Amazon Prime’s new real-estate show, Luxe Listings Sydney, is the most extravagant show you’ll see all year. Following the lives of three charismatic agents, Simon, D’Leanne and Gavin, we’re given a taste of just how cut-throat this glamorous-looking world can be.
While each character brings their own brand of drama to the table, Gavin Rubinstein is perhaps the most ruthless of the group. As the founder of The Rubinstein Group, he is often seen sporting expensive suits, cars, confidence, and a cut-throat attitude to his work. Gavin shows the audience both sides of the business of real estate: glamour, and savage competition.
He sat down for a chat with WHO to tell us all about his new show.
“I think it’s worse, to tell you the truth,” Gavin divulged to us when asked whether the competition seen on screen is as brutal in real life.
“We have good relationships, smiles are on for the camera, particularly that part, but behind closed doors … the real estate market for the eastern suburbs is one of the most dogmatic real estate markets in the world,” he said.
“It’s way up there with New York, London … you put a lot of emotion into the mix, combined with an extremely lucrative aspect, and it can create those kinds of relations.”
And it’s a market where Gavin is seeing excellent success. His team at The Rubinstein Group, which consists of five agents including Gavin, sold more than $350 million worth of property in just their first year of operation.
“I have people in my life that puts me in a position to only spend my time on buyers, listings, deals, and now working on the show,” he explained.
“Being able to juggle and spin so many plates really just comes down to having the absolute best team on the planet,” he said proudly.
Despite working in one of the most expensive markets in the world, Gavin insists his work is not glamorous.
“Have you ever seen that meme with the iceberg and all you see is the tip and underneath the water you see the rest of it? That’s real estate,” he explained.
“The very tip of it can be glamorous, the rest of it – look, it’s an emotional rollercoaster that will take you to the heights of exhilaration to the depths of depression in a couple hours, sometimes less.”
However, the small amount of glamour associated with Gavin’s industry seems to be the biggest draw-card for some.
“I’ve had people join and leave pretty quickly because they work it out, that it’s not easy, and it does take grit and determination,” he said.
“With COVID, we haven’t been able to travel, so all I’ve been doing for the last two years, virtually seven days a week, is working.
“At the end of the day, I put my client’s priorities before mine, and if I make a commitment to them, I always deliver on it.”
However, the lack of glamour in the real estate industry seems to be more than made up for in Gavin’s personal life.
“Balance is something … I don’t have much of because we can’t travel,” he explained.
“The key to managing that pre-COVID, every 10 weeks I was on a plane, I was flying somewhere.
“I’d go to the States four times a year, I’d go to Europe for six weeks in the middle of the year not-negotiable to be able to kind of manage the crazy work hours in between.”
And crazy they seem, with his co-stars D’Leanne and Simon also exhibiting crazy schedules on the show in pursuit of success and constantly bettering themselves.
You can see more of Gavin on Luxe Listings Sydney, which is airing now on Amazon Prime.
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