best resetting conversation is happening at the appraisal. I've done about 600 appraisals in the past 12 months, and a lot of those are in person, and a lot of those are giving them honest conversation to say, this is the market, this is where it's going to stay. It could stay like this for another year or two. I'm not sure—my prediction expires tonight. Given that, and letting them know that, and letting them make the decision. If they want to take the risk in terms of where the range is, the range for them, great, let's move forward. But I always try to focus on the motivation. So I'm focusing on what is your motivation to make a move? Is it upsize, is it Australia, is it downsizing, has someone passed away that we need to help? Because if that motivation is very low in this market, it's an absolute waste of time to work with those people with low motivation, because the market's not increasing to anything. So if they say, "Well, if I get the right price," I just say, look, fantastic, let's keep in touch. I'll give you a call. This is the price today. If you're not interested, let's keep in touch until you're ready. And as an agent, you need to know when to walk away. So I've actually said no to probably 500 people in the past 12 months in person, but said yes to a hundred. So we're actually choosing who we want to work with rather than just, oh, we'll take anything and we get the listing. So resetting the expectation before we even get the listing signed. Once it's signed and we're working with the vendors, we want to get that maximum price for that vendor, want to squeeze every dollar out of the market and then let them make the decision. Because if it's the right, if it's the market, it's the market. If that's too little that they can't make the move, then at least we've tried, but hopefully we can get over the expectation and that's all. What we're here to do is deliver that market as quickly as possible, hopefully over what they expect, and get it all wrapped up so they can make that next move. It's about focusing on what's the next move, how we can solve that problem.

Rory: That's really good. That's the thing that we deal with all the time. If someone says, are property prices going up, you know, we can talk about interest rates to an extent. We can talk about rates dropping. We can talk about OCR, we can talk about stats that come out three months from GDP, unemployment, inflation. Now those change, we didn't know that, obviously GDP will drop by 0.9%, which is a massive drop. And the economy is doing wheelies in a muddy field at this point. And resetting any expectations when it comes to, "when are we ever going to have more equity in my property to be able to buy more investment?" It's a question that should be analysed periodically and the decision is perhaps on them rather than the market itself. So look, if the house is too small and you need a bigger house, your kid is seven years old and now going to a better school zone, your motivation's way higher than someone perhaps considering downsizing but is yet to think when the time might be. And I think with what you've said, it's quite early that you realise where someone's motivation is. Those that are driven will get what they want, if they're realistic with what is available, versus those that are not as driven will probably kick the can down the road a little while before they're driven enough to give you a call.

Lawrence: I mean, the question I ask all the time, I ask myself before we list the property is: Do they have to get sold? Can we help them? Because if they don't really have to, then I'm just going to say, this is where things are at. We need to make a decision. If you want to go on the market, this is where the market is, and if you want to go for it, if not, that's fine. We've got 10 more appraisals through the rest of the week and we've got lots of people to help.

Rory: Yeah, a hundred percent. Look, if interest rates drop by 1%—so say from right now, 4.49% as of the video that we're making, might be, the interest rates are way lower, but as of October, I think dropped a bit. OCR today, yeah. So the floating rates dropped, the banks factored in the drop, fixed rates probably a week. I mean, they're the banks that hold transaction data compared to perhaps the governor sitting on a seat measuring what needs to happen in the next two to three years. Despite that, let's say interest dropped to about 1%, right? The cost of a mortgage, $600k, first home buyer, and an average debt that they'll take is costing them $631, right? Let's say, and right now the rent is about $650, those are going to start having light bulb moments and need perhaps now go to your open homes on the weekend and see what's on stock.

Daniel: Translating that into the current market is interesting because there's such an oversupply of new builds, right? And there's a lot available on Trade Me to rent, prices are also dropping. So if you see interest rates drop by 1%, do you think the oversupply would recover and property prices would then go from flatlining to perhaps increasing? What do you reckon?

