This week on #PropertyRoundup on iPropertyRadio.com, host Carol Tallon is joined by John O’Sullivan, Managing Director of John O’Sullivan Property Consultants, to discuss starting a new venture after almost 30 years in the corporate world, winning his first clients and the pipeline for second hand homes coming to market across Dublin in 2024/2025.
Contact John at 👉 john@johnosullivanproperty.com
*Property Roundup is sponsored by Daft.ie, Ireland’s Most Visited Property Website*
Produced by Katie Tallon MPRII, with Hear Me Roar Media on sound
Watch the full episode here - https://youtu.be/5KBECUyZSUc?si=IE5TbZ-BwGJ1hBny
Listen back - https://open.spotify.com/episode/6mqDoseBpBovMNlfSRollw?si=0f0b92ce340a41ca
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[Music] Hello and welcome to the property round up on our property radio with my Zath Carol Talon, the show where we chat to industry experts to get a view and activity on the ground and to learn about new trends emerging. The show is sponsored by dath.ie Ireland the most visit to property website. Today I'm delighted to be joined by John O'Sullivan, managing director of John O'Sullivan property consultants. John you're very welcome. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for having me you're very good. John you will be very well known to our audience but your company name might not be. John O'Sullivan property consultants one of the newest brand of boards going up around Dublin. Tell us a little bit about the changes you've made over the past year. Absolutely how well I I spent 29 years in Lizney. I joined Lizney in 1995 so had a long career in the one place and whereas I've had many colleagues over the years who have come and gone I stayed put and I suppose what's interesting when I started my career I remember I just got a job in Lizney and I had met somebody I was actually originally supposed to meet them for an interview but I'd already accepted a job in Lizney and they met I met them anyway and they gave me some great career advice and part of their career advice was they said to me to spend a certain amount of time in the big firm and then spend a little bit of time in the medium-sized firm and then go out on your own and I suppose I spent a long time in the one place and then went out on my own so it's a big it's a big change I would imagine as somebody who's been self-employed for the best part of two decades it's tough when you don't have the support that you might have been used to 29 years is a long time was Lizney back then or was it Lizney Butcher? Well it was very different I mean at the time I joined there was a company called Lizney Henry Butcher which did plant and machinery there was Lizney Calder Ashby that did building surveying and there was Lizney which did commercial and residential sales so it was yeah I mean it's been around a long time as a firm and I suppose plenty of people have come through the door one way or the other and in fact if you looked at a lot of the firms around town or certainly traditionally a lot of the firms around town there was people working in them who had come through Lizney so it was almost seen almost like a training house in the business yeah yeah no you're absolutely right you know and it's funny and I don't say this in criticism I really do I really do mean this in a questioning way but there is this old adage that if you stay in a job for a long time you don't actually have you know 29 years experience you might have if it takes three years to learn the job then essentially you three years over and over and over again so how have you how over those 29 years you've been in residential all that time how has the growth or your your career evolved over that time well I suppose it's kind of like the whole industry has changed considerably I mean when I started and I got I'm going to sound like a little bit of a dinosaur here and I've often told these stories to graduates coming into Lizney and said you know when I started I used to have to stick the photographs on the brochures agents don't have brochures these days because it's surplus paper and we're all very into sustainable ways of being but we used to stick the photographs on the brochures we didn't have the internet you know I remember the internet coming I remember my home and daft you know started as they were and you know for instance Hamilton Osborne and King which is now saddles was the first estate agent in Ireland to have a website Lizney was the second and you know like so I've seen a change considerably well up on the days as well of people walking into your office and saying and do you have your your latest property listing which was the list of what they had on it was all very more personal to be fair it was more personal because there was more telephone work there was more meeting people walking into your office or you know meeting people you know from day to day whereas I suppose it's evolved almost like the fully digital world where you know the first time you meet the person who's been engaging with you is in the property having emailed you inquiring and emailed you about this and that or having looked at the video online to then you meeting them in person so it's a kind of a strange evolution of time we obviously over that had you know a boom and a bust and a boom again so you know it's been a lot a lot's been learned in that time yeah no you're you're absolutely right and and all of this we would think serves to make the