My Account
Fed up with the hassles and costs of buying and selling property, Hannah and Tyson Walker created proppy.co.nz – an online platform that they say is designed to make the process simple, transparent and cheaper than other real-estate agencies.
Clients work face-to-face with Proppy agents throughout New Zealand, but the rest is all online – from holding auctions (much like TradeMe), negotiating prices, signing legal documents and completing a tender using a digital lockbox feature.
The business came to the Hibiscus Coast six months ago, assigning Whangaparāoa’s Maree Allen as their local property expert. Maree has been an agent on the Coast for seven years, and has lived in the area for almost 20 years.
Like Proppy’s other agents, Maree works from home, drives her own vehicle and meets clients in their homes. Hannah says this significantly reduces overhead costs and is the secret to delivering a commission rate of 1.5 percent.
“That’s compared to the average real-estate commission of approximately 3.95 percent. So, if you buy a one-million-dollar home, we can save you around $21,000,” she says.
“Where possible, we provide all property information such as LIMs and building reports on the houses we are selling, which are free to download on proppy.co.nz. However, we always encourage people to do their own due diligence.”
While Hannah’s marketing background and Tyson’s finance experience made them the perfect team for the venture, the couple’s main inspiration was their own experience buying property.
Hannah recalls attending an auction for their dream home, only to find that the starting bid was much higher than they had been told – a disappointment considering the thousands of dollars they had already spent on building reports and legal fees.
“It was the first house my husband and I were going to buy after returning to New Zealand from the UK, and to top it off, I went into labour at the auction,” she says.
While that house fell through, the flexibility of the business lets Hannah and Tyson run Proppy from their new dream home in Wānaka.