Lawrence: I think it depends how much interest rates drop. I did a four-year honours degree in property, worked out modelling to see what's the effect on different factors in the marketplace. What is the interest rate? How much is inflation? We looked at the immigration inside and out, we worked out, we created our own house price forecast models. And no model is a hundred percent accurate. Everything, all have different flaws. And what we saw is that each factor would only play a 20% factor into the model. So if you look at just interest rates, it's very tough to determine where things are going. But if you get interest rates, go to like 0.25% and the OCR is 0.25, that's like extreme in terms of free money. So it's all about how big that decrease is.

Lawrence: And then always, right now I'm looking at just demand and supply. There's so many people that are moving out of the country and not too many coming in. A lot of buildings, high supply in terms of new builds. So I'd say it's still tough to say in terms of that demand and supply. People look at OCR and all that, but I'd look at all the different rates and I'd just look at the past two years—it's been flat. I also look at 2000, I look at 2008. Those are when we had the more downturns in the market. And then in 2000, the market flatlined for like four years before it started to increase. And in 2008, it flatlined for another around about four years. So 2016, we flatlined for about three years before we had COVID up to 2019. So what I tell my vendors is, look, now with the market, on average, it flattens out for three to four years on average. So we've been flat for two years. If we just look at the history, there's a chance it might be a bit of a quieter market for the next one or two years, and that's totally fine, there's nothing wrong with a flat market. I guess in New Zealand we need to get away from this great pill that we've swallowed in recent years of property prices increasing at a dramatic rate, because that's not normal, right? Having a $50k capital growth month on month and months down the line, the property's gone up. That's very abnormal. It's probably not a good thing for everyone. There's a lot of property speculators. I'm sure you hear news, this and that. It's always good to, like you said, bring it back down to facts, the real truth, right? If people are leaving the country and are going to Australia and unemployment is record high, you're not going to have an uprising market. If interest rates drop by one or 2%, immigration plays a huge role. And with, I guess, we need a lot of skilled migrants and the national sort of rolling that policy in, in terms of getting the right people to come in. You know, you want your structural engineers, or if there's a data centre that Amazon's starting in West Auckland, you want to have all the engineers coming to New Zealand, make it lucrative for them and that sort of thing. We're quite an interesting economy. I think we're not very similar to most other countries. Real estate is a massive part of our operation as a country.

Daniel: With the elections being there next year in October and Labour coming in, do you think that would have some more of a difference to what the market would look like or do you reckon government one side, real estate is the other?

Lawrence: Oh, I'll have to get my crystal ball, mate.

Rory: Well, crystal balling is really hard here.

Daniel: The crystal ball. People love crystal balling.

Lawrence: So an interesting thing that I tell the real estate agents that I work with is a lot of them do get quite focused on the market, the interest rates, immigration and all this. I just break it down to think, you want to look at your real estate business as a business. How many appointments are you doing every week with a potential vendor that you can help? That's all I boil it down to. You could actually delete all that information, just for more real estate agents, you don't need to remember that at all. Just, how many appointments are you doing, let's see the clients and help them. And then I'd say that the market information's really, it's valuable to talk overall when you talk to the client. You talk about the general trends, sure. Talk about the future that we generally predict, but then also the past on why maybe it is a good time to buy based on the current rates and everything like that.

Auctions, Offers, and Investment Strategy

Rory: You've got a listing, someone that's super keen, they meet the vendor's expectations, you've sort of dragged it out, got a great deal on both ends, let's say. Now the finance clause falls over. What's your immediate recovery move there, and the buyer says, "Hey look, finance has fallen, or we need an extension of seven or eight working days." Is that something that should be talked about five days before the finance is due, or do you reckon the last minute would be fine for them and yes, we'll extend it in this market?

Lawrence: I think communication's really important, and if we can deliver communication earlier to the vendors regarding finance conditions, if there's going to be an extension in the contracts, we really need to know that as soon as possible. Because if you let someone know on the last day, there's a high-pressure scenario that they need to make a decision. So the earlier we can deliver maybe uncomfortable news, the better. Someone can absorb it and they can sleep on it, they can think about it. I think it's quite good to let everyone know as soon as possible. And look, if it does fall over, then it is what it is. We just have to move on to the next buyers that are in the area and just work on them as quickly as possible and see if there's another property. Is it better priced or is there another property that just has less? If there's any problems with the property, just see why it fell over and how we can rectify that on the next one.