transaction faster smoother more frictionless that's all that's all good but there's been a lot of changing buyer and seller expectations during that time as well so actually in terms of of the supports you would have had coming from almost three decades in the corporate world to going out on your own how will you be able to deliver the same kind of frictionless service knowing that again buyer and seller expectations have really moved on yeah well it is it's oh sorry it's it's funny like now i'm all hands on more involved in everything like i'm even my head thinking i've got to get my Vassar turn ready now it's the 19th of the month things you know all about um but it's it's it's funny that you know those things that during my time in the corporate world that you i didn't have any involvement in someone else did it for me and now i know and realize that actually even the small minute things you're doing you're you're you're more involved in it like you know transactions you know typing my own brochure or you know like this there's everything about it is you know so i full control over everything you know we talked you were talking earlier about social media i mean full control over my social media full control over my branding full control over you know i can do what i want and what my clients want you know so i've full control there's no there's no editorial you know decisions to be made here that no we can't say that in the brochure because the you know that the house rules are that we have to say this and we have to say that or the formatting of it that's it you know so it's it's very exciting i think um do you think that that will result in maybe a different type of client for you so the sellers that you might have had not necessarily over the last 29 years but you know even over recent years or particularly since as the recovery you know going back kind of 2013-14-15 and onwards and obviously we've seen such growth across the double market boom and and a critical shortage as well of quality secondhand homes coming to the market just really slow and low turnover um now you're moving from a corporate brand as an individual and knowing that you are very much positioning yourself for the private client you will be very much a boutique offering that you'll be able to provide that professional or that personal service do you expect that that will bring a different type of buyer or Saturn sorry well do you know do you know how it's very funny like when i started in the business i used to look at older colleagues you know people who are my age now and i used to kind of wonder you know the phone rang and that someone was specifically looking for them or it was someone they knew from a club they're involved in or you know there was always something and they got that business because it was the personal contact whereas the business i picked up in the early part of my career was the brand business so you know you got the call out because of the brand whereas but the last few years any of the business idea when i was in the corporate was business that came directly to me okay people i knew through my network i mean and i like you know i'm dealing with the sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters of people i might have dealt with 30 years ago or nearly 30 years ago so it's scary like that um but it's it's a kind of a it's a it's a reoccurring business but it's coming directly to me and when i went out on my own the biggest fear i had is where am i going to get instructions from or who's going to be and and the big thing about estate agents is it's trust someone's entrusting their biggest asset with you and um what i found very interesting was the phone would ring and someone say and i'd say and i would at the beginning say oh well i've i've left listening and i'm now doing my own thing expecting them to say um oh well you know well okay thank you very much and but then they turn around to what we want to do with you and um someone met me recently i'll be selling their house in a couple months time and we're just getting it all ready now and um so we had a meeting and and i genuinely thought and maybe it was my insecurity of going out on my own and coming from the large brand to myself a genuinely thought they were just going to butter me up to tell me look i can't deal with you but you're a great lad all the same but i can't do with you and unless you're listening to the whole conversation waiting for the punchline when are they gonna say i'm sorry i can't deal with you and they didn't and it was very evident to me and the conversation evolved to what the next steps are going to be and when we're going to go to the market and what we're going to do and a hundred percent it was all about me they wanted to deal with me and i kind of thought about a little bit more about it and yes you know for the last few years when i look at the business i took on when i was in the corporate it was personal business came directly you know that's a lovely reminder that actually while i'm focused on the two the technologies it really is about trust and it is a personal service so even when you're dealing with the brand you're still dealing with a human within that brand and and by the way just on the idea of tools just because you talked about staying up and typing up your brochures just to let you know the RAI tools available i know i've been learning all of this yeah well if i don't tell you i just get emails after it