Real estate agency's start in hard times - Stuff

DANIEL GALVIN/ Fairfax NZ

Garth Barfoot and Peter Thompson talk about their memories of their father and grandfather.

Large Auckland real estate agency Barfoot & Thompson exists today because a well spoken young First World War veteran needed a job.

Twenty-five-year-old Englishman Val Barfoot had been in New Zealand less than three months when he spotted an estate agency with one of the partners' names crossed out.

The son of a London cloth merchant, Barfoot had emigrated to New Zealand with his family in search of a healthier climate for his father.

After serving in World War I at Ypres, Val studied engineering at Bristol University. But jobs were thin on the ground in post-war England, so he made some money buying and selling army surplus steel yard weighing machines in the meantime.

These funds were to come in handy when he walked into the Auckland estate agency, squeezed between an optician, a seedsman, an inronmonger and an undertaker on Newmarket's Broadway.

With no knowledge whatsoever of real estate, he offered to buy into the firm and work in the office for free while the boss thought about it.

Barfoot was a teetotaller, and quickly realised it wasn't going to work out when it emerged the boss spent most afternoons at the Newmarket Arms Hotel.

He made an offer of ?75 for the whole business and was accepted. Afterwards he was amazed when the phone kept ringing with calls from people who had no interest in buying or selling property.

''He realised the business made more money from what you might call off-track betting - (the boss) was a bookmaker, that's where the money came from,'' Val's son Garth Barfoot says.

With no staff and no industry experience, V Barfoot, Land Agent began to develop a business. Auckland was growing, and Val attracted custom by advertising regularly in the New Zealand Herald and offering prospective buyers a free map.

In 1924, Val's older brother Kelland also emigrated from England and the firm became Barfoot Bros.

Five years later the brothers moved to more impressive premises on Queen Street, but then the Great Depression hit. House sales dwindled to a trickle and prices fell by as much as 60 per cent.

In 1934, Maurice Thompson joined the firm. The son of an Irish army captain, Thompson did his early education at ''native'' schools in remote Northland settlements where his father became a teacher.

After leaving school he worked as a farm products salesman, but left when his commission was reduced because he was out-selling his older colleagues. There followed a series of jobs until Captain Thompson, worried about his son who was by this time a father himself, approached the Barfoots to give Maurice a job.

The brothers liked ''the light in his eye'' and decided to give him a go. Times were very hard, and the personable Thompson eventually proved his worth by helping Kelland with the rental side of the business which was keeping them going.

Despite the tough times the brothers had expansion plans and, eager to keep Maurice, they offered him a partnership to return to when he left to serve in World War Two and allowed him to pay it off over time.

But after the war, the Land Sales and Soldier Resettlement Act (which fixed all house prices at 1942 levels) put yet another brake on the real estate industry. It wasn't until the late 1940s with the repeal of the act and the War Asset Realisation Sales that the business finally started to take off.

Barfoot & Thompson bought out competitor Mandeno Jackson in 1949, followed closely by the acquisition of another nearby firm, Moss and Moss.

Unfortunately, the partners suffered a major blow in 1950 with the unexpected death of Kelland at the age of just 55.

Val and Maurice continued on, with their very different personalities combining to make something that was greater than the sum of its parts, Garth says.

The firm opened its first North Shore office in 1951. They next turned their attention to establishing a chain of offices in South Auckland which was expanding rapidly thanks to the construction of the southern motorway.

The baby boom and immigration fuelled further growth in the 1960s. Maurice retired in the late 1960s due to ill health, and passed away in 1968. By the time Val retired in 1973 the firm had 33 branches and a staff of 300. Its advertising had grown to account for nearly 40 per cent of real estate advertising in the New Zealand Herald.

Barfoot & Thompson was the first Auckland firm to set up suburban offices, Garth Barfoot says. The branches were also unique in that they only sold real estate - many competing agencies were building societies and travel agents as well.

His father was always keen on window displays and went for stores with wide street frontages, unlike other agencies which were often upstairs offices, Garth says. Val would spent a lot of time on the photography of properties for sale.

In 1956, the firm became the first to pay its salesmen commission only. ''Father worked out we would have to pay staff on commission or we would go broke,'' Garth says.

Val was a shy person whose strengths lay in his knowledge of real estate practice and property values, and in his analytical ability to work out the best locations for branches.

''We grew up in a house without a phone, and we could have afforded one. But [Father] said he had enough to do with people during office hours and didn't really want to socialise after hours.''

He would drive off ?to a quiet spot at lunchtime to eat his sandwiches. '''I like to get away from Maurice', he would say. He didn't mean it in a bad way, but Maurice was such a dominant person,'' Garth says.

Maurice was a flamboyant character, a born auctioneer and natural leader who determinedly trained and developed the team of Barfoots branch managers.

While others had to work their way up through the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand, Maurice became president after having had little to do with the industry body.

Today Barfoot & Thompson has 63 branches with a sales force of 1400, and 1900 staff in total. It remains 100 per cent family-owned and focused on the Auckland market.

Val's son Garth and great-granddaughter Kiri are on the board, as is Maurice's grandson Peter. A Barfoot or a Thompson still interviews every prospective sales person - Garth currently fulfills that role, which he took over from Monty Thompson who, in turn, replaced Maurice.

''Father used to say 'Maurice is a great picker of staff','' Garth says.

Peter Thompson says it's good to reflect back on the original basics. ''The art of face-to-face selling is still the prime of real estate,'' he says.

Valentine Harding Barfoot, 1897-1987
Born: London
Career: Established real estate firm Barfoot & Thompson
Family: Married to Christine, sons Tim, Chris, Nick and Garth
Honours: Inducted into the Fairfax Media New Zealand Business Hall of Fame, 2013

Maurice William Dean-Freeman Thompson, 1907-1968
Born: Auckland
Career: Built up real estate firm Barfoot & Thompson
Family: Married to Jessie, sons Monty and John
Honours: Inducted into the Fairfax Media New Zealand Business Hall of Fame, 2013

**The New Zealand Business Hall of Fame was created in 1994 by Young Enterprise Trust, and is presented each year with the support of Fairfax Media, Auckland Chamber of Commerce and Kaimira Estate. The 2013 gala dinner will be held on Wednesday 31 July at The Langham, Auckland. Tickets are $225 each and can be ordered by phone on 04 570 3980 or online at www.businesshalloffame.co.nz

- ? Fairfax NZ News

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Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/better-business/8754652/Real-estate-agencys-start-in-hard-times

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