Central Coast real estate agents: Top earners revealed
Who are the Central Coast’s real estate titans? Between them they’ve sold more than $500m of our most luxurious local properties. Find out the secrets to their success.
Three Central Coast real estate agents have been revealed as the titans of the industry.
Between them, they sold more than $500m of our most luxurious local properties according to the Real Estate Business June 2021 rankings in the last financial year.
The coast agents listed in Australia’s top 100 earners include McGrath’s Mat Steinwede, The Agency’s Brian Whiteman and Belle Property Central Coast’s Cathy Baker.
See where they came from, what motivates them, what they make of the current market along with some of their epic sales.
Mat Steinwede, McGrath
McGrath agent Mat Steinwede is the highest ranking coast agent on the Real Estate Business June 2021 ranking, coming in at 6th with $286.6m in properties sold.
Mr Steinwede, a father of six from Terrigal, was encouraged into real estate 25 years ago after reaching a low point in his life in Sydney where he was homeless and associating with the wrong people.
He moved to the coast and an ex-girlfriend suggested he give real estate a try.
“Every day I used to door knock and see if anyone wanted to sell their house,” he sad.
“For the first year or so I didn’t have a car so I walked the streets.”
It didn’t take long before he had goals of becoming the number one real estate agent, a title he has held consistently in the McGrath Network.
“I said to John McGrath 15 years ago I wanted to be number one,” he said. “That never left me.”
Mr Steinwede, who is also a motivational speaker, said the mark of success in the industry began with yourself.
“I’m a very disciplined type of person in my life, with a lot of things including fitness,” he said.
“When I handle somebody’s sale, my attention to detail is great, focus is great and communication is great. How I treat my life just flows through to my business.
“When people list a home with me, I make them feel like they are in good hands. You hear horror stories regarding communication, especially if an agent is not ahead of where they should be. I’m also a great negotiator.”
Mr Steinwede said while the coast market was firing, it came with challenges with some agents over promising and getting carried away.
“Service levels in the current market have to be outstanding,” he said. “Anybody can sell a property but it’s about how far you can take the market.
“Some agents are not taking care of buyers either, they are not calling them back. It’s relationships that we are building in this current market that will create a force field around us in the future.”
Mr Steinwede says that between himself, his business partner Trevor Hamilton and their team, they achieved $402m with 220 sales in the last financial year. Mr Steinwede and Mr Hamilton are co-principals of five McGrath real estate offices on the Central Coast.
Brian Whiteman, The Agency
It was a choice between retirement or real estate for The Agency's Brian Whiteman and it appears he chose well coming in at number 44 on the Real Estate Business June 2021 ranking with $134m in properties sold in the last financial year.
Mr Whiteman, who ran a motorcycle dealership for 12 years, started at McGrath in Long Jetty in early 2014 and in his first year broke a staggering number of real estate records. In 2015, he broke the Australian record by earning over $1 million in commission income for a single listing agent in their 1st year of real estate.
Mr Whiteman has been with The Agency Central Coast for more than two years, keen to be with a non-franchise business that held more benefits for agents.
Mr Whiteman puts his motivation simply as “looking after our buyers and vendors”.
“It’s a care factor, people can tell if you care and they want to deal with you,” he told the Express.
The father of three said the business had built a reputation of doing business honestly and ethically.
“I’m just 100 per cent honest with people,” he said.
“It shows in the offer process. I let people know what the highest offer is. It’s about letting them know what they have to do and when they have to do it. You have also got to have a lot of energy in this industry.”
Mr Whiteman said he had a goal when he joined The Agency of becoming the number one agent on the coast and selling the most properties.
A realestate.com.au search of top agents across the Central Coast has Mr Whiteman in the number one spot with 175 properties sold in the last 12 months at a median sale price of $1.1m.
He has broken seven suburb record this year alone and says there has been a lot of great outcomes from Sydney-based buyers. He said Covid had also seen a surge in holiday home buyers across the coast.
“Compared to Sydney, we are a lot cheaper,” he said.
“From some areas on the coast, the North Connex puts us into the CBD within an hour. It’s been a game changer.
“You can still buy a property within walking distance to the beach for $1m. That’s just not possible in Sydney.”
Mr Whiteman lives in Forresters Beach with his wife Jen who is also part of The Agency.
Cathy Baker, Belle Property
Belle Property Central Coast owner and principal Cathy Baker came in ranked at 91, clocking up $110m in sales according to Real Estate Business June 2021 with an average sale price of $2.24m.
Mrs Baker has had a diverse career, starting as a chef in the UK and once cooking for Lady Diana. After moving to Australia when she was 21 she worked as a store manager for Radio Rentals and a national human resource manager at Thorn EMI.
She then branched out and did consulting work, became and interior designer and then at the age of 40 a real estate agent where she has firmly made her mark.
“Making a difference is the thing that motivates me,” she told the Express.
“It’s a real privilege that we get to enhance and impact people’s lives and transitions into different chapters.
“It’s all about relationships to me, I’m not a transactional agent.”
Mrs Baker said she also had an “entrepreneurial mindset” which made her keen to find new ways of doing things.
“The business is built around how we provide a better experience for the client, along with long term lifestyle plans,” she said.
“I pride myself on creating customers for life. It’s a way that brings you loyalty and repeat clients.”
Mrs Baker said the market was the best she had seen it in 10 years.
“It’s getting stronger by the day, we had 120 buyer appointments over the weekend,” she said. “It’s hard to believe, some areas are changing by millions in a day due to the competition.
“People are paying ridiculous prices. It’s been driven by people buying holiday homes, people not being able to travel overseas, people working from home.”
Mrs Baker has recorded the highest ever sale for the Central Coast, which remains confidential, however she also has more than five properties that have sold around the $5m mark.
She also runs the magazine and media company Central Coast Life and Style along with the
charity Killy Cares which helps vulnerable people in the community stay in their homes longer.
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Originally published as Central Coast real estate agents: Top earners revealed
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