Latest / That Home Loan Hub / From Family Portraits to Property Showcases: Lisa Budny's Creative Journey in Real Estate Photography

Transcript

From Family Portraits to Property Showcases: Lisa Budny's Creative Journey in Real Estate Photography · That Home Loan Hub

0:10
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome.
0:11
Speaker 1: I am joined today by Lisa Budney from Sunday Real Estate.
0:15
Speaker 1: Hello, Lisa, Hi, how are you going?
0:16
Speaker 1: Good, thank you.
0:17
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming in, Lisa.
0:20
Speaker 1: I would love to learn and I'm sure my listeners would love to learn as well about what you do and the importance of your current role.
0:28
Speaker 1: So, Lisa, can you please tell briefly about what you do and what the Sunday Real Estate is all about?
0:36
Speaker 2: tell briefly about what you do and what's the Sunday real estate is all about.
0:38
Speaker 2: So, yeah, my name is Lisa.
0:38
Speaker 2: I am obviously a real estate photographer, videographer, and my job is just to present the homes in the best light possible, because you're selling your biggest asset and the way you market and the first impressions of your buyers is the most important.
0:53
Speaker 2: So, yeah, my job is just to make your home look like a million bucks so that you can hopefully sell it for something close to it.
1:00
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
1:00
Speaker 1: So if it's $3 million house, will it look like a $1 million house?
1:05
Speaker 2: We'll try and make it look like a $3 million house.
1:08
Speaker 1: I thought that would be funny there, kalissa.
1:11
Speaker 1: So when did you?
1:12
Speaker 1: Because you look really young to me.
1:13
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but you're like, oh, this girl turned up and she's like straight out of high school.
1:22
Speaker 1: What's your background?
1:23
Speaker 1: What did you do prior to this?
1:24
Speaker 2: When did you launch your company?
1:24
Speaker 2: So I've been a photographer professionally for just over 10 years.
1:28
Speaker 2: I got into it straight out of high school, went to uni for four years, studied it there and I started off as a family photographer.
1:37
Speaker 2: So I was a family photographer for about four years, loved it but needed a bit of a change.
1:41
Speaker 2: So that's when I went into real estate and I've just fallen in love with it.
1:46
Speaker 2: I was working with the team at Sold on Kapiti in their office.
1:50
Speaker 1: No way Sold on Kapiti.
1:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I've done a couple of episodes with them as well.
1:54
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I've heard those.
1:56
Speaker 1: Awesome.
1:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I was working with them for a little while and, yeah, just got the push to think about going out on my own and then I did it and I haven't looked back since.
2:07
Speaker 2: It's been amazing.
2:09
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
2:09
Speaker 1: So why real estate?
2:11
Speaker 1: Like compared to people?
2:12
Speaker 1: What makes real estate different?
2:15
Speaker 2: I think it's that you can have your own kind of.
2:18
Speaker 2: I mean, you can have your own style with family photography as well, don't get me wrong.
2:21
Speaker 2: But it's just a different market of people that you're working with, like when you're working with families and people and taking photos of their faces not a lot of people like how they look and they ask for changes and that sort of thing which is fine.
2:34
Speaker 2: Not a lot of people like how they look and they ask for changes and that sort of thing which is fine.
2:38
Speaker 2: But you just kind of get into a flow of not enjoying it as much.
2:41
Speaker 2: But with real estate, I've kind of just every house is different.
2:45
Speaker 2: I've always loved going to open homes.
2:46
Speaker 2: I've always loved interior design.
2:48
Speaker 2: So every house that I go to that's a staged home.
2:51
Speaker 2: Or even if it's not a staged home and I see people's furniture, I'm like, oh, that's really cool, I want that for myself.
2:55
Speaker 2: Or um, it's like going to an open home.
2:57
Speaker 2: Every house that I go to and I get to see it before the public gets to see it, that's cool, that's exciting yeah, yeah, definitely.
3:04
Speaker 2: so that's that's my main like.
3:05
Speaker 2: I just I love going to like see different houses and how people have done their design and how they've um set up their homes and I'm like, oh, maybe I could do that for myself and it's a bit of an inspiration, it's like a live Pinterest board.
3:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was about to say that would be so exciting to see the range of different houses as well.
3:22
Speaker 1: I guess, like from the first-home buyers market, that we get you know the houses at 500K range, et cetera, and then the multimillion-dollar houses as well, that you'll be shooting and going.
3:33
Speaker 1: Oh, how can we bring it?
3:37
Speaker 2: yeah, even looking at the layouts of some houses, I see some that are similar layout to my home and I'm like, oh, maybe I could style mine in that way as well, or maybe if we renovate, then this could be something that we could look at.
3:48
Speaker 2: Or I love the benchtop here, or I love the lighting here, and it's just, it's interesting.
3:53
Speaker 2: It's always every house is interesting for me and it's always a different day, different house, different people.
3:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, how long have you?
4:01
Speaker 1: been on your own now.
4:03
Speaker 2: It'll be a year on the 1st of March.
4:06
Speaker 1: Ooh, happy one year anniversary.
4:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome.
4:10
Speaker 1: So, in terms of photography and the video, what are the biggest challenges you find when doing the real estate?
