"The phone was silent for a while. Then I thought, 'This is Dame Rosanne, you don't give her the silent treatment. She might hang up'," he said. "I was really totally surprised. It was totally unexpected."
The former Otumoetai College boy started out as a mechanic at the Holden garage and moved into IT and the finance industry before taking up real estate in 1987.
He qualified as a licensed agent in 1990, and the following year he and business partner Stephen Pepper bought the Tauranga franchise of Challenge Realty.
Three months later, at the age of 32, he was declared legally blind.
"At the time it was a devastating thing really but it was also a blessing in disguise. It meant that we had to reorganise what we did," he said.
Mr Falconer got his eyes checked when he noticed he was having trouble following the ball while playing squash in his early 20s and was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa (RP). His brother has the same condition.
RP is a hereditary disease of the retina, which means the cells that detect light and colour slowly die and are not regenerated properly.
Mr Falconer did not expect his eyesight to deteriorate so completely but knew it was getting bad when he pulled into what he thought was the driveway of a property he was selling, only to find he had driven up the garden path.
He was already moving out of sales into more of a managerial, administrative role when he was declared legally blind and he was able to work around it.
Mr Falconer said he had no choice but to continue to work to build the business he had just bought, but it was only by building good teams around him and being willing to accept help that he was able to keep going.
"It's no good sitting down and feeling sorry for yourself. You've got to get on and make the best for yourself.
"Being blind is no fun, but there are people who are far worse off than me," he said.
Paperwork was a problem and Mr Falconer had to ask people for help reading it.
Technology has come a long way since then and, with the help of the Blind Foundation, he now has a high-tech scanner that he uses to load paperwork into the computer, which then reads it to him.
He has learned to get around fairly well on his own and for the past two years has had the help of his guide dog Sophie.
"I thought it wouldn't suit my lifestyle but I was so wrong about that," he said.
"She's made a huge difference just the level of independence."
Going blind changed life for Mr Falconer, his wife and his business associates, but it has not slowed him down.
He has been a REINZ district president, national vice-president and chairman of the industry's training organisation, REAL ITO.
He remains a keen waterskier and used to snow ski regularly with the help of a guide, until he collided with a pole.
"Disability needn't mean inability," he said. "Without minimising the knowledge of the frustration and thoughts of 'why me?' - because I still get that - you've got to find a way forward. You have to put your feet on the ground every day and keep going."
