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🎧 Discover the agents behind the For Sale signs and the sales pitch.
Elite Real Estate Agents of SEQ is the go-to podcast for anyone buying, selling, or simply curious about the people driving Southeast Queensland’s dynamic real estate market.
Hosted by Adam Bell, each episode features a genuine, down-to-earth conversation with one of the region’s top-performing real estate agents. From the Gold Coast to Brisbane and everywhere in between, these agents share their personal stories, expert insights, and what it really takes to succeed in a competitive market.
✅ Learn how top agents win listings, build trust, and deliver results
✅ Get local property insights straight from the people making the deals happen
✅ Find out what to look for in a great agent—beyond just a flashy billboard
✅ Meet the agent who could be the perfect fit for your property journey
Whether you’re a homeowner researching agents, an investor watching the market, or a fellow agent looking for inspiration, this podcast puts a spotlight on the real people behind real estate in SEQ.
Welcome to the Elite Real Estate agents of SEQ podcast, where I sit down with some of the most successful and respected real estate agents working right here in one of Australia's most beautiful and sought after regions southeast Queensland. This podcast gives you a genuine behind the scenes look at who these agents are as people, what makes them stand out in the industry.
And most importantly, can help you decide if they're the right fit to guide your property journey. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversation. You might just be listening to the perfect person to sell your property.
Welcome back to another episode of Elite. Real estate agents of Southeast Queensland Podcast. Today's guest is Benjamin Wait, a name that's become synonymous with amazing sales results in Bean Lee Eagleby and surrounding regions. Now as the principal of LJ Hooker Bean Lee, and a seasoned real estate professional with.
15 years in the game, Benjamin is known for combining local knowledge with fierce negotiation skills to deliver outstanding outcomes for his clients. He's consistently ranked as one of the top performing agents in the area with hundreds of successful sales under his belt and a wall of client reviews that speak for themselves, whether he's advising investors.
Helping families upsize or guiding sellers through a big move. Benjamin brings clarity, confidence, and a no BS approach to every transaction. He's built a reputation on not just results, but trust. And today we get to find out what drives him, what he's learned, and why. He is one of the most respected agents in Southeast Queensland.
Benjamin. Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you, Adam. Thanks for having me on your podcast.
You are welcome. All right, so I wanna start by finding out a little bit about you. Not that, not that you, the agent, but you, the, you the man. You've come from a quite interesting background, haven't you? Now I know you grew up in, uh, in Melbourne.
Melbourne, yep. And, um, sport was a big part of your upbringing, wasn't it?
Well, it's in Melbourne, Melbourne's the sporting capital of Australia, so we're all, we all kind of. Do a bit of sports down there. Played footy, a FL that is like to surf and run and play, stay fit and go to the gym and kind of all those, all those good things we moved up to, to Queensland so that we could do more of that.
In nice weather. Right. Really? Well, I'm not gonna let you get
away with that. You played footy. Come on. Tell us a little bit more about your footy career.
I played at a reasonably high level. I coached professionally for a while too, so wasn't as good as what I hoped or thought that I, I could've been from a, a playing perspective, probably a coaching perspective too, for that matter.
But, no, that was good. I really, I put a lot of time and effort into it through my, you know, my teens and, and twenties. It gave me a lot of lessons in life that, um, I, looking back at it, I, I appreciate, but at the time I probably maybe overlooked and it's kind of given me a bit of, it's probably given me a, a nice foundation or skillset to what I kind of do today, which is.
Essentially negotiate for a living.
Sure. Well, look, it's interesting you say that because, um, one of my questions was gonna be, you know, through your upbringing and, and maybe through sport, what was something that you learned that you now are utilizing in your, in your career as a real estate aide?
I leverage a lot of stuff from kind of the sport and, and the team aspect of that and, and the competitiveness of it, especially at the elite level as a player, if you're not playing at the highest level, you, you typically kind of, you know, just.
Pitching, pitching your own barrow. So when I was negotiating contracts, I was negotiating that for myself. I didn't have a players agent. Didn't have an agent doing that agent at the time. I didn't, you know. Put a huge amount of weight into it. But I kinda look back going, that was, that's, that's a pretty good foundation.