4:17
Speaker 1: What people should be doing better to prepare their house for when you come around?
4:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of like a you think of it almost like a job interview when you're selling your house and you're getting your house ready for market.
4:30
Speaker 2: The way you present your house is how people are going to see it for the first time.
4:33
Speaker 2: Market the way you present your house is how people are going to see it for the first time.
4:36
Speaker 2: So if you uh, you know, leaving it in a bit of a mess and people are going to see it is that's how the house has always been treated you don't tidy up for them yeah, I try not to.
4:44
Speaker 2: I have in the past I've picked up a vacuum cleaner and a shower squeegee and, um, yeah, do a little bit of cleaning myself.
4:51
Speaker 2: But um, yeah, if the best thing that people can do to prepare the house for it being shot for going on the market is just to treat it like this is the best presentation of your home that you're ever going to get, um, but yeah, I have.
5:06
Speaker 2: I have had my fair share of picking up a vacuum cleaner.
5:09
Speaker 1: I'll give you a business idea here now.
5:10
Speaker 1: I'm not going to charge you for this.
5:11
Speaker 1: I think you should open a site business called Sunday Cleaning Company and just build it into your contract.
5:20
Speaker 1: So when you, like you know, sign the people to do your, to take your services on board.
5:27
Speaker 1: So photography, videography, you'll be like part of that.
5:29
Speaker 1: You have to also get my cleaning company and, just like, employ a couple of people you know, get them in, clean the house quickly before you come in.
5:37
Speaker 2: Sounds good to me.
5:37
Speaker 2: Why, as long as I don't have to do it Exactly exactly?
5:42
Speaker 1: And that's another thing at the moment, like there's heaps of people at the moment that are struggling right, there are people that it's hard for them to leave paycheck to paycheck, so a lot of them are picking up all the extra jobs by cleaning, all the extra jobs by cleaning, doing the loans, I don't know, moving furnitures, et cetera.
5:55
Speaker 1: So you could have a couple of different people on contract.
5:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good thing to think about Pay contractors.
6:01
Speaker 1: For the future there you go, there you go.
6:04
Speaker 1: So this is cool to know, like I find sometimes people don't think about decluttering you know like just even simple things.
6:11
Speaker 1: Decluttering the room makes it more spacious.
6:14
Speaker 1: I've sold a fair share of houses in my lifetime now through my own property journey and um, I've learned now, okay, less is more yeah right.
6:23
Speaker 1: Do you find the same for the yeah?
6:25
Speaker 2: absolutely, and you know, sometimes you'll get moments where you have so much stuff that you don't want to get rid of but you still want your house to look nice, and one of.
6:35
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know if this is the same for every real estate photographer, but I don't take photos of hallways.
6:40
Speaker 2: So if you have heaps of stuff that you need to get out of the house but you have nowhere to put it, put it in the hallway or shut the doors.
6:45
Speaker 2: Put it in the hallway.
6:46
Speaker 2: Your hallway can become the biggest cupboard that you own and you just you don't see it.
6:51
Speaker 2: So, um, there's a lot of little hidey places that you can store all of the stuff that you don't want to get rid of yet but you don't want in your photos, and that's like my main place.
7:01
Speaker 2: If I can't find somewhere, it's in the either in the laundry or it's in the hallway.
7:06
Speaker 1: I love it okay, that's cool.
7:08
Speaker 1: Um, what um companies do you work for around here in Kapiti?
7:14
Speaker 1: Is there any ones that you regularly work with?
7:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do a lot with Sold on Kapiti out here.
7:20
Speaker 2: I have been in touch with a couple of other companies that I'm maybe going to start doing work with if it works with them as well.
7:26
Speaker 2: I've done some work with Bailey's out here as well.
7:29
Speaker 2: I've actually got a Twilight shoot with them tonight and I work all the way up to Parramatta in Porirua and all the way up to Livin as well.
7:40
Speaker 2: So I work with some companies out there as well.
7:43
Speaker 2: I've done work with, like Wilton, co Donabatton, bailey's all out in Parramatta.
7:49
Speaker 2: Cool, so you can travel, yeah, travel, yeah.
7:54
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
7:54
Speaker 1: So you just mentioned Twilightilight shooting.
7:56
Speaker 1: Can we talk a little bit about more about that, because I'm in love with twilight photos, like every time the listing comes up and if there's a twilight photo, that's the one that grabs you.
8:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, because most of the time people spend a lot of time at home in the evenings I mean normally in the morning you wake up, you go to work, school, whatever yeah you come home and you want to enjoy that environment.
8:17
Speaker 1: usually, in my opinion, mostly in the evenings maybe.
8:20
Speaker 1: So the twilight is the one that grabs my attention, but also I'm a bit of a romantic at heart, so, ooh, that's beautiful.
8:27
Speaker 1: So how can people make their house look beautiful for the twilight?
8:32
Speaker 2: So for twilight photography it's basically just your lounge, kitchen, dining and exterior.
8:39
Speaker 2: So the bedrooms and stuff they can kind of go to however you want them.
8:44
Speaker 2: Your bathrooms don't have to be super clean, but it's just the living room and the kitchen and the dining usually.