Daniel: So Lawrence, obviously you've been doing this for a while, mate. How has the industry changed since you first joined versus right now where you're at this point of your career, starting Limitless Real Estate?

Lawrence: So in terms of the technology, speaking to all the other agents that have sold before I even joined in, they were all running around with a lot of paper, and with having a lot of technology now, I just run everything off iPhone, iPad, and a Mac, and I've actually got like 10 other different Mac devices. All of our technology enables us to do quicker transactions, so we can sign contracts and get properties under contract almost immediately. I was literally, two hours ago, just in my car, on my phone, just dated a contract and sold a property. That technology enables speed.

Lawrence: So the thing that I'm going to maybe foresee in the next few, could be months or years, is that administration's going to get more taken over by, whether it be AI or AI assistants that are going to do all the administration work, it's just going to leave the bare bones of what is the sale process. What is it? It's speaking to the client, having a connection, helping them get their property sold and meeting the buyers. So I think we're in quite an interesting shift point in the time in real estate, or the whole world. That administration, like a full-time administration person might cost you $80k or $100k to hire, if you can get an AI bot to link into WhatsApp, your emails and do everything in the background, then suddenly you've just saved that money. I think that's going to be the pivotal point in the industry, which is why I've built Limitless Real Estate as a digital agent-based agency. So we'll have one office and we're going to start to hire agents across New Zealand, throughout the whole country. Quite similar to Aristo, where we'll still have stronger fees, where we can charge better fees and also invest more into marketing. But that digital model is, real estate agents don't need an office to go to. They can actually run mobile, right? They're just mobile. Do the contract, you go to the, your office is the client's home. So most agents realise that—they just go to the home, sign the contract, can run an onsite auction, and that's basically your office. So I think that's going to be the next pivotal point in the industry. It's whoever can adopt this type of admin support that's going to, I think, get ahead of the curve.

Rory: A hundred percent. We're in the same boat, mate, like we work in a way, we're parallel to you, right? Where there's no intersectional point, but it's side by side. And for us, especially in the AI space, when we have a client meeting or anything, the way it takes notes to, you know, how it was doing in 2018 versus where it's at now is crazy. Then secondly, the amount of information it can sort of work with. What I think starts being the biggest thing for us as a business for Blueprint is making sure the service, speed is unmatched. You know, your personal brand, your personal service to the client, regardless of who you're working with, so good. And your speed, so fast, it's almost flawless. It's art in the sense of the way that, you know, you're working with the client. I think you're right with the AI stuff that's going to come in and administration being an easy thing now. The salesperson had it tied against their foot really when they were doing as much as possible. It's going to allow them to scale more. And I really like the fact that, you know, you don't believe in the whole coming into the office for an agent. You said, client's home is their office.

Lawrence: And then also, I'd say training. So, once an agent, if you can get AI to record your calls, record your meetings, then you've suddenly got a personal assistant that's training you on how to become a better salesperson. So just giving you direct feedback and delivering all that to you after your next meeting, so people will be able to train up even faster, which is quite cool to see.

Rory: That is awesome. True or false, Lawrence.

Lawrence: Yep.

Rory: Let's see how we go with this. Auctions dead in 2025. True or false?

Lawrence: I'd say it's false. And the reason is that auctions work really well in a bad market, they work really well in a good market, and it is about the type of property. So if it's a very tricky type of property that needs a lot of building consent work or research done to it, I'd say it probably might look at a different type of method, whether it be a tender or negotiation, but auctions right now, 76% sold within a 90-day period is our stats, and getting on average about 22 to 23 days to get sold. So it is a superior method and we are getting around 4.5 buyers on average right now per auction. And that's just that competition. It's transparent and yeah, they're definitely working really well.

Daniel: First home buyers, we deal with plenty of them that can't attend auctions, right? So the whole story around limited deposit, 90% leverage against the property, essentially wanting to get their foot in the door as soon as possible. Obviously, attending auctions for them is possible. We do get the clients take a risk, we know it's possible for them to do so, but most of the people would prefer tender, deadline, negotiation, that sort of stuff. Any tips for them in how they should structure an offer that you think would be somewhat entertained to your vendors that are looking to sell?

