Victoria’s top 50 women in real estate revealed
The state’s top three deal-makers each inked more than $300m in sales in a mega financial year. SEE THE TOP 50.
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Victoria's top women of real estate have been revealed, with the state’s top three deal-makers each inking more than $300m in sales in a mega 12 months.
Eastern suburbs queenpin Helen Yan cleared $343,927,676, Toorak titan Sarah Case closed $309,550,746, and Stonnington star Carla Fetter featured in $307,997,509 worth of transactions in the past financial year, exclusive Sunday Herald Sun research shows.
OBrien Carrum Downs agent Michelle Stephens is the suburban grind specialist — inking more deals than any other in the top 50 with her mega 277 sales.
Her $227,396,512 ranked her fourth of Victoria’s top female agents for financial volume, among those operating in the city’s most expensive postcodes.
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Ms Yan, a director at Ray White Balwyn, said speaking fluent Mandarin and Cantonese helped in her patch, but hard work and honesty were the main drivers of her success.
“The most important thing is good service, and you need to be very honest, don’t lie to people, just do whatever you can to help them,” she said.
“The most important thing is to help people, don’t hurt people; that is my aim.”
Ms Yan helps ease migrating buyers’ moves by showing them around the local area, including schools — and her office even helps people connect their internet — all “free of charge”.
“Language helps, but service is key,” she said.
In top-end Toorak, RT Edgar director Ms Case says “property is like a game of pairs: you turn over enough pairs, you find a match.”.
“It’s about listening to people and finding out what they want. I sell a lot of off-market properties here because of relationships,” she said.
“If someone says they want to buy ‘this’ house, chances are I know the owner, or someone knows them, and I can call them up and say ‘I’ve got a really good buyer for your house’, so it comes down to experience and knowing how to handle the situation.”
With 22 years in the game, Ms Case said it was great to see more females flying high.
“When I started, a long time ago, there weren’t a lot of women and it’s fantastic now a lot of women are doing really well, becoming owners of their businesses, like myself,” she said.
“It’s a great thing, because it’s hard work when you’re a working mum, working six days a week, you do give up a lot. I commend all the women doing it.”
Ms Fetter, director at Jellis Craig Armadale, echoed the sentiment.
“I literally gave birth and went back to work two weeks later,” she said.
“And that might not work for everyone, but it has worked for me and had allowed me to stay pretty relevant in the market for a long period of time.
“It is an industry that has flexibility and I feel like I can be a very active parent as well as a very active agent.”
Ms Fetter noted it was such a mammoth financial year with the market turbocharged, especially when lockdown ended last October.
“Literally every day in that month we were doing deals, and all of them sold competitively at auction, which was very unusual,” she said.
“The reason we could carry greater volume was properties were selling a lot faster; now in the current climate we’ve returned to standard four Saturday campaigns.
“But probably now we’re seeing more properties selling before auction because if we have a good offer before auction we’re probably more receptive to that in the current climate.”
Ms Fetter’s agency had reduced auction campaigns to just to weeks in lockdown last year.
There is no doubt this financial year is a much different real estate landscape. Gone are the record low interest rates, and most considering a move are likely to have already done so.
But demand remains and buyers and agents are anticipating more stock in spring.
Ms Stephens said she was often in the office until past 10pm on a Saturday night, doing deals on Sundays and following up again Monday after buyers slept on their decisions.
“It does invade your life, obviously to do the volumes I do, but I love it and love helping my people move to the next chapter of their lives with as much money as possible,” she said.
She credited her success to “hard work and determination” and noted the administrative team that assisted while she was out on the ground.
The Sunday Herald Sun contacted major Victorian real estate agencies and key players to form its top women in real estate list, relying on self-reported results.
Sophie Su, of Kay & Burton Hawthorn, rounded out the top five, with $180,959,000.
Ms Yan was also ranked second in the Real Estate Business Top 50 Victorian Agents for 2021, behind Jellis Craig Northcote director Sam Rigopoulos.
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