8:51
Speaker 2: So the best thing is, if I'm there during the day, you just leave the house as it is and then for twilight I come back and shoot it, um, as I did during the day, and then after that you can kind of go back to however you can cook your food, your dinner, your furniture, yeah, but yeah, you can kind of have everything back to how it was.
9:08
Speaker 2: But, um, a lot of people don't realize that when I'm coming back for twilight I have to tell them where I'm going to be, because I have come back to a house before and they were in the middle of cooking a full Sunday roast.
9:18
Speaker 1: Nice.
9:19
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh my gosh, because with twilight photography you've got about I'd say it's about a seven minute window of really good twilight time, and as soon as that time starts, you've got about seven minutes before it's completely dark outside and then you have to go home.
9:36
Speaker 2: So I always go around and take initial photos first, just in case it's too early or too late, or if I come back inside after being outside and it's too late, then I have those initial photos to begin with so I can still work with them.
9:50
Speaker 2: But yeah, a lot of people don't realise that I'll be inside and outside, because they see all these beautiful twilight photos from.
9:57
Speaker 2: The outside is usually the cover photo, because that's the one that makes it different online, especially when you're looking on Trade Me.
10:02
Speaker 2: But yeah, they see these outside photos and they're like, oh, it's going to be like that, and then they don't realise, oh, she's coming inside too.
10:11
Speaker 2: We've got to move our stuff.
10:13
Speaker 1: So the tip is not to cook Sunday roast when Sunday is coming around, get takeaways, go for a walk.
10:20
Speaker 2: I won't be long.
10:21
Speaker 2: Most of the time I will, if they are, if people are home, because people are welcome to stay at home, especially at the moment when the sun's setting around 8, 39 o'clock, um, people are welcome to be at home, but they just usually hide in one of the rooms and stay away from the windows.
10:36
Speaker 2: Little reflections, yes, especially when there's kids.
10:40
Speaker 2: If I have the drone up, especially at twilight, they're just by the windows watching, so I'll get them to come and stand outside with me sometimes and they can just stand there with me, so I know they're out of the way.
10:48
Speaker 2: What do you do with?
10:50
Speaker 1: pets.
10:51
Speaker 2: What can people do with pets during the shoot, um, so sometimes I'll just put them in one of the rooms it could be a bedroom or a laundry or they'll take them for walks and stuff like that.
10:59
Speaker 2: If it's during the day, usually I'm there for over an hour, so if they don't want to go for a walk for an hour I don't know if I would want to walk for an hour Sometimes if they don't want to do that, then they can just put them in one of the bedrooms or the laundry and I can just move around based on where they are.
11:16
Speaker 2: So I'll shoot the other rooms and then I'll come back to the room that they're in.
11:18
Speaker 2: But I've never had an issue with them before.
11:22
Speaker 1: I had a cat.
11:23
Speaker 1: He was notorious for like photobombing all of our photos, usually for the house shoots.
11:29
Speaker 1: Photo bombing all of our photos, usually for the house shoots.
11:34
Speaker 2: And then he'll come out and greet people at the open homes as well.
11:36
Speaker 2: It was really cool.
11:37
Speaker 2: He was 18.
11:37
Speaker 2: I did a photo shoot for um it was about a year ago.
11:39
Speaker 2: For um, it was for Selvam Kapiti and in this photo uh, in these photos, this cat kept appearing in all my photos.
11:47
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, do I just edit them out or do I just leave it?
11:49
Speaker 2: And I was like, no, I'm just gonna leave it.
11:51
Speaker 2: So I left the cat in all the photos.
11:52
Speaker 2: And then, a year later, I was joking to them at the house.
11:55
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, if you ever need a, you know, rehome your cat, because it was a beautiful rag doll.
11:59
Speaker 2: I was like, if you ever need to rehome your cat, just let me know.
12:02
Speaker 2: And I was, I was joking.
12:04
Speaker 2: And then I got a call a year later and they're like hey, we're actually moving and we can't take our cat with us.
12:08
Speaker 2: Do you want the cat?
12:09
Speaker 2: And I was like, yep.
12:10
Speaker 2: Then we just talked to the boss, spoke to my partner and took a little bit of convincing.
12:14
Speaker 2: But now we've got the cat, now you've got the cat, yeah, I've got the photos of the cat and all of these other photos.
12:19
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, that's so funny he chose you yeah, he chose me he chose you.
12:22
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
12:23
Speaker 1: That's really cool.
12:24
Speaker 1: Um so drone.
12:25
Speaker 1: You just mentioned drone.
12:26
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the drone photography.
12:28
Speaker 1: So you just stand there, play with like little remote.
12:31
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, so I have one that connects to my phone, um, and it's it's quite, um, it's quite interesting, like shooting with the drone.
12:41
Speaker 2: A lot of people hate them, they hate the sounds of them, um, they think that it's some kids that have got them for Christmas and they're spying on them.
12:49
Speaker 2: I've had a few people saying they're going to throw things at it.
12:51
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, I'm fully licensed to fly it.
12:55
Speaker 2: You have to apply for a three-year license to fly them.
12:59
Speaker 2: So I've got one of those and I always knock on the neighbor's doors if I'm going to go anywhere near their boundary line because, yeah, people just throw things.