Lawrence: In terms of an auction?

Daniel: Oh, nothing related to auction. So just if they're tender, or negotiation. What do you reckon would be a clean offer from a first home buyer who's limited in their ability to get things done fast?

Lawrence: Yeah, so with first home buyers, I'd recommend, let's see, try to get the biggest deposit you can, try to decrease the days on market as quick as, as short as possible. In terms of your finance, try to get as many ducks in a row as possible. The cleanest deal is cash. Like if it's just cash, deposit paid straight away, that is a very clean deal. If you can't do that, make it as short as possible. And if you really do like the property, sometimes you just need to bump the price a bit more. You need to think, okay, well if I lose it for $1,000, is it worth it to push it up a bit more? Am I going to regret it if I miss out on this property? So it's just, get decided on what price you're going to work at, decrease those days as much as possible. And if you need to extend it a bit more, you can do that. That's a worst case. So know that there's a bit of flexibility there. I'd say have a conversation with the real estate agent, say, what does this owner really want with a sale? Do they want a short settlement? Do they want more deposit? Do they want a long settlement? What terms and conditions can I provide? Have they got rubbish on the property? Can I pay for all the rubbish to get removed off the site?

Daniel: And you'd entertain that, right? Like if a buyer said to you, he's driven, he's pushed as much as possible and he's asking you anything that would help the vendor, you'd entertain that, right?

Lawrence: 100%. And that's going to give the vendor, the vendor will see, oh, I don't have to clean up the property, I don't have to do this, don't have to do that, the buyer's going to take on this themselves. The vendor's going to realise, okay, this is more favourable. We've seen contracts where the vendor would select a lower price because the purchaser is going to do all the rubbish removal and just take the property as is.

Rory: That's awesome. So try and be creative and see what do they really, really want.

Rory: That's true and false. Cash buyers always beat pre-approved buyers.

Lawrence: So it's false. Cash buyers, they can beat pre-approved buyers, but typically cash sometimes would go a bit lower. So the pre-approved buyer, if they go a bit higher, and they do have conditions, the vendors are going to view them potentially as favourable. And they might decide, let's give them a few days to work out the finance. So it's really dependent on, those are the two factors you're going to play with—the price, you're going to play with the terms. So you can either buy it on their price with your terms or your terms, their price, and just try to see what's going to work best.

Rory: Nice. Awesome. Other methods of sale such as tender or deadline beat auctions when it comes to the South Auckland market. True or false?

Lawrence: I'd say it's false depending on the type. So auctions work really well for most properties. In terms of tender or deadlines, we had a property in Otahuhu that we are negotiating with around the $5 million mark, and that one, it wouldn't work with auction just because it has lots of problems with the road transport agency that's going to be buying out part of the land. So a lot of developers need to spend probably at least 20 to 30 days working through those consents and information to decide if the price is going to stack up to buy this property. So auction, it's a bit tough to put pressure on them and get the maximum price. So rather, giving them more time with that, so having that flexibility with the tricky, curly deals.

Rory: Nice. Otahuhu & Point England have a higher chance of capital growth value compared to Papatoetoe and Mangere. True or false?

Lawrence: I'd say that might be higher. Yep, I'd say it's true.

Daniel: Yeah. I don't know why, man. I just think Otahuhu is the most under—well, I'm being a bit sidelined, but if you look at the map of Auckland, Otahuhu is pretty well placed compared to what you get, you know, in terms of price.

Rory: So compared to Papatoetoe, land of the developers. Big sections sell for good prices there. But yeah, that's my 2 cents on it. But obviously you're the man who sells real estate.

Lawrence: Yeah, so it comes down to how close you are to the city. So properties that are closer to the city could have a bit more energy, more demand there. Papatoetoe, a lot of the Indian community like to gravitate towards there. It's almost like little India. There's so many people going towards there and a lot of development. So I'd say, and if we just look at all the averages over all the suburbs, they're all within a percent of increase per year, of pricing. So I wouldn't say there's, I wouldn't choose a suburb based on its percentage growth rate if you're just going to be living there. It's just more, work on what's closer in terms of work and driving. If you drive 30 minutes to work, your chance, your happiness decreases like 10 or 15% because you're spending like an hour or two every day on the road. So I always advise people, let's try and decrease that time to drive because less drive time, more time with the family, you could work more and earn more money. If you're going to just sit in the car, you're not earning anything. You're just looking at the car in front of you.

