Life as an agent in the Hunter Valley

Nestled deep in the Whittingham hills is Minimbah House, a lavish 45-room Victorian mansion that looks out over acres of sun-soaked paddocks and vineyards. With grand wrought iron verandahs, marble baths and a hand-carved rosewood staircase, Minimbah House is one of the Hunter’s finest examples of Victorian filigree architecture. It is also one of agent Cain Beckett’s newest listings.

“Minimbah is an extreme property,” Mr Beckett said. “It is one of the most significant historic homes here in the Hunter – I’m talking monstrous.”

Mr Beckett’s name is synonymous with the Hunter Valley’s heritage homes and luxury estates, but Jurd’s Real Estate, the agency at which he is a managing partner, is far from stuck in the past.

Jurd’s Real Estate uses technology to pinpoint potential buyers who might otherwise have slipped through their fingers.

“It’s quite amazing how accurate you can be in finding the folks that would have an interest in buying a winery or being involved in an accommodation business,” Mr Beckett said.

The firm uses AI-powered search engines and strategic data purchases to influence the algorithms of major search platforms like realestate.com.au and Domain.

Mr Beckett explained: “If you’re looking in the Southern Highlands and you’re indifferent as to whether you buy in the Hunter or the Highlands, I can make our stuff come up in front of you searching in the Highlands.”

“And if you’re not looking, I can target folks that are in the Sydney basin and have been to the Hunter recently and are interested in food and wine,” Mr Beckett said. “It’s pretty easy to target them.”

Today, Jurd’s Real Estate welcomes buyers from across Sydney, the Central Coast and Newcastle, but despite the mixture of people it retains a strong sense of community.

A Hunter local born and bred, Mr Beckett only became aware of the shift when he moved to Sydney to study and practise law.

“I practised for about five years, and it just wasn’t for me,” he said. “In Australia, cities can be relatively insular. If you grew up in Sydney, you don’t tend to go to a university outside the city. You already know your friends, you have the same social groups – it’s not very open.”

Now, Mr Beckett spends his days “walking around a vineyard trying to realise people’s dreams as opposed to reviewing a document and negotiating a deal that won’t really matter in a few years’ time.”

“I find that the purpose of my job is so much more fulfilling now,” he said. “I really like what I do.”

Some of his clients are weekend home buyers, some are permanent tree changers – the proportions ebb and flow with the seasons.

During COVID-19, the permanent tree-change sector of the market exploded.

“COVID was madness,” Mr Beckett recalled. “Post-COVID has been an adjustment, not so much in terms of value, but in terms of time on market.”

“Pre-COVID, time on market was four to six months on average for wine country rural properties, and we’re back to that now.”

While time on market can be lengthier than city agents are used to, the Jurd’s Real Estate team benefits from the Hunter Valley’s year-round appeal. Unlike beach towns and ski lodges, the Hunter is “enduring” with a solid income stream no matter the season.

Today, Mr Beckett counts himself lucky to have the chance to live and work in this part of NSW.

“From having lunch on the side of a mountain in a French bistro to walking through a winery with winemakers who are actually making the product that you’re tasting, it’s that authenticity that the Hunter offers,” he said.

“But I also think it’s the natural beauty, the streets to go for a walk along, the look-outs to view the Hunter from a different angle.

“They’re the things the locals know that aren’t in books and aren’t advertised.”

To find out more about how agents are operating across Australia and beyond, check out REB’s previous articles in the Life as an Agent series.

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