13:07
Speaker 2: I've had people throw balls at them.
13:09
Speaker 2: I've had people, yeah, just, is this something my kids would do?
13:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're like oh, look at that thing, let's throw some balls at that.
13:16
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, there's a couple of I call them Karen and Darren's, but that don't like the drone.
13:25
Speaker 2: But yeah, the best thing I can do is just go and talk to them and let them know what I'm going to be doing and I'll blur out the people's houses if they don't want them on the market and in the backgrounds and that sort of thing.
13:33
Speaker 2: It's just a courtesy thing, but yeah, it's.
13:35
Speaker 2: It's fun, like you, kind of just um, a lot of the time I'll see if I can see myself when I'm editing, um, and I'm just standing in the bush or hiding behind a tree or hiding behind a car or um, yeah, and I can usually edit myself out if I do see myself, and I can edit myself out of video as well, which is, um, quite a new thing that I've been doing, because sometimes you can see things you don't want to see, like parked cars or people walking.
14:00
Speaker 2: They don't want to be in the drone video and that sort of thing.
14:02
Speaker 2: So you have one of those green outfits no, just editing um, using after effects and just replacing with the surrounding content.
14:11
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's good fun.
14:13
Speaker 2: It's good challenging.
14:15
Speaker 1: I just suddenly imagined you in one of those onesies.
14:17
Speaker 1: Imagine that you know the green one, you know the ones I'm talking about, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, and you're like oh my gosh, Imagine that I would just.
14:24
Speaker 2: I think I would get a lot more.
14:26
Speaker 1: I think police will come out.
14:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to say I think a couple of phone calls will be made to the police and some weird person's outside with a drone obviously staring at my house and it's like oh gosh.
14:38
Speaker 1: No, this is fun.
14:38
Speaker 1: So one thing I always come across when I talk to people on my side of when they want to sell their house and they want to buy another one, and people try to skim on money and they try to save money.
14:50
Speaker 1: So they go, you know, I can, um, I can sell the property myself, I can do the photos myself, I can do the videos myself.
14:56
Speaker 1: They think it's really easy because we live in a day and age of, um, really cool iphones and android phones.
15:02
Speaker 1: That have really cool cameras and six lenses and blah blah.
15:04
Speaker 1: So what is the difference between diying because you know we're in New Zealand, there's a kiwi culture of do it yourself mate to using a professional?
15:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think everyone can tell.
15:18
Speaker 2: When you're scrolling on Trade Me and you're looking at houses, you can see which ones have been shot on an iPhone and which ones have been shot on a camera, including video, like, I see a lot of real estate photographers and videographers out there using their phones and don't get me wrong, you can um, but you can definitely tell the difference um and you it's one of those things that you get what you pay for.
15:40
Speaker 2: You know, like, if you want, um, something quick and cheap, then it's going to look quick and cheap and that's if that's.
15:44
Speaker 2: If you're fine with that, then that's absolutely okay.
15:46
Speaker 2: But, um, yeah, you can definitely tell the difference between what was shot on an iPhone and what was shot on a camera.
15:54
Speaker 2: Um, it's just, you think about it, um, in a way where it's like, you know, if the expense for marketing seems like a lot, think of the amount of money that you're going to get from the sale because you have better marketing.
16:09
Speaker 2: So if you, if you're like, oh, I'm just gonna get a cheap um lot of photos done, um, and that will, that way, I don't have to pay as much, that could cost you thousands and thousands of dollars in your end result because of the people that you're getting through in the open homes, or the people that are have their eyes on your listing.
16:27
Speaker 2: Um, and I've seen it time and time again where I have actually gone and re-shot a house for an agent because they had photos that they weren't really loving and then, um, they weren't getting the numbers for their open homes, and then I've gone through and I've redone the photos for them and then the numbers have picked up, and then the house is sold or it's still on the market, but they've still got more numbers coming through.
16:46
Speaker 2: So, yeah, it does make a difference um, the type of marketing that you pay for, um, but yeah, no, absolutely, and I think, um, this is the reality.
16:57
Speaker 1: Right, you will save three grand on marketing, but then you will probably lose 50k of the sales price.
17:04
Speaker 1: So it's sort of yeah, and I think sometimes people are short-sighted, they don't see that.
17:10
Speaker 1: So this is why we're doing this, you know, to educate people that sometimes maybe you do need to reach out to professionals and get it done.
17:18
Speaker 1: So, do you work directly with people or do you work with the agents, like who employs you, the?
17:26
Speaker 2: agents.
17:26
Speaker 1: Who contracts you?
17:26
Speaker 2: sorry, yeah, so the agents usually employ me, so they will be the ones that will contact me.
17:31
Speaker 2: Um, I do have a lot to do with the vendors when I'm there.
17:34
Speaker 2: If the vendors are there and they if they have any questions, I'll I'll go through and answer those questions for them.
17:39
Speaker 2: Like, if they are wondering how many photos they're going to get, or, um, you know how a lot of the time they ask me how long I've been doing it, because a lot of people um have the same reaction as me.
17:50
Speaker 1: When you turn up, you're like are you just out of high school?
