Ben Macky - Leadership and Luxury Real Estate

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Ben Macky - Leadership and Luxury Real Estate

Director – NZ Sotheby’s International Realty North. Helping exceptional agents grow and representing extraordinary homes across New Zealand.

24/09/2026

I've always encouraged people to keep learning and upskilling. It's still what separates good
from very good.

It just isn't what breaks a plateau.

When an agent's numbers sit at the same level for a few years, the instinct is to go looking for a missing skill. More training, a better script, a sharper listing presentation. Sometimes that's exactly right.

More often it's simpler. Every listing carries a few dozen small judgementcalls. What to advise on price. Which buyer to chase. What to say when a campaign goes quiet in week three. None of them are hard on their own, and that's the trap. They never feel like the thing holding you back.

But all of them need the same person. One person can carry a certain number of those in a week, and once you're at that number, more effort doesn't add any. It just moves the tiredness around.

Getting better makes each of those decisions sharper. It doesn't let you make more of them.

So the ceiling lifts one of two ways. Fewer decisions on your plate, or a team around you taking some of them.

Worth a think if you've been sitting at the same number for a while and can't quite work out why.

22/09/2026

Two markets moved in opposite directions last month.

The general market got slower. 51 days to sell in August, three days longer than the same month a year ago.

At $5 million and above, it got faster. 72 days, down from 95 last August and 88 the August before.

That's the fastest August the top end has had in three years, while everything below it slowed.

Premium always takes longer in absolute terms. The comparison that matters is against its own history, not against the general market.

It's worth being careful with. Fifteen sales in a month is a small base, so I'd call it a direction rather than a trend. One slow month would flatten it.

But it fits what we're seeing across the campaigns our team is running. Buyers at this level aren't hesitating. They're waiting for the right property, then moving quickly once it appears.

Which puts the pressure back on the campaign. Being the property they move on is a preparation question, not a timing one.

And 72 days to sell at $5 million and above is still ten weeks of holding a market's attention. That's the part that gets underestimated when a launch is planned, especially by anyone reading the improvement as a quick result.

Worth factoring in before spring listings build.

15/09/2026

The latest NZSIR Property Pulse splits today's buyers into downsizers, upsizers and expats. Then all three gave almost exactly the same answer.

Location was named as a key influence by 90% of agents seeing downsizers, 88% seeing upsizers, and 90% seeing expats.

I find that more useful than the segmentation itself. Knowing which category your buyer sits in tells you less than you'd expect, because the thing all three are weighing is the same.

Where it gets more interesting is what actually makes them move. 62% of agents pointed to sharp pricing from launch. Not the campaign, not the photography, not the story. The number on day one.

That's the least comfortable finding in the report, and it's the one vendors most often ask us to work around.

The other shift worth noting is expats. Almost double the proportion of agents identifying them as active compared with late last year. For a returning New Zealander the property decision sits inside a bigger one about where to re-establish a life, which is why location and lifestyle come out ahead of everything else for that group.

Buyers aren't hesitant at the moment. They're selective, and they're waiting to be given a reason.

10/09/2026

As an agent working on your own, you're not going to keep up with AI. I don't say that as a criticism.

Anyone who's worked with me knows I'm a big fan of it. Used properly it takes hours out of the week and speeds up work that used to sit in a queue for days.

But there's no clean version of bringing AI into a business. Things break. Processes that worked fine get pulled apart and put back together badly before they get better. It's time and money out of the business now, for a return we won't see for a year.

I'm comfortable with that trade.

The alternative is a business that looks tidy on paper and runs at the same speed it did five years ago, while everything around it gets faster. That's the more expensive option. It just doesn't show up on a spreadsheet.

The technology will keep improving whether or not any of us keep pace. I'd rather we were already six months into the messy part than starting it next year.

Every AI pitch I've sat through has used the word seamless. Ours won't be.

Interested to hear how others are working through this one.

08/09/2026

Vendors are better at reading a room than we give them credit for.

Anyone can sound certain in a listing presentation. It's the easiest part of the job to get right, and anyone who's been doing this a while can do it without thinking.

What they can't fake is what happens next. When a vendor pushes back on price, or asks a question nobody prepared them for, the difference shows up straight away. An agent who has done the work holds their position and explains why. One who hasn't will move, and the vendor feels it even if they never say so.

