Adelaide’s real estate high flyers and their connection to South Australia’s top schools
They’ve risen to the top in real estate, but where did these high flyers get their start in school?
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You might recognise them from billboards or For Sale signs in your neighbourhood.
One of them may have even sold your home, or helped you buy a new one.
But where did our state’s top real estate agents get their start?
From leaving school early to pursue international sporting careers to playing football with a future premier and winning the Miss SA competition, many now-agents and auctioneers had colourful careers before landing in the world of real estate.
As this year’s crop of Year 12s prepare to start taking their final exams, we asked our property high flyers to take us back to school - and offer some advice for the class of 2024.
John Williams – Williams Real Estate
Seacombe High School and Scotch College
John Williams emigrated to Adelaide from England when he was seven years old and attended a number of public schools before enrolling at Scotch College in Year 11.
He graduated in 1981 but says there was far less focus on a student’s final marks then.
“It was much more about meeting people and work opportunities,” Williams says.
After marrying wife Stephanie in 1998 the couple chose to have their daughter Charlotte, now 24, and son Jasper, now 25, christened at Scotch College.
However the pair didn’t follow in Williams’ footsteps, going on to attend Walford and St Peter’s College instead.
“We just tried to keep our kids calm and focused (in Year 12) and keep the pressure off them,” he says.
“It’s a really important time. But don’t panic, there’s plenty of opportunities in life.”
Phil Harris – Harris Real Estate
Westminster School
The opportunity to tour Europe playing tennis with a young Lleyton Hewitt meant Phil Harris cut short his education at Westminster School.
The now 44-year-old finished Year 11 at the independent Marion campus before jetting overseas.
It was 1997 and he was playing alongside Hewitt, who had attended Immanuel College and would go on to become the world’s top male tennis star.
“We travelled for a couple of years and then I was 19 and working out whether to go back home and do some further study or go and coach tennis in the US,” Harris says.
In the end, a friend steered him toward a traineeship in real estate and he found a new passion.
“Everybody has a different journey to take with their education,” he says.
“Ultimately it’s about giving it your best shot.”
Kim Shorland – Harcourts Adelaide Hills Mt Barker
Urrbrae Agricultural School
Kim Shorland knew while she was still in primary school that she wanted to be in real estate.
Despite not coming from a farming family, she was interested in farms and business ownership and chose Urrbrae Agricultural School “so I could know enough to sell them”.
“I was 11 when I decided I would own real estate offices and sell real estate,” says Shorland, who finished Year 12 in 1992.
“Urrbrae armed me with a huge amount of farming and business knowledge and was the perfect choice.”
Shorland launched straight into her career after finishing high school and opened her first office at 22.
She now has a team of 34 staff – and works alongside her husband, their children and her mother-in-law and brother-in-law.
Kate Smith – Kate Smith Property
Immanuel College & Australian Institute of Sport (Canberra)
Kate Smith attended Immanuel College until the end of Year 10, before making a break to Canberra to finish her schooling through the Australian Institute of Sport.
A talented basketballer, Smith completed Year 11 and 12 at the institute and a local college.
“We would be bussed back and forth between the school and the AIS every day,” she says.
Graduating in 2000, Smith was set on a professional basketball career but a knee injury changed her trajectory.
At 19 she returned to Adelaide and took an administration role at a real estate office.
“There are actually a lot more similarities between professional sport and real estate than what I first thought,” says Smith, who has returned to both her old schools to give presentations.
“Anything worthwhile in life requires hard work.”
Alex Ouwens – Ouwens Casserly Real Estate
Mercedes College
The executive director of Ouwens Casserly graduated from Mercedes College in 1995.
While there he played football with a younger Peter Malinauskas, who would go on to become leader of the state in 2022.
“He always said he would be premier of SA and I believed him,” Ouwens says.
Now 46, Ouwens says he was keen on “sport and socialising” in Year 12 but buckled down in the exam study period to get into a commerce degree.
About a decade later, after studying, travelling and working in hospitality he discovered the real estate industry and “fell in love with it straight away”.
His advice to Year 12s includes having time away from screens and finding ways to manage stress.
“You can’t change the past. Give it your all,” he says. “There’s plenty of time to relax or party later!”
Matt Lindblom – Ray White
Brighton Secondary School
Matt Lindblom spent decades in the fitness industry before coming to real estate.
After graduating from Brighton Secondary School in 1994, he wanted to study town planning at university but ended up deferring his studies.
Instead, he began what would be a two-decade career in fitness, working first as a trainer at EFM Health Clubs, then as a club manager and finally a franchise owner.
“I got pretty busy after school,” Lindblom, now 47, says.
In 2016 he sold his health clubs to enter the real estate world with Ray White and has risen to Ray White SA/NT chief executive.
Lindblom is still in contact with people he went to school with 30 years ago and says Ray White’s national head of marketing, Todd Alexander, now based in Sydney, also went to Brighton.
“Quite a lot (of my classmates) became self employed and run their own businesses,” he says.
Lindblom’s advice to year 12s of 2024 is to “work hard”.
“It opens up your options. There’s more opportunity now than there ever has been,” he says.
Oren Klemich – Klemich Real Estate
St Peter’s College
Oren Klemich graduated from St Peter’s College in 1978, like his father before him.
“I wasn’t academically brilliant but (my results) got me into an economics degree at Adelaide University,” the now 64-year-old says.
However, he didn’t finish the degree, which he describes as “one of the big regrets of my life”.
It was while looking for a house with his soon-to-be wife that he discovered the real estate world, and launched his career in 1983 at age 23.