17:52
Speaker 1: Because you look so young?
17:55
Speaker 2: oh, I'm definitely.
17:56
Speaker 2: I'm coming up 30, so no way, yeah, share some tips of what makes you look so young.
18:03
Speaker 1: Thank you, must be must be must be the love for the it must be what you do actually matters and will either age you or make you look more youthful.
18:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just honestly, having a passion for what you do and loving your job is such a big thing, like last night I was working until 3 o'clock in the morning.
18:23
Speaker 2: I was editing and I didn't realize it was 3 o'clock because I was just editing photos that I loved and it was fun.
18:30
Speaker 1: And you don't even have bags under your eyes.
18:32
Speaker 1: This is not fair.
18:33
Speaker 2: And I got woken up this morning by a phone call, so it was fine.
18:35
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's just, when you do what you love, it makes a massive difference.
18:42
Speaker 2: I know it sounds really cliche and corny, but yeah, like if you.
18:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's that thing that if you, uh, what's what's the saying?
18:51
Speaker 2: Um, if you do what you love, you're not working a single day in your life yeah, that's the one.
18:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know the one.
18:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I do exactly what I do.
18:59
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I work because I enjoy what I do.
19:01
Speaker 1: I love helping people to get across the line, yeah, and it doesn't feel like to me that I'm working, even if it's 10 o'clock at night or 11 o'clock at night and I'm still replying to some emails and stuff I don't feel like oh, you know I hate those.
19:13
Speaker 1: Why am I doing this?
19:14
Speaker 1: No not at all.
19:14
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, when you find something you love, it just feels awesome to be doing it absolutely okay.
19:22
Speaker 1: So you turn up at places.
19:23
Speaker 1: People look at you and they're like what are you doing here?
19:26
Speaker 2: yeah, like they're kind of like looking for the rest of the team and it's just me.
19:29
Speaker 2: I'm like, hey, and then, um, I like, pleasantly, I do get like feedback from agents, whether they like it or um, like specific things about the shoots that they like, they like the twilights, or if they like the video, or I do social media reels and that sort of thing, just so that there's another avenue of marketing and they'll say which part of it they liked more and I'll get feedback that way.
19:50
Speaker 2: But yeah, I do get it quite a bit where I walk up to the house and they are kind of wondering where the manager is and I'm like that's me, I am the manager.
19:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it.
19:59
Speaker 1: I used to get that a lot when I first started.
20:01
Speaker 1: I must have aged by now, but when I first started about six, seven years ago, I would turn up and they would also look at me with a bit of suspicion, I think, because my Asian look also can be deceiving.
20:10
Speaker 1: You know of how old I am.
20:12
Speaker 1: They'll be like are you qualified enough to give us financial advice?
20:16
Speaker 1: Like people would be, you know, in their 50s or 60s.
20:18
Speaker 1: And they'll be looking at me thinking I'm just fresh out of high school as well and I'm like, no, no, like you know, I've been around, I know what I'm doing.
20:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's really interesting.
20:27
Speaker 1: I mean, you're a woman, I'm a woman.
20:29
Speaker 1: We live in a world where we constantly have to prove ourselves, sometimes more than men.
20:33
Speaker 1: No offense men, but like men tend to look different or age different to women.
20:38
Speaker 1: So when they turn up in a suit, nobody really questions their age or where's the manager for them.
20:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really interesting.
20:48
Speaker 1: So tell me a little bit more about your family dynamics at the moment, like you mentioned, you've got a partner.
20:54
Speaker 2: Yeah.
20:55
Speaker 2: So yeah, me and my partner, we've been together for it'll be coming up 10 years and we have a little dog together.
21:04
Speaker 2: We have our two cats, two ragdoll cats.
21:06
Speaker 2: Love them, and that's kind of it at the moment.
21:10
Speaker 2: Uh, we're not.
21:10
Speaker 2: We want kids one day, but just not yet.
21:12
Speaker 2: We just want to wait a little bit longer, um, if you're ever up for babysitting yes, perfect just saying I've got four children I'll teach them how to um take photos and they can come and help me.
21:21
Speaker 2: That'd be cool.
21:23
Speaker 1: Um, I'm not sure if you know, but in the past I did some photography as well.
21:25
Speaker 1: Oh, cool, dabbled into it.
21:26
Speaker 1: Um, it started when I was a student and I worked for pixie photos.
21:32
Speaker 1: Are you old enough to remember pixie?
21:34
Speaker 2: photos yes, I've heard of them, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
21:37
Speaker 1: So they were in um warehouses and farmers and we would catch people that are shopping casually and we'll say, hey, come and have a photo done and we'll book families and stuff.
21:48
Speaker 1: So this is where I first started to do professional photography as such and it was so much fun.
21:52
Speaker 1: And then I went out on my own with a couple of girlfriends and we formed a little company and we did lots of wedding photos and family photos and stuff like that.
22:01
Speaker 1: So when you were talking about families versus properties, I'm like I'm with you.
22:05
Speaker 1: I like still objects, because you don't need to.
22:08
Speaker 1: You know control if they're smiling, if their eyes are shut, whatever, you can actually control the objects a bit better by moving them around.
22:16
Speaker 2: You can't really manhandle people as much, yeah, and it's like I loved.