Daniel: You know what? That actually made the biggest move for me because I was living in the North Shore and me and my wife were living there for a while and I wouldn't think of the commute much to central Auckland from, you know, Bayview or Albany Highway where we were before. And now that I look at it, I'm like down the road now, moved to Sandringham and way more closer. 10 minutes to work and back. I'm so much more happier. Go for a run in the morning, get something achieved before even the day starts—a big thing for me.

Lawrence: Yeah, so I completely agree with you on that.

Rory: Next one, true or false: City Rail Link is going to help property prices go up.

Lawrence: False. I've got no opinion there. At the end of the day, I'll just look at the averages.

Daniel: Yeah. Or just sell more property.

Rory: Train's not going to help your house prices, guys.

Daniel: It'll be beneficial to people right by the station.

Lawrence: Yeah, no, so a hundred percent. But then again, do people really want to live next to a train station?

Daniel: Some might. Some want to, people that don't have a car.

Lawrence: Yeah, exactly. Most in Auckland have a car, so a hundred percent. I think driving is more preferred in Auckland than public transport for most people.

Daniel: Yeah, but we should be having a great public transport system, however, that doesn't correlate to your property's price.

Lawrence: Yeah.

Rory: Okay, last one. Is it possible to get 9% gross yields in South Auckland?

Lawrence: It's very rare, but there's been some deals at nine, 10%, but you probably have to put an offer for at least a hundred or 200 properties to, or get the right connection to get that property which is multi-income. You're looking at maybe some add value. You buy a property that's really low condition, you put another house on it, you divide up some bedrooms. So it's all about how much value you can add to the property rather than just picking up a 9% deal.

Daniel: Yeah. What's the highest gross yield property you've ever seen that's hit the market and sold in the last sort of two, three years in your time?

Lawrence: I've seen boarding houses that would get like 15 to 20%. They do have a lot of other costs. So that would be gross margin and you'd have a lot of management fee. You have an onsite manager, that sort of thing. So I bought a house in Gisborne at the end of last year.

Rory: No, we heard about this. We are big fans of Gisborne because there's a big rental demand there, right?

Lawrence: Yeah.

Daniel: Most people sleep on small towns and, you know, a two-bedroom townhouse might be somewhat of an investment, you should really do the numbers on if you're buying that in Auckland versus Gisborne.

Rory: Yeah. Where it's 70% off the Auckland price and the rent is more or less very close to what you'd get in Auckland.

Lawrence: Very similar. I paid $350k for the property, reno-ed it for $120k. Now it's worth $600k.

Rory: That would've been a good experience, man.

Lawrence: Well, I didn't do anything. I just got the tradie and he did the whole renovation. Didn't pick up a paint brush.

Rory: Nice.

Lawrence: I've only been to the property once, I bought at auction, then went, flew to look at it, and it's all rents managed and now rented at $775 a week.

Daniel: Is that the plan, to hold it long term?

Lawrence: Just to hold it long term. So I've refinanced, so I've pulled the money out.

Daniel: Get some equity.

Lawrence: Get some equity, and I'm just putting it into the business right now.

Rory: Nice man.

Daniel: Yeah. There you go. People think they need to go get a business loan. How about you get a nice property for a decent price, add some value, refinance, take the equity out for your venture. Now you're getting business finance, might be north of 10% unsecured versus something that might be in the fives or sixes or even lower.

Rory: So great call on that.

Daniel: Thanks for joining us, Lawrence. Everyone, if you're looking for a sharp shooter, an agent that crushes it in South Auckland or even beyond, someone that is building a journey and a legacy, you should definitely reach out to Lawrence. Obviously, if you've enjoyed this podcast or if you have any feedback, we'd love to hear from you. Please subscribe. We want to hear anything you've got to say, and we'll see you next time.