Now board chairman of Klemich Real Estate, he will soon round out a career lasting more than four decades.
Klemich was vice-captain in his final year at St Peter’s and remains connected to the college as president of the old scholars association.
“The traditions of the school remain but the facilities are better than when I was there,” he says.
Klemich went to school with “some very hard working, clever guys”, including former Crows and Carlton chief executive Steven Trigg who now heads Seppeltsfield Winery.
Today, he advises young graduates to finish a degree.
“Do the hard yards early and you’ve got to continue to work hard,” he says.
Gabrielle Overton – LJ Hooker
Cabra Dominican College
Gabrielle Overton has worked 56 jobs since leaving Cabra Dominican College in 1968, when it was a girls-only school.
“I went there because of my folks’ religious background,” Overton, now 73, says.
“I was poor and didn’t have good looking shoes but in my heart I wasn’t poor.”
After finishing school, she trained as a teacher but never taught.
Later, that knowledge came in handy when she put her children through homeschool.
Overton has worked in industries including interior design, media and commercial fishing in her long career, and was crowned Miss SA in 1971.
“I like to be needed and I need to be liked,” she says.
Overton entered real estate in 1972 but initially “didn’t stay in the industry because of the pay”.
Now a sales representative at LJ Hooker, she has returned to her old school for reunions and still has friends from her time there.
“The facilities there are amazing now,” she says.
Her advice for year 12s is to “never say no and give everything a try”.
Arabella Hooper – Harris Real Estate
Seymour College
Property Consultant Arabella Hooper is part of a line of Seymour College women.
“My mum went there and it becomes part of your DNA,” the 40-year-old says.
She now has two daughters at the school, in years 8 and 11, who still wear her mother’s old school shirt.
“I had a brilliant education and I’ve got great connections from the school,” Hooper says.
“I’m still very patriotic about the school and I’m a part of the old scholars.”
The “ethos and the feeling you get” at Seymour are the same, but the facilities have changed since Hooper graduated in 2001.
She got her start in the property industry after working as a receptionist at a real estate office.
“Don’t ever think that the front desk doesn’t open opportunity,” she says.
“Make the most of advice that you’re given and your connections.”
Tim Thredgold – Alexander Real Estate
Prince Alfred College
Sales consultant and auctioneer Tim Thredgold “was more interested in sport than schoolwork” as a budding footy and cricket player.
Thredgold and his two siblings attended Prince Alfred College, following in their father’s footsteps.
“It was a balance of family tradition and quality of education,” says Thredgold, who graduated in 1982.
Now 59, he has enrolled his son at PAC, and two of his nephews attended the Kent Town school.
Thredgold is part of the old scholars association and has kept in touch with “a strong group of guys” who catch up every few months.
Thredgold got his start in real estate 38 years ago doing holiday valuation work experience for an uncle.
“It took my fancy … it was the flexibility and not being stuck behind a desk,” he said.
He felt lucky to get into the industry in a time where “you couldn’t get a job if you didn’t have a licence but you couldn’t get a licence if you didn’t have a job”.
His advice for students is “don’t believe all the pressure that you need to qualify to get to uni to get anywhere. But don’t discount the value of doing well in school.”
Elle Gosling – Harcourts Adelaide Hills Mount Barker
Cornerstone College
A chance conversation at a home inspection opened the door to the real estate industry for Elle Gosling.
The now 33-year-old graduated from Mt Barker’s Cornerstone College in 2008.
“I studied architecture and interior design and then I worked for a building company,” she says.
She wasn’t “really looking for a job in real estate” but speaking with an agent at a home viewing changed her course.
Now Gosling, who bought her first home at 19, advises the class of 2024 not to stress too much if they aren’t clear on what they want to do after school.
“There’s so much pressure when you’re in school to do amazingly and get into uni but it’s not really how it has to be,” she says.
Cynthia Sajkunovic – Ouwens Casserly Real Estate
Mitcham Girls School
Cynthia Sajkunovic broke down multiple barriers as a trailblazer in the Adelaide real estate industry.
Sajkunovic attended Mitcham Girls School, which she says was a point of contention early in her career.
“I would go into a listing and it was ‘which school did you go to?’,” Sajkunovic, 51, says.
“When I started in real estate … I was having to break down the barriers of the old school ties.
“I was also the youngest female auctioneer in South Australia at 21.”
The property consultant, who has now been in the industry for more than 30 years, said “all of her friends went to private schools” but her family could not afford it.
Despite this, Sajkunovic is proud of her education at Mitcham Girls and maintains “close connections with people I went to school with”.
Young people today need to make “very clear decisions where you want to go in the future”, she says, adding: “Year 12 is the year that makes it happen.”
James Packham – Harcourts Packham
Blackwood High School
Before real estate, Harcourts auctioneer James Packham was following a career path in the army reserves.
“You’re taking a job with limited income potential and they tend to send you wherever in the world they want,” Packham, 40, explains of his decision to leave the army.
After graduating from Blackwood High School in 2002, Packham went on to study two degrees at Flinders University in economics and business.
He then studied part time through Duntroon, based at the Hampstead Barracks, and finished his two years in the army in 2007.
In his mid-20s he discovered real estate.
“I had a friend of mine who was a real estate agent and he initially put the idea to me,” he says.
Now, he has an office in Blackwood, near his old high school.
“It’s a great area and it’s probably a nicer school than it used to be,” Packham says.
Kids of today “should not stay with the first thing you try”.
“You don’t want to spend your life doing something you don’t want to do,” he says.
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