Graham Wall - Just his luck

Graham Wall, seller of luxury real estate. Photo / Greg Bowker

Sorry ladies but it's best this is clear from the outset. Graham Wall is spoken for. Wall rang the day after our interview a little anxious readers didn't get the idea that he was a single man about town.

Wall explains that a funny thing happened after a story about him half a dozen years ago. The ladies came calling. "Seriously, it was like dating," Wall said, adding after a nanopause, "and I wasn't as good looking then."

You can see for yourself that Wall is handsome. But to salve curiosity I looked the story up. It was about Wall's blessed start as a flogger of flash real estate. How blessed? Well, in his first two months in the game, he sold property worth $18 million.

And he's not lost the knack. He sold the Sultan of Brunei's properties in Herne Bay for $35 million and if you tally up "recent sales" listed on his website they come to $65 million.

Ladies, pick up the phone!

Just kidding. Mr Graham Wall would like it known that he is ensconced with Ms Rosie Brown. They live happily in Freemans Bay, close to family (five sons from previous relationships he three, she two), from where they host big dinner gatherings most Sundays.

In that phonecall, Wall also said he was a little worried he may have come across a bit negative. That was in reference to his comment that it was taking longer to make a sale. But he'd also said there was no collapse here at the top end of the market as there was in cities such as Sydney and London.

He figured that's because New Zealand has few of "the 35-year-old Masters-of-the Universe types" used to having a million to spend a year and who suddenly don't. "In New Zealand the owners of those really quality assets are more established people. You don't see people bailing, you don't see desperation."

But really, Wall negative! He is to negative as chalk is to cheese.
Anxious? Well, maybe.

"This is a new experience for me," he said cheerily and quite possibly a tad nervously when we sat down together. "I'm enjoying it so far, let me say," he beamed.

The recorder had been running long moments but I'd yet to ask a question. Wall, by his own admission, is a talker, and gregarious types don't do silence.

We're sitting in a lovely open space where he has his office in one of the city's nicest restored buildings. Inside it is whitewalled style. Glossy magazines are stacked in neat piles. Identical bottles of mineral water stand on a shelf like soldiers on parade. A gleaming and beautiful Italian coffee machine the sort with lots of gauges and sticky-out levers has pride of place on a long bench.

"That's our coffee machine," chirps Wall. "Don't know how to work that either."

No matter. We hadn't come because of his technical skill. Good job too. When I popped by the day before to invite him to be the Backpage interviewee, Wall was wrestling with a new Blackberry. A gift from the phone company, but he was damned if he could figure out how to work it.
Twenty-four hours later he was still scratching his head and the Blackberry still sat on his desk among a pile of packaging and instructional guff. A kind person from the phone company had rung (on his other phone) with advice but Wall suspected he'd need hands-on help.

I decide to put him at ease with a couple of easy opening questions. Does he like to wear bright-coloured lycra? I inquired. No? Not even in the privacy of his home?

Wall shoots a strange look before entering the fray. No, and neither does he shave his legs, though he understands plenty of even amateur cyclists do.

Not a lycra-wearer, not a leg-shaver, not even a cyclist. In fact, Wall hasn't owned a bike since 6th form at Mt Albert Grammar. And yet Wall is the reason the country will have the New Zealand Bike Trail that the Government is stumping up $50 million to kick-start.

Wall couldn't be happier - may even ride it himself some day.

So, what was he thinking?

Some people are surprised he is not a keen cyclist. "People are telling me that I have to get a bike, just because I should. You see, I see it as a tourist thing. I'll bet that only a small percentage of those who ride the Otago Rail Trail are bike people."

He talks about meeting three Brits while at the bach at Lang's Beach. One was a paraplegic, a former SAS soldier, riding a handbike. Another was partially sighted and yet they were riding the length of the country. Wall thought that inspiring. "I was aware there were people who did that sort of thing. I'd seen them riding that beautiful trail by the Tukituki River in Hawkes Bay."

"Why did I take it to the PM? Because I thought THIS IS A FANTASTIC IDEA."

Yes, he did speak in capitals.