saying i know i'm looking at some AI tools that would do that for us so I've been learning that but i'm kind of a little bit you know it's like that when you know and i was always the same like when when something I'd for me i always used to like to edit it myself because you know it's a kind of it's a it's a it's a funny one but yeah i mean there's all these different things i wouldn't you know well it's more time if i don't say it to you i genuinely will get emails after so but just you know there there is a bit of a halfway measure between kind of leaving the relative security of kind of 30 years in corporate to going out your own under your own brand did you at any stage consider a franchise or one of the national brands and a more partnership place i don't know if i did and i even looked at an international and kind of a it was a sort of a kind of an independent international branding and i just kind of thought like what i'm selling is me and you know it's my name but it's my people would have come across me over the years people would know me over the years people have met me it's me yeah so if i'm going to sell me there's only one way of doing it and that's just my name and the other thing as well is i was going to fall into branding guidelines i was going to fall into the house rules on this or that and that's not what i wanted so you know so i had i'd certainly considered i'd certainly looked at it i'd been in conversation with one particular but i didn't do it yeah look genuinely i i wholeheartedly agree with you i was just curious as to whether you'd even consider it you know and don't get me wrong there's we've great franchises and brands across property in ireland but i am really excited about the rise in in independent agency it's actually useful it's oh it is so not and it's a trend we've seen for the last number of years i mean this trend started before covid but i think it's really accelerated post-covid and i was looking and i thought this was just happening and actually in across the regional cities and across rural Ireland but actually in the last three years of training accelerated the job market as well um so did that influence your decision at all well it sort of quotes made it a can be done and when you look at it like a state agency has so it was it was at one time it was by bricks and mortar it was about your window it was about your multiple windows but the location of your windows all of that you know how many times have people they just don't walk into a state agency offices anymore you know it's it's all changed it's gone online but it's how you take it on online it's how you develop it online it's gone to social media or new media as i'd prefer probably vertical you know it's evolved to a very different place to what what it was and you can either go traditional or you can just take it on and do it your way and a lot of the independence are taking it on and doing it their way and everyone's doing it a little bit differently which is nice yeah so it's it's again it's not there's no textbook to say this is how you have to run in the state agency business you know and it's it's the flexibility as well and it's like it's like you know as i said sitting up late doing typing evaluation report or something else yeah but i had plenty of flexibility in the hours before and i went for a run out in the bathroom it was a lovely day and all of that so every day is very different every week is very different and it's um but the thing about it is i'm doing it for me and i'm doing it from my clients so you know i'm not sitting in an office and that waiting for the phone to ring you know and i'm not you know and a friend of mine was explaining it to me kind of said you know think about all the time you spent at office meetings think about all the time you know sales meetings and this son that he said take all that time and focus it into you and your business and it's true you know and and it's it's really good advice yeah yeah and i like how you positioned that uh while we're saying the rise of independent of state agents um you're absolutely right when you say they're all a bit different and i i know that from my dealings with them so in fact even if i was thanking whether um with a recommendation for a buyer or seller i would definitely have an agency in mind that i think this agency would be a good fit for you because in my head and i hope it's it's what the agents are trying to put out there but i have a picture of who they are as as a new independent brand and what i think that stands for so actually for people who might not have been familiar with john of solvent property consultants how are you different to the independence in your area yeah i suppose i'm probably like i i'm not going to be a mass agent i'm not going to be selling a huge amount of property but what i'm offering is a very like i would probably call it like a private client top operate type operation or you know very much it's all about the quality of service service the excellence of service and and and my experience so like i you know and it's it's it's just the way the world is gone as well you look at a lot of the larger firms and a lot of the younger people working in them and it's unfortunate because it's the way the property market is gone that a lot of those younger people they've never bought or sold a property themselves in a personal capacity you know they've never been they've never been the vendor of a property they've