Real estate saleswoman triumphs internationally

One of New Zealand’s best-known real estate consultants, Christchurch’s Alison Aitken has been named top sales consultant for Harcourts internationally.

The honour follows her recently being named top Harcourts New Zealand sales consultant for the seventh time.

In Surfer’s Paradise on the Gold Coast on Wednesday night, Alison beat 5012 sales consultants from Harcourts 773 offices worldwide to carry off the coveted title for the second time in her 22-year career.

“It was an amazing night.  I knew I had some very tough international competition, and you never really expect to win,” she said today.

Harcourts Grenadier CEO Robert McCormack said given the fact that Harcourts operates in Australia, the United States, China, Indonesia, South Africa, Fiji, Botswana, Zambia and New Zealand, the honour was huge, and the franchise was thrilled with Alison’s success.

“She is an exemplary operator whose experience and manner contribute to making her phenomenally successful in the real estate field.  We are delighted that she has been recognised in this way.”

Complications following the Canterbury earthquakes proved no deterrent to Alison, who quickly mastered both the changed real estate climate and landscape in Christchurch.

“The business climate in the last 12 months has been full of uncertainty, complications and challenges.  We’ve had to work a lot harder than ever before,” said Alison.

“Helping people through very uncertain and confusing times has been stressful for everyone and we’ve had to quickly acquire a lot of new knowledge – things like EQC, insurance matters, engineering reports and new rules and regulations, which have all compounded to make the past 12 months the most challenging of my career.”

Alison started as a real estate consultant with Harcourts Grenadier in 1990 and over the past 22 years has gathered a coveted number of successes, including previously winning the number one spot internationally for Harcourts and picking up the top sales consultant’s award 13 times in Canterbury.

“I love this job and can’t imagine doing anything else, and while the awards are always great, they are not what drive me.”

She said a tremendous amount of satisfaction was gained since the earthquakes simply helping people with the right advice.

“There have been a lot of calls by people just wanting to know how saleable their properties really were, and people seeking help about potential moves.  The ironic part was that we were in the exact same situation because we lost our office too; for weeks we couldn’t even get a pen out.

“It has been a fast learning curve, given the changed city and all the new zones and regulations.  We wanted to be absolutely sure about it all so we could protect our clients in the best possible way.”

Alison detects confidence is returning to the city, both in a business and personal sense.

“There are new people coming in, new markets and opportunities, and investors are coming back into the market because of the rental situation.  There is a lot more certainty now that insurance settlements are occurring – people have been treading water for so long.”