David Clifton: A real estate legend

Press Release, Harcourts
For immediate release

A real estate legend

27 September 2016

After almost 50 years in the real estate industry, one of Auckland’s most well-known and respected real estate personalities, David Clifton, is moving on.

It marks the end of an era for the team at Harcourts New Zealand, who have proudly called David one of their own for 17 years.

David is highly regarded in real estate circles and is widely credited as being one of the individuals to have championed auctions within New Zealand.

His career in real estate started when he was just 17 years old in Melbourne, which is considered the auction capital of the world because of the volume of auction activity there.

He says he observed his first auction at 18 years of age, and from that time on he was hooked. By spending his time observing the very best in the industry and putting in hundreds of hours of practice, David was soon considered a rising star in auction circles.

His natural aptitude and determination saw him rise to become a shareholder and director of a Melbourne real estate firm which operated three offices.

It wasn’t long before his interest was piqued by the potential for auction marketing in New Zealand and he started working for one of the larger real estate groups as auction manager, before joining Harcourts as Northern Region auction manager and then national auction manager.

In these roles he mentored many of New Zealand’s greatest auctioneers, and says he did so because “I always wanted to leave something behind.”

In 2004 he went into partnership with Graham Viall and together they jointly purchased Eastzone Realty, comprising of Harcourts Howick, Pakuranga and later the Meadowlands office.

David says the decision to sell his business to Preet Grewal, who owns Harcourts Preet & Co and the Harcourts offices in Botany, Manukau, Ellerslie and Otahuhu, was an emotional one, but it is time to move on to the next phase in his life.

“It was incredibly emotional telling the team. But I leave them in excellent hands and I’ll be around until Christmas during the transition period.”

David, who is president of the Pakuranga Golf Club, has immediate plans to cut down his golf handicap, spending time with his wife Bev, and also work on his vintage European cars, which he enjoys showing at competitions.

Harcourts CEO Chris Kennedy says David Clifton is a legend within real estate, and he is one of the individuals that influenced his own career.

“David mentored me when I was starting out in auctioneering. I have the greatest respect and admiration for him. It’s with sadness that we say goodbye to him as one of our business owners, but he will always be a part of the Harcourts family.”

Preet Grewal takes over Harcourts Eastzone at the beginning of October. All of David’s team will stay on in the Howick, Meadowlands and Pakuranga offices.

About Harcourts

Harcourts is New Zealand’s largest real estate group with 190 offices and more than 1900 sales consultants nationwide. We specialise in residential, commercial, and rural property sales and provide property management services.

Harcourts has been at the forefront of the real estate market in New Zealand for 128 years. Today, Harcourts has more than 780 offices in ten countries around the world. Our success has been built on ensuring our people have the knowledge, expertise and tools to achieve the best possible results for our customers. We are also proud to be New Zealand’s Most Trusted real estate brand.*

Harcourts’ charitable arm, The Harcourts Foundation, was established in 2008 to support, grow and enrich our local communities. In New Zealand, we proudly support the Halberg Disability Sport Foundation. In that time it has raised more than $4 million internationally, from which more than 350 New Zealand charities have benefited.

*Reader’s Digest Most Trusted survey, 2013-2016.

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