Stephanie Williams is the Director of Harcourts Williams in Adelaide.
Working alongside her husband John Williams, Stephanie Williams has forged a formidable career.
With a long background in the business of retail and residential property before storming onto the South Australian real estate scene, Stephanie understands that customers always come first.
WILLIAMS MEDIA sat down with Stephanie Williams to chat all things property.
How did you start your career?
I’ve always owned my own businesses. I started in floristry then launched into fashion, and while in fashion I started to develop a few properties and loved the result and found it really rewarding. In that, I used lots of agents to sell the properties, and I always followed real estate.
I chose then to jump into real estate residential sales. With the properties that I’d developed, everybody said, “Oh Steph, you’ve done an amazing job” and they loved them. When we sold them, we styled them really well.
Having that fashion background and those entrepreneurial skills, I had success with all of those sites.
What do you love about your job?
I love that rewarding experience, I’m a service-oriented person and I’m also creative.
I’m so passionate about getting great results from start to finish and what I love about real estate at the luxury end is that you just never know who is going to be on the end of that phone.
The spontaneity too, because no two days, no two hours, are ever the same.
What’s your advice for a young person thinking of a career in real estate?
Choose a mentor in the industry that is likeminded and has similar values. It is a business where you’ve got to love people, be articulate, and certainly love working long hours!
You’ve got to live and breathe real estate and not mind that your phone rings at night.
How do you juggle your career as a high-end real estate agent while also being a working Mum?
Being a super good organizer and communicator. I think it’s an excellent job for a Mum because there is flexibility there for Mums because you can have your working week structured to be able to entertain picking them up from school and dropping them off at sports, depending on the age of your children.
It is a great career to be in for working Mums because of that reason.
A vendor once said to me “Steph, I really think women in real estate are so much more in tune with the emotions of selling a property because there are so many different reasons why people are selling."
I think women are so attuned and are good receptors to emotion. There are always lots of different reasons why people are selling a property, but then taking it a step further, there’s a lot of psychology in the process and how you deliver information because everybody’s different in how they receive information.
What would you say are the biggest issues facing the Australian real estate industry at the moment?
A changing market. It is a little static, it is a little bit like a stock market at the moment but like any business, you’ve got to keep positive and keep informed on what’s happening in your marketplace.
What would you like to see done differently in the industry?
Abolish stamp duty! And I’d love the Adelaide public to embrace auctions with passion.
What was your first home and where do you live now?
I was born in Highgate. Now I live in a house in Unley Park.
If money were no object, what would your dream property be?
Something in Tahara in Honolulu, Hawaii.
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