That isn't really about confidence. It's about preparation, and the two get confused constantly.

The part I find interesting is that you can't hire for it. Nothing in an interview tells you how someone behaves when a conversation gets uncomfortable. You find out later, usually on the campaigns that don't run smoothly.

Which is also where this skill gets built. The agents I'd back in a difficult meeting weren't like that when they started. They had a few campaigns that stretched them, and something changed.

Worth thinking about if you're weighing up what to work on this year.

03/09/2026

Jono Reeves joined us earlier this year. Three wins across Northland in Q2 is a strong start by any measure.

Northland isn't a market you can shortcut. Relationships there take time.

We asked him what's actually felt different since he arrived.

The answer wasn't the Sotheby's name. It was the opportunities that come attached to it.

That distinction is worth sitting with. A brand on a sign is worth something. A brand that changes which conversations you get invited into is worth considerably more.

The other thing he mentioned is that Northland is carving out its own identity now. Land that's been held in the same families for generations is starting to come to market.

That's a real shift, and it will change what the region looks like over the next decade.

Good agents tend to notice a market moving before it shows up anywhere else. Jono is already seeing it.

Really pleased to have him with us.

Jono Reeves

01/09/2026

Ask anyone on my team and they'll tell you I'm all about the data.

Q2, measured against the same period last year.

Appraisals up 52%.
Listings up 131%.
Sales up 77%.

The one I keep coming back to is the middle number. Appraisals up 52%, listings up 131%. We aren't just getting in front of more vendors. A much higher share of them are choosing to go ahead with us.

That's the part an agent should care about. Sitting in a listing presentation is a different experience when the brand behind you is one people are already saying yes to.

Across every office. Takapuna, Waiheke, through to the Bay of Islands.

Genuinely proud of this team.

26/08/2026

REINZ's members are reporting a 'wait and see' mood across the country ahead of November's election. Buyers and sellers holding off, watching, waiting for more certainty before they commit.

That's a fair read of the broad market. It's not really what we're seeing at the premium end.

Vendors and buyers operating at $5 million plus tend to work to their own timeline, not the election calendar. When the property and the strategy are right, they move regardless of what's happening in Wellington. When they're not, no amount of political certainty changes that.

If anything, uncertainty doesn't remove genuine buyers from the market, it just thins out the number of people willing to compete for attention right now. For a vendor who's ready to go, that's not a bad position to be in.

Worth thinking about before deciding to hold off until the new year purely because of what the calendar says everyone else is doing.

25/08/2026

I said this in a strategy meeting recently. If something isn't working, I need to know.

That isn't frustration. It's maintenance.

Very little in a growing business fails outright. It drifts. Something slips slightly below the standard, nobody raises it because nothing has actually broken, and six months later that slightly lower bar is just how it's done.

By then you're not fixing a problem. You're changing a habit. That costs a lot more.

The team knows a problem raised with me isn't a mark against anyone. It's information I need to make the next decision properly.

The part people find harder is asking when things are going well. That's usually when you get the straightest answer, because nobody feels like they're delivering bad news.

Good months hide things. Bad months expose them. If you only ever ask in the bad months, you're always reacting.

We're growing quickly this year, and that's exactly when standards slip without anyone noticing.

So I keep asking. Not because I expect something to be wrong, but because I'd rather know while it's still small.

20/08/2026

The right agent. The right brand. That's a winning combination.

But only when both sides actually deliver.

Amanda Evans recently placed #6 in our Q2 Top 10 Agent awards, and she was generous enough to share some reflections on the move to NZSIR North, what's stood out to her since joining, and what's actually made the difference to her results.

A lot of what she mentioned came back to trust, standards, and putting people first, alongside a brand that genuinely backs that up in the market. Not just talk. It shows up in how vendors are represented and the conversations that follow.

When an agent's approach and the platform around them are pulling in the same direction, the results tend to follow.

That's the part people miss about this brand. It's not just prestige. It's leverage.

Well earned, Amanda. Great to see it recognised.

Address

Shop D/159 Hurstmere Road
Takapuna
0622

Telephone

+6421937885

Website

http://www.benmacky.co.nz/

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