Being able to analyzing your performance, I think is extremely important in real estate. I think it's important in life, full stop. But I think in, in, in real estate, it's extremely important because you're only as good as your last performance, um, being. Being able to be critical of your, of your performance and yourself.
Um, knowing where you can improve, uh, knowing what your strengths are and your weaknesses are. Play to your strengths. Understand your weaknesses. Your weaknesses will never become your strength, but if you can understand where, where your weaknesses are, you might be able to employ people that can kind of cover off on that.
So I recognize all of that. Being able to give and, and accept feedback. I think being in a competitive team environment will allow you to do that. Uh, I come across a lot of people who, um, can't accept or give feedback. Um, it's a practice skill, so I think sport's very good at that, the team element of it, and that's a cliche, but it still has merit.
Um, for sure. I think also. I really, and again, I didn't realize this until I was probably into real estate a little bit more, and I'll just, I'll correct you really quickly. You, you kind of gave me 15 years experience. That's in sales and marketing. Right? Okay. Five years in real estate. Specifically in real estate.
Well, look, that,
that brings me to your next question. What, what, what? What were you in before? Real estate, exactly.
Well, I did, I did marketing and psychology at uni while I was playing second grade footy. Or do you guys, what do you call that in rugby? Is it It's first grade, second grade, man. I'm A-F-L-U-F.
You play v Ffl. So let's,
let's call it, what is you, Casey Demons, which is one step below my beloved
Melbourne dude.
Yeah. De
yeah. Yeah. And we were playing when we would just lose everything. We actually were winning, but a, the, the a FL team was losing. So yeah, that was, that was fun.
You never quite made the, the list did you?
Of, of an a ffl size? No.
Either too short or too slow. But it was, it was fun. Yep. It was good. Yeah. What was your question again, Adam? What, what You got me reminiscing roles.
Yeah. What, what roles were you in before? Oh, yes. Tell me what you did and how it led you into real estate.
Yeah. So, um, well. I played footy.
Um, and that was a big part. Uh, and while I was doing that, I was, um, I was at uni, it probably took me a little bit longer than maybe it should have. Yep. But, um, I was enjoying myself along the way. Um, so did marketing and psych, uh, there. And then I got into brand management marketing. So, um. Managing brands, um, that would be imported in from, um, established brands overseas.
And we would then, um, market them or sell them through, um, Kohl's, Woolworths, Bunnings, um, this, the chemist chains, um, the health food shops. So my father and I had a business that we would manufacture overseas and we would sell again into those, into those chains. Um, so that was where I kind of really honed my marketing skills.
Sure. Um, and brand management. And super hyper competitive environment to be able to get your property, you know, ranged in the supermarket was extremely difficult. Very, very expensive, very hard. But then also the ability to, I kinda love the fact that I could, I could try and market or promote a product.
To a buyer that I would never, ever meet or see. Like I would be in Melbourne. They could be on a, they could be shopping in a Kohl's in Perth looking at a, at a shelf. Mm-hmm. And how can I influence their decision to pick my product over something else? So that's kind of where I really got into the, the consumer behavior and the psychology of, of a buyer, and then the marketing aspects around that.
So I did that for a while. Then I went into. My wife works in elite sport as, uh, historically a physio, but now she's kind of senior management with a IS and she went for a gig at Canberra in, at a IS in Canberra. And I, I actually didn't think she'd get it, so I said, look, go for it. I,
I didn't wanna live in Canberra.
She gonna listen to this podcast so
she got the job 'cause she's a gun. And so I, we relocated to Canberra and there was not a huge amount for me there. In senior management, marketing multinationals, but there was, there was football there, a FL uh, and at that time it was nial, so it was kind of the VFL, but it was across kind of northern territory, down, down to Canberra.
I
remember that. Yep.
I ended up getting a, a full-time coaching job with one of the Canberra Nele sides. So I did that for a few years and then had an opportunity to come back down to, to Melbourne to coach at Richmond when we were kind of winning all those flags. So. So then I was in the coaching landscape again, super competitive.
