Elley grew up in rural North West Queensland but by the time she was a teenager, she had dreams of moving to the big city. She tried to break into the real estate industry as a sales agent at age 17 but was turned away for being too young. Instead, she found herself in property management, where she worked as an assistant for two years. After those two years, Elley took the opportunity to work in the ski fields of Japan for four months before making her way to Brisbane to once again try to become a real estate sales agent.
This time, she was successful but the position’s quick turnaround of relationships and extreme stress brought on by the GFC left her shattered. To combat this, the agency put her in charge of their brand-new property management side of the business, where she trained two new property managers and together, the three of them made it a success. Sadly, she had to leave this position behind after an issue with her superannuation and made her way to Townsville, where she developed and managed another property management agency. Eventually, Elley got fed up with the way the agency was managed, the fact the staff were not trained properly and how much income the owners were losing.
Because of this, Elley decided to set her sights on creating North Queensland’s most innovative property management agency and that’s how Excellence Property Management was born. At Excellence, Elley makes it a priority that young people such as herself can learn property management in a safe environment where they are held accountable to their standard of work but in turn have the support and systems they require. Currently, her office is made up of eight staff members and her agency manages 400 properties. Excellence is one of the top performers in the local market and Elley’s goal going forward is to keep it that way.
Nominee’s three achievements
1. Training, inspiring, fostering and mentoring two property managers at a Brisbane real estate and successfully building a rent roll together of 160 properties in 18 months with zero marketing budget.
2. Speaking at the Leading Property Managers Association’s conference in 2018 and addressing how to find solutions to common problems in the property management world.
3. Building a business from the ground up and guiding it to its place as one of the top performing property management agencies in the local market by nurturing long-term relationships.