never been the purchaser of a property and whereas they have the skill set to sell a property or buy a property for client or do whatever they've never been that other side of the fence and you know like i know all about it i've been there being the seller in the buyer and you know and you have your horror stories and you know and going out to look you keep seeing it so like you know i suppose i'm bringing that experience to the table as well and and i would see yeah a lot of the again it's an it look it's an age thing uh you know i'm i'm not a young book um but i've covered the wise old owl bringing all the years of experience with me and that's what i'm offering yeah i well then actually one of the things we're always curious about when we speak to um whether it's the startup across the property or construction site or indeed across the technology i'm always interested in year one really i'm interested in day one and week one a month one but you touched on that there you were nervous about where your listings were going to come from so tell me a little about the property listings that you got yeah well i suppose the first house i listed was a house in sandy mount and again a very good client and someone i've dealt with in the past and again was i mean literally it was listed just at the time like my license was granted and just everything went everything fell right at the right time for me as well from that perspective my license was just granted and i secured an instruction which was coming for a couple of months anyway and um and it went very well you know as it was you know a real good feeling to see your own sign on a property you know to see you know to and even okay in the background you know when i was in the corporate world you were in your stuff onto the CRM system actually having to manually upload it online as well and learning how again how to do it because it's been a while since i've manually uploaded the property online um but it went well like the sale went well and they followed up with another one i have in leopards town which again is safe the boat was properties are now sale agreed the house coming on in balls bridge in the next couple of weeks of a house coming on a rat farnum you know there's a couple of other sort of things in the pipeline which are potentially coming um you know without doing valuation work and registered valuer you know so there's a kind of keeping myself very busy um it's funny you start a week and other people who are self-employed have said this to me you start the week with a blank diary and then you end the week looking back and going god i was busy or oh john only only the very efficient start the week with a blank journey or a blank diary um i unfortunately too many my monday starts with last thursday's work so that's that yeah well i wish i hope i hope i can get to that point in my career in my new business because well yeah john that that will be peak efficiency and i'm conscious that i want to before we wrap up i do want to talk about what you're experiencing in the local market and um just because i know the extreme competition for properties at the moment you touched on there um and if you can share with us that you um a couple of properties coming on stream you particularly mentioned there a farnum and both bridge can you give listeners any information so that actually you know just in terms of are they both houses so this price point is a farnum is a is a three bedroom it's a semi-detached area so the quoting four hundred ninety five thousand uh so what's the condition like pretty good pretty good you know well very well presented very well cared for um and you know in a good location and it says as i say to everyone my videos i do DM me email me at john@josp.a or phone me two three nine zero six eight four getting that plug in now please no please do and and are you are you taking i presume at this stage you're already taking potential buyers and interest in parties 100% absolutely i'm talking to a lot of people if they you know if you want if you don't get in touch you know talk to me and if i and also like you know i mean if i see something just coming on i'll say to you you know absolutely and the balls bridge property balls bridge one again it's a good it's a sort of a period property it's three story it's got a good garden very good location Dublin for the quoting around 1.3 million and the condition pretty good pretty good you know well cared for well looked after um so you know there's there's a few things coming and and then the pipeline beyond that would be very hopeful for what's what's there to you know sort of i'm talking to a lot of people at the moment and and just in terms of the pipeline i'm all the so curious this is the thing i actually stayed here to the country crazy about this um i know that i i've been told anecdotally over the last maybe three months particularly there's been an increase uh right across the country uh agents i've spoken to are reporting an increase in being called in by potential vendors who don't know when they're thinking of selling and they're not necessarily looking at um even 2024 but maybe the early part of 2025 uh but most of the hesitation is around depending on the area of course not having the availability of property that they wish to move to like i mean i spent the last few years i would mention last few years my career it's been more personal contact and i've been meeting people who i would know two