And that was around motivating young players. Yep. Individuals, man
management.
Yeah, intrinsic, trying to work out what their intrinsic motivators are, the whole people management thing, strategic tactics, all that kind of stuff. So that was, um, that was really, really cool. Um, it was definitely not marketing, but it was still that leadership that, that that management kind of space.
When did you move into. Well, what into real estate? Yeah. Well, so when and how?
Well then we kind of, we, so at that time I was living in Melbourne at Richmond Coaching, and I thought that was a career I wanted to do. Yep. Um, and then, and my wife was still working in Canberra at the a IS and she was kinda finishing out a contract and she, she didn't, she's from Perth originally, so she loved the, the idea of nippers and beach and surf life saving.
Sure. She really didn't wanna come back to Melbourne, so we, we together identified that we would like to move to the Gold Coast from a lifestyle perspective. Um, when I left coaching, I, my old man actually asked me, he is like, look, you know, he's been in property for a long, long time. He was a real estate agent, you know, in his twenties.
Um, and then, um, got into property development. He's kind of done that pretty much as long as I've known. So with my marketing background and his. Property development background. I always, I was always around property. I had my own first. My, I owned my own, my first property when I was 20. I've had a decent property portfolio along the way, so I kind of knew it from an investor perspective and from a buyer's perspective and landlord's perspective.
And we kind of formalized a business together with, um, with development. And I would look after the kind, the marketing and the prospecting. And I was kinda learning more about the development and, and how to do feasibilities on, on, you know, prospective sites and the nuances around council and all that kinda stuff.
So we were doing that for a number of years, um, in Victoria and um, and then I moved up to Queensland. So we were kind of looking into Queensland and branching out, and then COVID hit. So as, as everybody, we kind of didn't know what was going on. We shut all our developments down, we didn't pay ourselves any wages.
I kind of had to go and get a, a real job again, and I thought, well. My marketing skillset and my development skillset, um, very, very unique. I haven't come across an agent who has got that skillset. Yep. A lot of agents seem to just kind of, you know, come out of school and just go, Hey, I wanna be a real estate agent.
Um, which is great. There's very little barriers to get into the industry. No. So I love that. But there's also, it's, it's also a bit of a worry as well, because then you can have some cowboys who can get in the industry and maybe do the wrong thing. So I'd come from a quite a unique, you know, broad base of, of I suppose experiences and skills.
I was looking LJ Hooker be, Lee had a job that someone left and I kind of, you know, um, interviewed and I was actually tossing up whether I go with commercial or whether I'd go with residential. I was kinda leaning to commercial, but I'm glad I went with the residential because I recognized that the area was in a growth area.
I recognized that it was very similar to kind of an area that I grew up in. So it was quite blue collar. Yep. Quite, quite first time. By there you knew the demographic. Yeah, I was familiar with the demographic, but also I felt that with my skillset I probably could make a bit of an impact with maybe some of the other people that are operating that I come across when I was looking for development sites.
And yeah, sure enough, and I also kind of entertained, 'cause I live in the Gold Coast, we moved to the Gold Coast and I thought, well. Do. I work in the Gold Coast where I live super competitive again, very well entrenched real estate agents. Everybody wants to sell the two, $3 million houses on beach front.
Mm-hmm. Everybody wants to sell those. Yep. And look, the ego of me kind of wanted me to do that too. Yep. Who doesn't? But I kind of looked and went, I Logan, and it had a bad name then. It was before. It really is what it is now. Yep. You know, so the property prices were really crummy from an agent perspective and income perspective.
So it was really a volume game there. Yep. And I kind of sat down and did a bit of a, a SWOT analysis on it and go, all right, well, do I sell less? Maybe make the same money, but it's gonna be super competitive and I'm gonna have to spend a bit of money to break in. Yep. And the guys who I'm breaking into have got big budgets.
They're well entrenched, they're already around. It's
a Yeah. Tough. Or, or do
I go to an area that is new? Low, low barriers to entry in my opinion. And I can, can make
your name quickly.
