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With two new acquisitions under her belt and plans for more, the Central Coast real estate veteran shows no signs of slowing.
Since she kicked off her real estate career 15 years ago, Cathy Baker has made waves in the property industry. A multi-award-winning agent, Baker has long been recognised as one of the top agents in the field, winning Sales Agent of the Year at the 2021 REB Women in Real Estate Awards, and consistently being named one of the nation’s top 100 agents by REB.
Recently, Baker added two new offices to her Central Coast empire: Belle Property Point Claire, and Belle Property East Gosford. The offices will be headed up by father-and-son duo Andrew and Lachlan Macdonald, who have a decades-long presence in the local area.
For Baker, the collaboration with Andrew and Lachlan Macdonald was the logical next step in her vision to becoming “the most relevant and respected real estate agency on the Central Coast”.
“I’d been looking for an alignment with a business that made sense for me to acquire, that had similar values […] somebody that had a good reputation for many years,” she said.
“Not only has Andrew had the business for 45 years, but they’ve continually won suburb awards, they’ve got five-star reviews and ratings from their clients, and they’ve held market share there for over a decade.”
She had also been impressed by Lachlan’s auctioneering reputation in her role as chairperson of the Real Estate Institute of NSW’s Sales Chapter Committee.
“I was familiar with the fact that he was an outstanding performer in both the auctioneer side of things, but also as a young agent that was incredibly driven and who stood out from the crowd of agents in his age bracket.”
Perhaps most importantly, the newcomers aligned with Baker’s vision of a strong, cohesive team culture.
“We have such a great culture inside our business – it’s something that I protect fiercely,” she said.
Her vision of becoming the best and strongest agency on the Central Coast is “supported by a team that believes strongly in service to each other, to their clients, and to the community in general”.
“We’re coming from a different place and looking at nurturing people long term rather than doing transactional real estate,” she said. “I’ve sold for many clients multiple times, some clients 12 times in 15 years, and the key to that ongoing success is looking after the people that you do business with.”
This relationship extends beyond just the immediate transaction to provide a “holistic service” that genuinely enriches the client’s life.
“I do a 10-year life plan with a lot of my clients and look at how we can add value by helping them with advice, with other services and trades that we can use within the community to help promote other local businesses.”
“It’s very much an end-to-end service that we provide,” she explained.
In recent years, the Central Coast real estate market has seen substantial changes. An influx of investors have been turning their attention to the affordable family hubs of East Gosford and Point Clare, alongside a healthy exodus of Sydneysiders migrating north.
For Baker, the influx of new buyers to the region offers an opportunity to target the agency’s growth towards an increasingly diverse mix of suburbs and price points, from high-end affluent homes to comfortable family rentals.
“I’m in a growth phase,” Baker said. “We have no restrictions, because I’ve got the franchise for the whole Central Coast – we’ve got such big geographical spaces that there’s much greater opportunity for anybody looking to come on board.”
“This won’t be my last acquisition,” she prophesied.
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