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McGrath is returning to a Sydney enclave it knows well, moving one of its growing teams to Paddington.
John McGrath founded McGrath Goodhope Realty in 1988 at 53 Jersey Road in Woollahra, just a short distance from the network’s new custom-designed office located on the corner of Five Ways village.
Existing McGrath agents Luke Hogan and Fraser Turvey will head up the outfit alongside new recruit Georgia Cleary. It’s a trio that Mr McGrath described as “a brilliant team to focus on this exciting market”.
“Paddington has always been part of the McGrath DNA. We started with a small office where we had great success. Now 34 years later, we’re going back to where we started, but with what has evolved into a mature business,” Mr McGrath said.
Mr Turvey, meanwhile, noted how much the local market has changed since the firm’s early days.
“When McGrath was founded in the late 1980s, Paddington offered mainly cheap, rundown and unrenovated terraces. That was the appeal to many buyers,” he said, “especially as the suburb is within walking distance to the city”.
By way of example, Mr Turvey and Mr Hogan recently sold a renovated house at 107 Underwood Street for $3.6 million, which was among Mr McGrath’s first handful of sales — he brokered a deal for the building for $107,000 in 1984.
Together, the trio are looking to make the most of the area’s recent and long-running capital growth.
Joining the team represents something of a homecoming for Ms Cleary as well, who started out her real estate career with McGrath.
“Over 31 years ago I had the pleasure of hiring [Ms Cleary] for her very first real estate job and I’m delighted to reunite with her again,” Mr McGrath said.
“She is the consummate professional with an attention to detail like no other and she has proven over time that her professional approach continually delivers her clients superior results. Her ‘Georgia Sold It’ stickers are a prominent fixture around the area. Georgia will be warmly welcomed back by the whole McGrath team,” he added.
Ms Cleary said that her respect for Mr McGrath, coupled with the opportunity to build an enterprise with Mr Hogan and Mr Turvey, made the move a “simple choice”.
“My decision to return to McGrath was two-fold. As a Woollahra resident, I am truly immersed in the community and have sold thousands of properties over the years, some three and even four times,” she said.
“The opportunity to be based in the heart of Paddington while servicing and selling properties throughout the eastern suburbs where so many of my clients live and work, was a definite drawcard in my considered decision making.”
Mr Hogan agreed that the Paddington community had provided them with a great foundation on which to build.
“We’re finding 50 per cent of our buyer pool already lives in Paddington or within a two-kilometre radius. Our online listings are also attracting strong offshore interest with expats making plans to repatriate. Paddington is more often than not their first choice,” he said.
As the business grows into this next phase, Mr Hogan made sure to assuage any fears that the team’s priorities would be changing.
“We don’t work a large volume of listings at any one time as it’s simply impossible to service our vendors and buyers the way that they should be,” he said.
“We focus on working closely with our buyers, gaining their trust and guiding them through the sales process. For us, it’s about honesty and transparency, traits that have sadly gone awry in recent times in our industry. We work without ego.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Juliet Helmke
Based in Sydney, Juliet Helmke has a broad range of reporting and editorial experience across the areas of business, technology, entertainment and the arts. She was formerly Senior Editor at The New York Observer.
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