Yeah, correct. And, and build up the volume. And I think with my skillset, my marketing skillset, my management skillset, and my experiences, I was able to execute that.
No, and you have, I mean, that's why I've got you here on this podcast. You've been incredibly successful in a very short space of time. We're talking what, just four to five years ago and, and now you are the, the principal of that, of
that offices. Well, I would like to have done that sooner. Of course you would, but the incumbent principle didn't want to give it to me yet.
No, I think, um, I was, I, I, I think the, in, at the end of the day, it was probably the right decision. It kind of all worked out, which was quite good. I think within seven months I was maybe the, the market share leader in my suburb, which was good. And we're talking COVID. The COVID was. That was a challenging time to, to get into any industry, a new industry, let alone kind of real estate.
No one was wanting to sell or, or, or buy or, yeah. So that was, that was a challenging, a challenging time. Um, but obviously, you know, in hindsight. The government stimulus and whatev what happened. It was a no brainer what was gonna happen. Yep. But at the time, no one really knew that. And 2020, it was a, a tough year, but I, I, I kind of developed a plan and I stuck to the process and yeah.
Like it, it worked.
Fantastic. You're now a selling principle. Yep. How does that differ just to being a salesperson?
I, I wear a few hats. I've got a couple of businesses external to the real estate, the, the LJ Hooker business as well. So my ultimate goal is to not be a selling principle. From my experience with coaching and managing, I think management is, is a job.
Unto itself. And to be able to do it properly, you need to give it your full attention to be able to coach and mentor people. Five years into real estate, I really, there is so, so many similarities between real estate as an industry and, and you know, competitive sport. Yep. Professional sport. You've got other teams out there that have got high budgets than you that wanna pinch your talent.
I'm a business owner. My talent is my real estate agents. Yep. Um, there's offices down the road that will pay more to try and pinch my talent. I've gotta create a culture that my talent wants to stay with me rather than go for the higher paycheck. Mm-hmm. Um, so there's, you gotta have strategies and game plans around all of that.
Um, you gotta get buy-in, you gotta motivate people. You've got KPIs and you've got performance, um, the metrics that you want to. So all of that is extremely similar. So I've kind of leveraged my skill, my, you know, my experience in, in, in sport and, and coaching into, into now what is a leadership role at, at LJ Hooker.
I've got a business partner that she, so she helps out a lot too. Ultimately, I wanted to be able to do that, in my opinion, to be able to do that effectively and give my, my agents and my staff the attention that they deserve. I don't think I can be listing as well. 'cause listing is listing and selling and if I, you, you speak to any agent, it is.
It is saturating.
Yep.
As soon as you go away on holiday, there'll be, there'll be a seller that you've nurtured for four years and you are not available for a week. They'll go with somebody else. Like there is no loyalty. It's cutright. It is crazy. So you've gotta be all focused. Yep. And even if you're distracted slightly, even if you're around and you're distracted, you just, you lose business.
So, um, so that's, that's kind of challenging. I think systems, and I'm big on systems, systems will, will help alleviate or reduce some of those peaks and troughs that you'll get or the troughs at least. Um, but ultimately, uh, my goal is to, is to kind of bring people in, to take over my business, my, my selling, my listing business so that I can concentrate on And you nurture them so
They do well.
You do well, absolutely. The office does well. That's the beauty of it. Your, your clients do well. Yep. Fantastic. Can you describe your, uh, your selling style to me and maybe anything you believe about selling that others don't?
My approach to it is scalable service cutthroat take no prisoners always, but we love the thrill of the chase.
Yep, definitely. And, and we love to beat somebody else to a, to a, to a listing. Of course. I tend to do that more often than I don't think anyone can be successful
in the game without that.
No, I think my, my, my method or my approach to a scalable service. Thought that I was, I'm a little bit different to a lot of people, but I, I was, I'm happy with b plus service if it's scalable.