22:22
Speaker 2: I love being a family photographer.
22:23
Speaker 2: I do still do a couple of family for like photograph oh yeah, family photography sessions here and there.
22:30
Speaker 2: Couple of family for like photograph oh yeah, family photography sessions, um, here and there, um.
22:32
Speaker 2: But yeah, my, my passion kind of just came out of nowhere, like I wanted to look at a different style of photography and I wasn't 100 sold on what style I wanted to do, um, and then, yeah, real estate kind of just popped up and went from there.
22:48
Speaker 1: That that's cool Like I like the real estate because unless there is some sort of pressure but you're not under pressure like on a wedding day, yes.
22:57
Speaker 1: My God, I did so many weddings where it's like something would go wrong.
22:59
Speaker 1: You know the camera is not working, the battery is off or the flash is not working, the lens has crept out, whatever you know, and you're like oof.
23:16
Speaker 1: Suddenly you have to be on your feet thinking what to do and you have to have several different cameras on on the go because you only have one chance, one opportunity.
23:20
Speaker 1: Um, we're not going to see Eminem, but um, but with at least with real estate.
23:22
Speaker 2: You can come back, you can redo.
23:23
Speaker 1: You can.
23:23
Speaker 1: Um, you know you've got a bit more opportunities there to come back.
23:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, and cause I've done wedding photography as well and yeah, just the pressure of it, like it's fun, it's fun but the nerves for every shoot if you lose a card.
23:39
Speaker 2: I mean, I always shot with two cards at the same time, so if one was corrupt then I still had the backup of the other one, and I was always shooting on two cameras, but it was just like the photo shoot itself would be really exhausting.
23:52
Speaker 2: But in the editing process you have to pack through thousands and thousands of photos and, um, they could all look the same, and then you have to pack the best one and it's just um, yeah, like it was just the pressure of family photography and wedding photography was just intense and I was like this is this is gonna age me very fast.
24:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, definitely, and this is why I'm not doing that either.
24:12
Speaker 2: Yeah.
24:13
Speaker 1: Although I really love that, that part of my life.
24:17
Speaker 1: That was really fun.
24:18
Speaker 1: Um, yeah, not something I saw myself doing professionally, yeah, but well done you.
24:23
Speaker 1: I mean, you found your niche, you found what brings you joy.
24:25
Speaker 1: This is really cool and, um, and as I say, you know four kids out there for you for babysitting.
24:30
Speaker 1: You can pick your favorite and keep one too, like you did with the cat.
24:34
Speaker 1: Perfect, I'm kidding, I love my kids at the end of the school holidays, know, and it's been really long school holidays, yes, I don't know, it feels like it was the longest I've ever had.
24:45
Speaker 2: So I just feel a bit like you need a room to just go into and just sit and breathe.
24:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
24:52
Speaker 1: So what hobbies do you have?
24:55
Speaker 2: So I mean, I've always I've been into photography since I was about 12 or 13 years old, so that's always been my main hobby.
25:04
Speaker 2: But I am quite a creative person.
25:07
Speaker 2: So I do a lot of digital drawing.
25:09
Speaker 2: So I draw like people and pets and stuff like that digitally and I was it kind of started during COVID lockdown, the first lockdown, and I was doing it all on my computer and I look back on them now and I'm like those are horrible but it's fine now, like it's good to look back on them.
25:26
Speaker 2: But yeah, so being creative has always been something that I'm massively passionate about.
25:32
Speaker 2: But yeah, so I do creative illustrations and also a lot of resin art.
25:38
Speaker 2: So like I work with epoxy resin and I make like the wave patterns.
25:42
Speaker 1: I was about to ask you.
25:43
Speaker 1: Oh, I love those.
25:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, so sometimes when I'm posting on my Instagram story, for example, in the background in my office there's a board on the wall and it's got like a wave pattern on it.
25:55
Speaker 2: So that's the kind of stuff that I do and I make like coasters and that sort of thing and it's just fun.
26:02
Speaker 2: Uh, another thing that I learned in the second lockdown.
26:04
Speaker 2: So I learned how to do epoxy resin, cause I was like I'm getting a bit bored sitting here doing nothing.
26:09
Speaker 2: So, yeah, I ordered some epoxy resin, did my research, tried, failed, tried again, got it and yeah, it was just like a fun little hobby that I've got sitting in my at my house wow, that's um yeah, so it sounds like you're a very creative person and at least you found ways to let you channel it, channel your energy.
26:30
Speaker 1: So, um, give yourself a shout out in terms of where do people find you?
26:33
Speaker 1: You mentioned Instagram, so what's your name on Instagram?
26:36
Speaker 2: so my Instagram is sundaysrealestate and on Facebook as well as Sundays, real Estate Marketing, and I believe that's what it's called on Facebook.
26:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love how you're like questioning your own yeah.
26:50
Speaker 2: Cause I'm like I'm pretty sure it's Sundays Real Estate Marketing on Facebook and Sundaysrealestate on Instagram.
26:55
Speaker 2: I am on TikTok as well.
26:56
Speaker 2: I haven't really been posting as much on there.
27:02
Speaker 1: I've just been way too busy to even think about posting.