How did he do that? He sounded out John Banks. "His advice was that if I thought it was a great idea, I should talk to the PM." That week John Key happened to be opening Nikki Kaye's electoral office and Wall knew her a little because "my girl, Rosie" had supported her candidacy.

He called Kaye and asked for five minutes with the PM.

"She said, 'well, we'll do our best'. I said, 'well that might not quite be good enough. I really do want to spend five minutes'."

We now know that Key, who also left his bike behind with his youth, likes the idea as much as Wall.

I suspect Wall is an expert persuader, a charmer who presses the right buttons.

His smile broadens but he insists upon the fiction that anyone could have done it and goes on about how amazing it is to live in a country where you can speak to anyone, even the PM, if you really want to.

Wall was once quoted in an article on how the rich shopped for their homes to the effect that they were no different.

"There's polite people and impolite people, and I only do business with the polite ones. I don't like rude people."

I raised this because I fancy Wall's affability and good manners are part of his success.

"Manners? I reckon it's everything. I'm really impressed by good manners."

Open doors?

"I suppose it does. I don't think I've got particularly good manners," he says, blaspheming I suspect to make his point, "but it's the essence of everything really."

I ask whether he's become known as "the Bike Trail Guy".

"Well some people seem to think I have good ideas."

People at Air New Zealand and the Tourism Ministry might agree. They are working on another of Wall's ideas to fly tourists here for free when they purchase a $10,000 debitcard that can only be spent in New Zealand.

That idea came out of the Entrepreneur's Summit which followed Key's Job's Summit. Wall explains how he'd got invited. He bumped into organiser Tony Falkenstein in a coffee shop. They'd met 20 years earlier. (Success Tip: never forget a face).

No surprise both ideas are tourism-friendly. Wall reckons New Zealand's marketing line "100% Pure" is genius and the "expert" who recently suggested its time was up after 10 years is an idiot. "That's the best position statement any country could have. Changing it is like saying to the All Blacks that 'that black colour was okay but let's try turquoise'."

What's his brand, his motto then? "Stay lucky!" he says. That's what he writes on greeting cards to those he loves.

He'd have you believe that his success is down to "phenomenal good luck".

I suspect he makes his luck.

Being a one-man band means he can control the sales message, he offers. "Another reason I have good luck, and this sounds glib, is it never leaves my consciousness that someone is giving me a $10 or $15 million asset to sell and that's a very privileged position to be given."

He hardly ever places a house-for-sale ad. The phone still rings with people wanting to entrust him with selling or buying a multimillion-dollar asset. And Wall still says, "Goodness, what a privilege."

He came to real estate in 2002, aged 51. "I'd had this thought in the back of mind. Why isn't there this sort of stylish, bespoke and I'm not saying that's me where the seller instead of having maybe 20 agents telling 20 different stories has [the one dedicated person]."

Wall was surprised how easily success came. "It's not complicated you know. An old friend, a car dealer, said about the car business that 'you don't have to be clever to sell cars, you just have to be there.' I started to think that about property."

Another success tip but one you suspect needs constant attention. Wall moved office from Parnell to the city because he bumps into so many more acquaintances downtown. You suspect he is at work wherever he is.
And here's another: "I reckon the most important thing is to listen to people and I like chattering so bloody listening doesn't come naturally. But if you pay attention you will learn what people want from a transaction. People assume it's always about price. Well, often it's not."

When I suggest Wall must be quite rich he insists that he's too good at spending.

He feels rich to live in the village atmosphere of Arthur St, with its workman's cottages and mansions and the church where the islanders sing, with two of his kids and a couple of his brothers living so close he can bet on bumping into them having coffee on Ponsonby Rd.

Little wonder when I asked the real estate man where was best to live in Auckland that he said: Arthur St.

Lucky news too on the phone front. Wall reports a visit from a 'phone mentor'. "She showed me all the things my phone could do and then said 'any questions?' "Just one," replied Wall. "How do I put the SIM card back in?"

That service normally costs $130 an hour but for Wall it was gratis.
Wall sees good all about him. Gordon Gecko's "greed is good" died with the subprime crash.

Wall said: "You know what? I reckon the next mega-trend is going to be goodness. I just see it in so many people. Good is the new good."

Backpage prediction: Graham Wall is going to stay lucky.