Right? So if I'm giving B plus service to you, if I'm selling 10 houses or a hundred and. 10 houses. My service is consistent across everybody, so very systems focused. I think from a selling, from a, like if I'm talking to a client, I'm very honest. The, I'm very big on the messaging and the crafting, the campaign, the marketing campaign, and we've got, you know, tested and proven systems that that kind of, you know, support that
perfect career moment you're really proud of.
Well, I love always getting, breaking a record. Yep. I think we've had a five year, like since it's as long as I've been in the game. Our, my average sale price compared to everybody, every other agent in my focus marketing area has been higher. Fantastic. So at the moment it's 8.6% higher. Like that's a chunk of money.
That's a lot when you're talking about a property. Yeah.
So that can be 50, 60 grand. Yeah. In, in my market, at one stage it was 16% higher. What
do you
do to do that, Ben? You know, well, it's a secret source, Adam.
We've only got millions of listeners out
here
on this podcast.
Yeah. Um, I think, um, providing service to the buyer.
Nurturing the buyer, conditioning the buyer to pay, what ultimately you ask them is, is the difference I've, I've got showing them the
value.
Yeah. I've got situations where the buyer will just pay what I tell them to pay. Right, like ethically and morally. Of course. Of course, right. But I've been dealing with this guy for six months and sometimes that buyer will go and buy off another agent, another property.
That I haven't, I, I haven't had the listing or they missed out and they, and I, I know they've paid a great price because of all this work that I've put into them. Yep. So, but, but the, the passion that I have is growing the area. Yep. Like, it, it sounds corny and cliche, but honestly the, probably the biggest kick.
That I've got is that, you know, Eagleby, i'd, probably 80% of my sales are in Eagleby, the suburb. Yep. And I've grown that from, from, and I've led the, but based on the stats and my average sale price with everybody else, I, I, I can confidently say that I have grown that Yep. To where it is today. Sure. Um, and there's the market factors around that.
But yeah.
And it's Eagle Bee and, and Bean Lee. And I know you've got your, your own podcast. You can give that a little plug. What's it called? Worth the wait. Worth the Weight Shoot in Ben Benjamin. Wait. Worth the Weight? Yep. Bean Lee and Eagles Lee's local Property Podcasts. So do check, check that out. Okay.
A listing that didn't go to plan. What happened?
I actually had one recently. It ha doesn't happen very often. So that's, that's a good thing. This gentleman bought the house from me. Mm-hmm. Uh, he renovated it. We struck quite a good rapport over a number of years. He, he was ready to sell. Um, he listed it with me.
Um, as I always do, I'd go and make recommendations on how we can improve the contract price and the presentation. There was a large tree that I knew would be an issue for buyers, um, and I recommended you. He removed that tree, so the tree loppers came in, lopped the tree down. I've seen these guys work before.
Lopped the tree down. It took out the power to the house. The tenants were in there. I wasn't on site, but apparently the tree loppers juried the, the, the power back up. I was in Sydney on actually on a, on a weekend away with, um, with actually some footie mates that I hadn't seen for a long, long time. So this is all happened on a Friday night.
Oh. Um, so we had to, obviously I had to scramble around my sister and I was scrambling around on, you know, how to kind of sort, sort that out. It wasn't our fault, obviously. Yeah. But we were kind of trying to provide service, of course, to, to the, to our client. Um, and then he sacked me for it. Really? Yeah.
I'm like, man, what did I, what did I do wrong? I've, it was, I didn't lock the tree down. I didn't cut the power out. We worked all night, Friday night for it. And, um, did he sell else with someone else? Yeah, he ended up selling it with somebody else. So, look like you just, you just can't, you can't win 'em all.
Well, no
you can't, can you? Alright, so, um, questions without notice now. Quick fire round.
Okay.
Okay. First thing that comes to mind. All right. Five quick fire questions. One word to describe your negotiation style. Transparent. Three words your clients would use to describe you. Communication, trustworthy. Um,
knowledgeable.
Great. Biggest myth about real estate agents.
Biggest myth. We're not all slimy sleazeballs.
