Area Specialist founder Michael Choi has come a long way from his early days when he didn’t know the difference between sales and property management.
“I was 19 years old when I started as a receptionist at a local boutique real estate agency,” the founder told Realestate.com.au.
“The owner of the business asked me if I wanted to be in property management or sales and I answered ‘yep’.
“I didn’t even know the difference between the two.”
It was 2006 and Mr Choi was working at McDonald Real Estate in Melbourne’s southeastern suburbs when something clicked inside of him and things moved quickly from then.
In his first eight months, he jumped from receptionist to sales admin to personal assistant and then salesperson.
It was a fast and daunting time for the new starter, who worked 12 hour-plus days without a day off.
He would letterbox drop late into the night, even in the rain, just to get his name out there and build his profile in the neighbourhood.
“I still can’t believe people gave me their house to sell,” he said.
![](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 800 450"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Founder Michael Choi established Area Specialist in 2017. Picture: Supplied
“I had pimples all over my face, was driving a bomb of a car and was wearing baggy hand-me-down suits from my uncle.
“It just goes to show how valuable energy is, as that’s all I had, I didn’t have skill or experience, I just had energy and belief in myself.”
As he honed his skills and built his experience, his successes grew. He secured more and more sales, rose through the ranks and won his company’s sales consultant of the year award for four years running.
Mr Choi started Area Specialist in 2017, seeking out leading real estate agents around the country and helping them build their own businesses under the brand.
Now his focus is helping the offices in the Area Specialist network increase their business every year through training, coaching and a positive work environment.
Overcoming challenges
But there have been challenges along the way, such as the company branding.
Initially they tried to create the brand in house to save money, but Mr Choi eventually outsourced the branding work to achieve what it is today.
“Creating your own brand is very difficult as your baby is always the best-looking baby and your friends, with their heart in the right place, won’t say otherwise,” Mr Choi said.
“So getting the brand to look right was a big challenge. We gave the brand four changes in the first four years and landed with what we have now.
“Our clients aren’t sellers and buyers, our clients are agents, so we branded in a way that reflects that key difference between us and other real estate agencies.”
Mr Choi started his career in real estate in the southeastern suburbs of Melbourne. Picture: Getty
Setting boundaries has been another challenge.
The business faced challenges in balancing the needs of its agents, who were the customers, and the capacity of Area Specialist’s administrative team who supported the agents.
“As we grew, we had growth pains, there were obvious cracks in the system that were exposed because of our scale,” he said.
“We needed to focus on doing the things that we did great rather than trying to do everything to serve our agents.
“This was important to ensure our administration team was happy, had appropriate stress levels and were not over worked.”
In the end, Mr Choi said they established some expectations to support their agents while setting firm boundaries to look after the admin staff, who were critical to the business.
Mr Choi said Area Specialist was changing the way real estate agents operated. Picture: Getty
Staying motivated
Working in real estate can be a roller coaster and staying motivated is key to riding out the highs and lows.
“Motivation is fleeting so it’s hard to rely on it,” Mr Choi said. “I do practice just taking the first step and simply starting even when I don’t want to.”
Mr Choi said he liked to set themes for his days in order to stay focused, as well as rewarding himself on days off.
“This allows me to reset and not begrudge my work, I know that it’s giving me a nice flexible lifestyle so I can keep going,” he said.
“I love the outdoors, I rock climb, spearfish, [and] freedive.
“I recently got into breeding rare fish, this recent hobby is a bit nerdy, I’m in denial that I’m not a nerd.”
Mr Choi is focused on growing Area Specialist even bigger. Picture: Supplied
Next chapter
It’s been several years since Mr Choi launched Area Specialist from a small agency that sold 15 houses a month.
In that time, the business now operates across New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania.
Mr Choi said they had increased their market share by more than 20% just over the past 12 months.
“We now have 1,126 houses currently for sale right now across the country, it’s such a contrast and has been an incredible journey,” he said.
Looking ahead, the founder plans to continue growing Area Specialist across the country and was excited for an upcoming project.
“We’re releasing a smartphone app that combines charity work, real estate, prize money and discounts for its userbase. It’s a pretty exciting project as we have partnered with more than 1,000 national brands and some big names too,” he said.
“We have grown well by helping to change the way real estate agents do real estate.”