27:03
Speaker 1: So you don't do those dancing like Carl does.
27:04
Speaker 2: No, he's got way more confidence than I do.
27:07
Speaker 1: I still haven't figured out the dance button, like how do I connect and start dancing to the music?
27:13
Speaker 2: Yeah no, and him and Zoe are always like really synced with it.
27:17
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, that's great, I couldn like really um synced with it.
27:22
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, that's, that's great.
27:23
Speaker 1: No, I couldn't do it.
27:23
Speaker 1: I'm on the side of the camera.
27:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'm with you on it.
27:24
Speaker 1: Like doing this has really been pushing myself out of my comfort zone like this is fun.
27:29
Speaker 1: I love getting to know new people.
27:30
Speaker 1: I love chatting.
27:31
Speaker 1: I love finding out about their journey into what leads them to take the risk like for you, it would have been a massive risk to go from, yeah, employed yeah, stable income yeah to something now that outside of your control, in a way like you have to constantly find new contracts, make connections, you know, and probably now, a year later, you already have some established ones, but still there's probably room for more growth.
27:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, um, and this is a risk yeah, it was definitely.
27:58
Speaker 2: um, it was a.
27:59
Speaker 2: It was a couple of months of considering, like, how it was going to work.
28:03
Speaker 2: I'd saved up a lot of my salary paychecks so that we could have me and my partner could have a full back, just in case I wasn't getting clients, cause I obviously came from working in the office with Sold On Capity so I had them as a client, but I didn't know any other real estate agents.
28:20
Speaker 2: I was just trying to figure out how it was going to work and obviously my partner has a full-time job so we could survive off his income.
28:28
Speaker 2: But we would be if I wasn't working, we would have been scraping by.
28:31
Speaker 1: So baked beans on toast.
28:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, cause obviously we've got a mortgage and food and, yeah, just general life expenses and yeah.
28:42
Speaker 2: So we had enough that we could maybe do like a month of me not having anything come in.
28:47
Speaker 2: And I was just I felt so guilty if I wasn't working one of the days.
28:51
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, I need to clean the house or I need to do this for him, or I need to do this.
28:54
Speaker 2: And he was so good with it, he was just telling me to chill, but I just cut in.
28:59
Speaker 2: I was like I need to do something.
29:01
Speaker 2: So I was going out there and I was knocking on real estate agent doors and just introducing myself, showing them what I did, um, showing my examples of how my work looked and that sort of thing, and that's how I got a few of the clients that I have now.
29:13
Speaker 2: Um, but yeah, it was definitely a risk, but, um, it's paid off, it's.
29:18
Speaker 2: I wouldn.
29:19
Speaker 2: I wouldn't want to go back.
29:21
Speaker 1: That's awesome In terms of your mortgage.
29:24
Speaker 1: You just mentioned that, so I have to ask I mean, the professional in me cannot go past it how old were you when you first bought your home?
29:31
Speaker 2: Oh, it was recent, maybe two years ago, about 26.
29:33
Speaker 2: Wow, yeah, 26.
29:34
Speaker 2: That's awesome, well done.
29:35
Speaker 2: Maybe 27, yeah, 26.
29:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, 26.
29:40
Speaker 1: That's awesome, well done.
29:41
Speaker 2: Maybe 27.
29:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, 26.
29:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was two years ago.
29:44
Speaker 1: Well done, and you bought it here somewhere in Kapiti.
29:46
Speaker 2: We bought it in Otaki, yeah, so we actually found, when we because we were living in my partner's family home and, yeah, there was an unfortunate circumstance that happened with the family, so we had to sell the house, um, and we were looking for ages and we found this house in Ōtaki and I loved it, but we were subject to sale and there was already an offer on the house and so we needed to be a better offer.
30:12
Speaker 2: And we wouldn't be a better offer until we were cash buyers and we asked if we could come see the house but there was no open homes.
30:18
Speaker 2: We were like, okay, let's just forget it, we'll just keep looking.
30:21
Speaker 2: And we found some other houses that we loved, but we were like, oh, maybe not.
30:25
Speaker 2: And, um, it was.
30:27
Speaker 2: It was quite funny.
30:28
Speaker 2: We got quite a lot of um, I think we were maybe stereotyped a little bit because we looked a lot younger, um, and no one really took us seriously, not knowing the background that we had for house buying.
30:39
Speaker 2: And, yeah, we became cash buyers, sold the house, became cash buyers.
30:44
Speaker 2: We had a month to find something and I contacted the agent again.
30:48
Speaker 2: I was like, hey, like we're cash buyers now, is the house still available?
30:51
Speaker 2: And he was like yep, it's still available.
30:54
Speaker 2: Went and saw it on the Monday.
30:55
Speaker 2: So I contacted him on the Friday, went and saw on the Monday, offered on Monday midday and then we were accepted Monday afternoon.
31:02
Speaker 2: And then we had to give the other people that had put the offer in three working days and then so we were just biting our nails waiting to see if we'd got it.
31:09
Speaker 2: And yeah, we ended up getting a call from the agent and he was like oh yeah, so when do you want to do the settlement?
31:16
Speaker 2: I was like, have we got the house to do the settlement?
