The secret to selling Wellington: Lowe & Co’s Emma Young on property market success

It’s easy to feel glum about Wellington’s housing market between falling house prices, interest rate hikes and public service cuts — but you won’t find Lowe & Co real estate agent Emma Young getting bogged down in the doom and gloom.

The company has swiftly become a key player in the Wellington market since Young and three others started it in 2015.

Young has won New Zealand Agent of the Year at the Australasian Real Estate Result Awards in 2023 and 2024.

She chose a property on the market in Khandallah for a sit-down interview with the Herald about what it takes to be a top real estate agent.

The finishing touches of an open home were in place for the occasion. The spa pool was bubbling away with the cover pulled back, a Lowe & Co welcome mat was by the front door, and inside a candle was lit with upbeat music playing in the background.

A pot plant had fallen over beforehand, but Young had set it upright and hosed the soil off the deck in a flash.

Young’s approach to real estate is personal, which she thinks sets Lowe & Co apart from other agencies.

“Real estate agents in the past haven’t been portrayed in a very good light. I like to defy all odds so, when people meet me, they’ve got their guard up initially from their previous experiences.

“But certainly, once they have a normal conversation they realise we’re just humans as well and actually, we want the best for every single person we meet rather than trying to be cut-throat like old-school real estate.”

Emma Young in a house she has on the market in Khandallah, Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The roles Young takes on when selling a house can range from heat pump technician to therapist.

Getting a home “market ready” is a big part of her job, whether it’s arranging to get a deck stained, a fresh lick of neutral paint in a master bedroom with polarising wallpaper, or an interior stylist advising on an entire property.

Lowe & Co has put a significant effort into marketing, and Young’s face features on large billboards throughout the city.

“We’re in people’s minds a lot more, we’re a little bit more familiar, so they feel more comfortable with us”, she said.

“I often get that with people walking through the door at open homes because they feel like they already know me.”

In recent years, Young has realised it’s not enough to brand only properties — she has to brand herself, too.

The biggest part of her business is word of mouth, repeat clients, and referrals.

Young has sold the homes of high-profile Wellingtonians including former Mayor Justin Lester and Newstalk ZB Drive host Heather du Plessis-Allan and her husband Barry Soper when they moved to Auckland.

“I knew Emma’s reputation — she’s one of the best agents in all of Wellington, if not New Zealand”, Lester said in an online video testimonial.

“She works hard, she’s genuine, she’s worked from the bottom up.”

Young has been in the real estate business since 2011.

At the time, she had a 10-month-old baby and worked for two years as a personal assistant to Craig Lowe, who Lowe & Co is named after.

She had always considered getting her real estate licence and decided early on, as a young mum at 22, that she had to make her own way in the world.

“That determination started from my upbringing and has definitely continued.”

A few years later she was starting a company that would go on to have about 50 agents working in the market.

“Our market share is phenomenal across every suburb in Wellington, which is really a testament to the hard-working agents that we’ve got behind us,” Young said.

After the arrival of Covid-19 in 2020, Young sold her lounge suite so her team could work from her living room in an office bubble for a few months.

“I realised when the acorns were falling, everyone else was kind of scattering and a little bit afraid of what was going to happen, whereas we took the attitude of it is what it is and we’ve got to keep going.”

It put them in a good position when, as it turned out, the housing market surged after the pandemic.

Lowe & Co has put a significant effort into marketing and Emma Young’s face features on large billboards throughout the city. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The Wellington region’s average property value hit a peak of $1.14 million in March 2022, according to the OneRoof-Valocity House Value Index.

However, by the end of April this year, the average was slightly over $900,000.

The Reserve Bank has raised the Official Cash Rate to 5.5 per cent in a battle with inflation.

There has been pushback from banks on how much they were willing to lend.

Young said she had previous experience in markets where agents worked harder to sell properties, unlike those who started in the industry during Covid-19.

“I’ve heard many a time: ‘Don’t houses just sell themselves’? No, they don’t. There’s a lot of legwork that goes on behind the scenes.”

There had been more supply this year with 900-950 overall listings from Tawa to Seatoun, she said.

This week that number was down to 840 listings, which was good for people selling their homes because there was less competition, Young said.

She acknowledged Kiwis were thinking carefully about where their next dollar was spent in the present economic climate.

“But homes are homes and the kids naturally get older, people need more space, job opportunities crop up, and people move abroad.”

Young said contrary to what other agents might be experiencing, Lowe & Co was having a “phenomenal time getting really great results”.

She gave examples of several properties in the past couple of weeks that have had several offers on each, with many of them unconditional.

“That’s because we are following up a lot more, we are having to problem-solve a lot more, and if there’s the option to sell it because a buyer is interested but just doesn’t know how to pursue, we’re finding them and we’re helping them through that process.”

The unique beauty of Wellington was the inability to go further south, Young said.

“We’re landlocked. So, if you want that eastern-suburb lifestyle, if you want that northern-suburb lifestyle, you’re only going to get it in certain pockets of Wellington and you can be in the city in minutes in any direction — it just depends on which location and which hub you want.

“That’s the special thing about Wellington. The pockets of development in Auckland and Christchurch are different because it’s so spread out and we don’t have that. That’s the charm of Wellington.”

Georgina Campbell is a Wellington-based reporter who has a particular interest in local government, transport, and seismic issues. She joined the Herald in 2019 after working as a broadcast journalist.