different connections and they sit down and you just have a chat and it's it it's not even they're asking you in they're asking you in for advice that's how it starts and you're sitting there and the biggest frustrating thing the questions they ask is firstly if i offer my house for sale will i be able to buy it's not what can i buy will i be able to buy because supply is so tight yeah and the other side then they're kind of going well look it's not even about the price good i'm very confident in the price of their own home but they're kind of saying well what happens if i don't if i sell and they don't buy something where do i go you know because the rental market is so starved to supply in the past you could sell your house go into rental accommodation yeah take a year's lease and by the time the lease came to an end you'd buy bought a house and the sale had completed and all of that and it's a scary time for people and there's people like the population you know we've a young the demographics with a young population coming into the market buying but you've got an older age profile who'd like to write size i don't like saying downsize right size yeah and you know and they're sitting there and you know so we're only building 30,000 dot housing units a year in 20 2005 or six we've got 90,000 housing units a year and at that point the population has grown since then but the interesting thing is of those 30,000 housing units we're building and i think the figure it's about 175 apartments a week are being delivered to the market and but they're being delivered to the rental market so there are funds building you know buy to rent that doesn't give that's not that's not a part of the road map for somebody who's maybe right sizing and that's the biggest issue so you know we're meeting people or i'm meeting people or other agents are meeting people but they just don't have the road map made out in front of them and they don't have the confidence to go to the market until they see and very often when the property comes on the market that they'd love to buy they're not in a position to buy because they've no bridging planning yeah and you touched on something really important there and like first thing first i wouldn't like to go back to the quality of properties we were delivering when we were delivering 98 year that for sure but i i think only in the last week the the esri came out with fresh data and i think it really surprised the industry how low they had forecast our real needs i think we expected that it would be forecast higher than it is and it's still not looking above 40, 65, 5000 per year where it's i think the reality is it probably is you know listening to ronin lines and others it probably is much closer to 65 to 75,000 a year that are needed so it feels like we're still underestimating in terms of our policy and if our policy is underestimated it's surely not going to over deliver well even carol it's the type of properties that come to the market now look i get it you know let's let's be frank about the cost of building an apartment is more than very often what the apartment is worth on the sale yeah so no you know so it's only makes sense for funds to build it for the for the rental market and that to be fair is solving another problem but when you're someone sitting in the house and you're thinking god i'd love to buy a new apartment a-raisers you know it a nice development close by and guess what i can reserve number 10 which won't be built for six months and i can sell my house and ease into you know can do it all together when that solution isn't there you just get this long jam that we have with the lack of supply so what are you telling sellers and and sorry i'm conscious i know we have to wrap up now shortly but but like when you when when you're in and you're valuing a home for sellers and you're talking them through the dynamics of the local marketplace is there any comfort you can offer them like what what are you telling them well fortunately or unfortunately i i i carry with the blunt honesty uh it's it's it's in my toolbox and unfortunately i can't but be bluntly honest to people so you know i mean it's interesting i i met somebody earlier today who i sold their home uh a few months ago and again and they thankfully they had somewhere to go in the interim but they haven't bought yet and now this net them for coffee and we're having a chat and the way i described it i said you know part of explaining the problem with the market i said but you know i said you're one of the brave it's way i described them they were brave they went to the market without the outcome at the other side so you know what would i do if i was retired hoping to trade down or right size myself into different property do you know i i probably rent a long term somewhere in Portugal or Spain in a better better climate and fly back at the weekend to look at properties to secure the purchase that's what i'd say that's very sense forever that's a sense that's a solution that that has two things a long-term holiday sunshine and then you fly back back to to buy but it's not a solution for everyone either so um it's a it's a very tricky one but that it would it would be a tax complicated solution as well if that i don't for too long yeah exactly uh probably well yeah um so that's the sellers um anything for the buyers uh so i know we've touched on some properties you have coming on stream in ballsbridge and rap fernum and in terms of