31:19
Speaker 2: I was like, have we got the house?
31:20
Speaker 1: and he's like oh yeah, by the way, you've got the house and it was our first house and we were like, oh my god, like this is amazing.
31:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah but it's, we love it like it's um, yeah, it's definitely the house that we wanted.
31:29
Speaker 2: It ticked a lot of our boxes, um, probably like 95 percent of our boxes were ticked with this house.
31:35
Speaker 2: So, yeah, love it wow, that's awesome.
31:38
Speaker 1: So what's next?
31:39
Speaker 1: You Do you want to have you thought about growing your investment portfolio and setting yourself up for the future.
31:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you mean house-wise?
31:46
Speaker 1: Yeah.
31:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, we want to.
31:48
Speaker 2: Our end goal is that we want to be on land, because we came from being on land and we like the idea of not being like in suburbia.
31:59
Speaker 2: So that's the end goal is that we want to be on land again.
32:05
Speaker 2: But yeah, that's kind of the only goal that we have.
32:07
Speaker 2: We were thinking of having something that has like a home and income on it so that we could rent out a space or have it as an airbnb or that sort of thing.
32:15
Speaker 2: But yeah, at the moment it's just planning to get to that stage.
32:21
Speaker 2: We're going to do a few things to the house we're in at the moment before we look at selling it.
32:24
Speaker 2: So probably another five or so years it will be in this house.
32:27
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was really interesting.
32:31
Speaker 1: I was talking to a client the other day and they have an interesting concept going on.
32:34
Speaker 1: He said oh, we've got 3-3-2.
32:36
Speaker 1: And I was like what is that?
32:37
Speaker 1: He three, two.
32:37
Speaker 1: And I was like what is that?
32:38
Speaker 1: He goes oh, every three years we're buying your property.
32:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, so every three years we'll buy one another three years we'll buy none, and then, and another two years, we'll buy another one.
32:45
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, this is really cool.
32:47
Speaker 1: So, um, maybe you know what you could do with your partners.
32:50
Speaker 1: think about your numbers and be like okay what should we do to set ourselves for the future, especially now that you don't have kids?
32:56
Speaker 1: Trust me, yes, um, this is not professional, by the way, um, but before you have kids, definitely it's much easier to to buy a property and um, but the beauty of you being in your self-employment now and growing your own company is that you can work around the babies when they come um, or you can grow your team and get someone else to do stuff for you as you grow.
33:19
Speaker 1: So this is really.
33:20
Speaker 1: I'm really excited for you.
33:21
Speaker 1: You're such a positive person and I can only see you going just.
33:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think a lot of it is just like having the confidence in yourself and what you can do and then not trying to push yourself to do something that you're not comfortable doing.
33:39
Speaker 2: So, like I've always just said, you know, like, act confident and no one will question you.
33:42
Speaker 2: Um, and in the beginning I was like, okay, I'm, I'm terrified that this is going to go wrong, or what if I don't find people?
33:48
Speaker 2: Um, and then, yeah, I just I think I just had the confidence in myself and what I could produce, and then that's what I was advertising.
33:56
Speaker 2: I wasn't trying to advertise that I could do more than what I could do.
34:00
Speaker 2: So I wouldn't, um, if someone said, oh, can you do this?
34:03
Speaker 2: And I couldn't do it, I would never.
34:05
Speaker 2: I just but no, like that's not something that I'm confident doing yet.
34:08
Speaker 2: That's different now.
34:09
Speaker 2: But, um, I've definitely like upskilled myself.
34:13
Speaker 2: But, yeah, from the beginning I was just trying to show, um, the work that I could produce and the time frames that I could produce it.
34:20
Speaker 2: So I would never promise it to be obviously a certain turnaround time unless I knew that I could reach that outcome.
34:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's awesome and I think that's a really good motto to have as well.
34:33
Speaker 1: I know there is a really cool phrase going around fake it till you make it, sort of thing, but I think it does have its own limits as well, like, obviously, you can't take a job if you have no idea, yeah, how to deliver, and then it will just ruin your reputation in your name, yeah.
34:49
Speaker 1: So I'm glad that you've got this really cool balance going on of where you will push yourself, but not too much, where it's just unobtainable yeah, yeah and it's just yeah.
34:56
Speaker 2: It's just having the confidence to like, just trusting in yourself and believing.
35:00
Speaker 2: You know.
35:00
Speaker 2: If um like for me, for example, when I was wanting to go out on my own, just having that confidence like I could do it, I've done it, I've been doing it.
35:08
Speaker 2: Just do it on my own, just go out, give it a go, and it worked out that's awesome.
35:14
Speaker 1: Now I can't wait to see um where life takes you and hopefully we can get you back in yeah and uh in another, another, you know six months to a year and see how your business is going then.
35:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, sounds good.
35:24
Speaker 1: Thank you, lisa, so much.
35:25
Speaker 1: It was absolutely a pleasure to have you on today.
35:28
Speaker 1: You've done amazing for your first podcast.
35:30
Speaker 1: Thank you, well done and wishing you all the best with all your photo shoots today.
35:34
Speaker 1: I think you said you had a really busy day.
35:36
Speaker 2: Yes, I've.