How does your usual day look?
I wake up at 4:30 and train with a personal trainer down at Bondi Beach for an hour. I am usually in the office by 7am and work through a list of key tasks for the day. Then I could be in Liverpool in the morning and then Penrith later that afternoon. I spend most of the day on the phone.
How did you start your career in commercial real estate?
After school, I worked for CBRE for three years in Paris advising on residential developments and selling large blocks of apartments and grand residences. Then when I returned to Sydney, I started working with them in commercial in Parramatta. I was with CBRE building up my career in the Western Sydney market for 18 years. I became a franchisee of Ray White Commercial NSW Western Sydney in mid-2019.
What do you enjoy most about being an agent at Ray White Commercial? What makes Ray White Commercial different?
I love the entrepreneurial nature of the business and that is encouraged by the business. I now have more of an appreciation for what it takes to own and operate a business and there are some seriously clever business owners in the residential and commercial business.
What are your go-to property marketing methods that you present to your clients?
I love videos. In the time/attention poor society we live in, a video can deliver a huge amount of info in a very quick time and get people engaged in the asset.
Tell me about a unique success story?
A few years ago I worked with Craig Pontey and Evan Williams selling a block of apartments in Edgecliff. This was the most majestic trophy asset I have seen. 10 x 3 bedroom 150 sqm apartments all with water views and a 600sqm penthouse. We took the property to auction and had been guiding low $20 millions.
It ended up selling for $33.25m, which was the largest residential auction price in history (I am told).
Do you auction?
Yes and am embracing it more and more. It’s a tremendous method of sale for the right assets.
What’s the one thing you know now, that you wish you knew when you first started out?
What to spend time on. We speculate a lot of time with people and only get paid when we do deals. You can waste a lot of time with people.
What is your outlook for the Western Sydney commercial market over the next 12 months?
Absolutely amazing. I can’t think of a more exciting market than Western Sydney at the moment. There are billions of dollars of infrastructure projects and massive amounts of population growth. The market is constantly expanding and maturing. Where there is infrastructure spending and population growth, there is positivity.
CONTACT
Email: peter.vines@raywhite.com
Phone number:0449 857 100