buyers is there any reason for people to feel more hopeful about buying on the second half of 24 yeah i don't i actually don't see the supply drastically improving unfortunately um and that's that's a big problem um my own my own view at one bit of advice i always give buyers and i was actually thinking as you were talking earlier videos that you know different ideas i have but it's the tips for buyers and the tips for buyers are very definitely along the lines of be prepared and so have everything prepared and advanced to smooth and because everyone is giving out about the time it takes just to to transact to property now i refer to when i started nearly 30 years ago that was a far more functioning market yeah you know more supply but properties sold much more easily they transacted much reasoning you can argue with the time now in hindsight maybe the problems we have today are hindsight the title issues that were overlooked back then but um it kind of i find it incredible that takes so along these days to secure a property and actually transact a property it takes just so long so i would always say what i always say to buyers is prepare so have your solicitor lined up have all your finance you and everything lined up of course you can't get your life assurance in place or you should but have it have have the roadmap together you know so when you're getting going what what you have to get and also shocks me as well when people are buying the lack of information they get from the professionals around them you know the last minute saying oh have you got your house insurance set up they're going oh do i have to get that set up when i haven't moved in or have you got your life assurance oh do i need life assurance you know there's all these different things that people aren't told um and i just you know it kind of frustrates me from that perspective as well are you going to be taking this on you mentioned earlier um that you have started doing videos i am i am already a fan of your social media and to be honest i'm really delighted you know genuine it's right property radio we do try to support every estate agent very good you're very good to share them as well which is but actually they are you know we do that we genuinely try to encourage every estate agent um independence franchises uh within the property groups we are so delighted when estate agents share local knowledge because we are always looking at uh marketplaces and you know we'll break them down into regions but we would never have the kind of knowledge that you have about the potential sellers who are coming up on what road the potential buyers that are in that area at what price point so actually we think all estate agents should be sharing more and doing more so actually just let people know where they can follow along with your social media and and stay informed absolutely well a lot a lot of what i have is on linkedin um which is my own uh john of Sullivan uh linkedin page is also john of Sullivan property consultants as a linkedin page so i share on that i'm on instagram as well um john of Sullivan property of course uh and there's a facebook page as well john of Sullivan property so you haven't embraced tiktok yet not yet but it's not you're almost there you never know i'm nearly there videos you're doing videos in portrait style that are suitable for youtube shorts and tiktok you're almost there i'm almost there it's you never know sort of like it could be next week you know who knows like it's it's it's funny like i started this as a you know look socials and you know a new media i started it and i could have gone in any direction and i'm just going with the flow uh when look the idea is you have to be brave enough to be vulnerable you have to take a chance you're sharing information i think your ethos is right you want to educate the buyers and the sellers on the local marketplace around you and what you're experiencing and the thing is you have to then learn from your audience so they learn from you but you have to learn from them and quite frankly the joy of digital as opposed to a print ad in the newspaper that may or may not result in a phone call to the office the joy of digital is that you can tell the impressions the engagement that clicks so you know when you're working with the funniest thing is that it's really interesting the phone call i guess a couple of hours after i posted something from somebody now they have my number they know me but it's a kind of like if you're out of sight you're out of mind so they see you and they go oh yeah there's meaning to ring john or as meaning to ring in a state agent you know and and you get a phone call and it could lead to something top of mind john top of mind listen uh congratulations on the launch of the business and just to to let people know again that's john was all of him property consultants john's genuinely very best of luck and we look forward to seeing more of your videos hopefully on tiktok as well you're almost there okay so close john so that that's all we've time for today my thanks to producer Katie Talen and production team and hear me warm media also huge thanks to our show sponsor daf.de Ireland's most visitor property website and also thank you indeed for tuning in we'll catch you on the next episode of the property roundup in the meantime please be sure to check out all of the other irish and international real estate and construction shows here on iproctorradio.com [Music]
