4 minute read
NICHOLAS MELONI
Forward focus
Dedication, communication, determination and trust form the foundations of success for EVES agent Nicholas Meloni.
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WORDS NICKY ADAMS / PHOTOS SALINA GALVAN
Nicholas Meloni is half Kiwi, half Italian. He’s also a multiaward-winning EVES real estate agent. If you have any preconceptions of what a ‘typical’ agent might be, it’s unlikely he’d fit any of them.
When Nicholas was growing up in Rome, life in New Zealand seemed a million miles away. Although his mother’s from Christchurch, his father’s Italian, so Italy became the family’s home. When Nicholas reflects on what’s driven him to relish a non-stop workload, he looks to the example his father set. “He was out early and home late. As little kids, you don’t understand, but as an adult it all makes sense. You realise what families all are about. I’m a very similar character to my dad.”
On leaving university, Nicholas started his own IT engineering company. Despite the business being hugely successful, when the economic fallout from the GFC began impacting Europe, he decided to sell up, and in 2012 made the move to New Zealand, where he took up an operations/national sales manager position for an Italian company. Shortly afterwards, he met his future wife, Genna. Together they invested in property in Auckland, which they renovated with
the help of Genna’s builder father. They on-sold it and doubled their money – a foray into property speculation that piqued their interest in real estate.
It wasn’t long after moving to the Bay of Plenty in 2015 that Nicholas decided a career as a real estate agent was the obvious next step – a move that surprised no one who knew him. With his typical ‘knuckle down and get the job done’ attitude, he completed his papers in an impressive 45 days, putting in an extra six to eight hours’ study on top of his full-time workday. Once finished, he resigned from his job and excitedly geared up to start his new career.
However, the gods did not smile on him. The completion of his exam coincided with the 2016 earthquake in Wellington. The Real Estate Authority offices in the capital (who release the licences) shut down and no papers were issued for a further 45 days. “I was just sitting – I’d already given my resignation but couldn’t get my licence as it was stuck in the building!” says Nicholas. “That happened right at the last quarter of 2016, when
the market was still booming – and then I finally got my licence the day the market ground to a halt.”
Ever pragmatic, today he believes it was a good thing. “We started with things being more difficult… We’ve seen colleagues who began when the market was easy, and who are now out of real estate because when it got harder, they weren’t trained to bite the bullet and work hard enough.”
If anything, Nicholas’s eventual beginnings in the industry were better than he could have hoped. Business boomed, and before long Genna joined as his assistant. They complement each other perfectly, he says. He’s the more extroverted personality who loves the client contact and relationship building, while accounting graduate Genna excels at the back-office side of the job, which, he points out, is considerable.
Nicholas is clearly a highly motivated person who loves the autonomy of his role. At the same time, however, the benefits of the support and expertise that come with being a part of an established and respected company isn’t lost on him. He was drawn to EVES because of its community heart. “Part of our commission
Nicholas and Genna are pictured at their favourite local Italian spot, Alpino. LIVE > REALTY GROUP
goes back into the community,” he says. “For me, in general, it’s always about people. If you work with a company that has good values, things come on their own.”
Nicholas and Genna realise that buying and selling a home is a huge decision – as he says, it’s “about the journey.” In today’s dynamic market, he believes it’s important to help accelerate proceedings, assisting buyers to make “good, healthy, informed” decisions that will facilitate their move forward.
Understanding the process and being provided with the data is vital, he says. He divides buyers into four categories – the analytical, the driver, the amiable and the emotional – tailoring his marketing to appeal to these personality types. His love of IT and gadgets puts him among the new wave of agents who are using technology and media to their advantage – he’s invested in an arsenal of marketing tools for his clients’ benefit and happily draws on his skills as a photographer.
As up-to-the-minute as Nicholas’s grasp of the marketing side is, he possesses old-school people skills and combines the qualities of being personable and gregarious with the steely attitude and ethos of a self-starter. There’s no doubt this real estate agent will do whatever it takes to get the job done, day or night.