You're not all used car salesman. Yes. Fair enough. Weirdest thing you've seen at an open home. That you can say,
yeah, well, everybody asks to use a toilet. And I'm like, come on, you can't use a toilet. Everybody asks to use a toilet.
What do you say? I say, I'm sorry. We're, we've got many people in the home that you, I'm sorry you can't use a toilet. Um, has anyone kicked off about that? Uh, no. Everybody understands. They tried on, everybody understands. I have let some people once that could be their
fifth open home in your,
if it's, if it's a vacant property.
No one's living there and they want to hang around till the end, and I'll let them do number ones.
You're gonna ask them. You're gonna ask them, are you doing ones or twos? I will, yeah. No, I have, look.
Do you want to, you wanna do ones or twos? You know this
is gonna make the highlight reels at this stage.
Yeah, go for it. That's okay. I'm
transparent. Well, you did say that. Yeah, if they wanna do a number one, that's okay. Um, if they want, if they're happy to, to wait to leave. So if they
say, you say you one or two and they say two you, so I'm sorry. Yeah.
I, I, I don't, I don't, you haven't ever, ever seen anyone if slip
out the back door then have
you?
I dunno if someone's come to me to say number two, but I would probably in a humorous, fa fashion, say something along the lines of, probably not today. Try that
at
your
next open home. Yeah. Okay. If your real estate career was a movie, what would it be called? Top Gun.
Every agent would say that a movie Title A star is born.
Yeah, I like that. That sounds good. You gotta gimme your own jaws. I can come up with Eves. I know. Well, you've had some time to think about it. Oh, whatever I'm gonna come up for. We can send really wanky. I don't know. That's a really good question, Adam, and that that needs a little bit of thought.
Okay. Well, you, you haven't got long '
cause this is just about the end.
I know. I really wanna give you one. I'm just, I'm stuck.
All right. I'll give you one more chance before, after your final question. Okay. So, if someone is listening and they're considering using you not too long,
not too long, is the, is the, um, the movie title,
is that actually a movie or is that No. Well,
I've made it
up.
Right. Okay. Not too am I allowed to do that. That's, that's fine. Well,
it's, it, it, it creates a bit of intrigue. Sure. That might be something that somebody might wanna pick up and go, I wonder what this is about. Not too long. No. Okay. Fair enough. We'll take that. Okay. Alright. Final question. It wasn't what you're after, Adam, I, sorry.
Final
question, and you can look straight down the barrel to give this one if you like. Okay. If someone is listening and considering using you as their agent and they've come to listen to elite agents real estate agents of SEQ, yes. They've put down this, they're in your area, what would you say to them?
Gimme a call. I love it. I love it. No, flick me a text. Happy to help them whether you're in the area or not. I'm just a property tragic and I help people. Buy houses that are nowhere near my area all the time. I probably, so
whether it's at Benley or Eagleby or anywhere Yeah, anywhere in between. You can,
I, I, I do property development.
I've got a couple other businesses that I, that we work with. I've got an investment management business. I'm very entrepreneurial. Um, I just love talking business.
Fantastic. Ben. Look, thanks so much for joining me on Elite Real Estate Agents of SEQ. Okay. It is, it is a, a podcast for the best of the best.
I'm really. Proud to have had you on there. I've scraped in. Well, we'll talk about just how close you were when we after the, after the episode. No, but look, um, please do, um, if you have been listening and you, uh, do know a real estate agent who has given you exceptional service or who you believe is elite in their field, we would love to, um, to hear from you.
But, uh, look, Ben, thanks so much for being a guest on the show and, uh, wish you all the best, um, with your career. Thanks for having me, Adam. You're welcome. Thanks so much for joining us on this episode of Elite Real Estate Agents of SEQ. If today's guest sounded like the right agent to help with your next move, please reach out.
You'll find all their details in the show notes and episode description. And if you're a real estate agent interested in being showcased on the podcast, visit www dot. Pod pro australia.com au to learn more and register your interest. If you enjoyed the podcast, we'd love it if you could like share and rate the podcast and let us know in the comments if there's an agent you've dealt with and you think they should be featured next.
Thanks again for listening and we'll see you on the next episode.