Arizto offers more for less

It all began with a couple of renegades from Northland who set out eight years ago to revolutionise customary real estate trading procedures and save New Zealanders money.

The object was to streamline the head-banging institutional processes associated with buying and selling property. Especially messy paper trails and complicated agents’ fees.

What could go wrong in making it easier on the pocket and minds of Kiwi buyers and sellers alike? Not much as it turned out.

The company that bucked a system that began with the Land Agents Act of 1912 and the Real Estate Institute of NZ in 1915 is Arizto Real Estate NZ.

Founding directors Pernell Callaghan and James Bailey set up shop with a handful of staff in Auckland in 2018. Both men knew the ins and outs of the industry.

It was a modest start. Thirty-odd listings a month. Growth came and went – the covid pandemic didn’t help – but Callaghan and Bailey were on to something.

These days Arizto carries 750 listings a month and is sixth on the real estate listings ladder. It has agents in every corner of New Zealand.

“We’ve broken the mold,” said Callaghan in the early days, “redefining what a real estate company can be with the assistance of technology and a team of passionate, forward-thinking individuals who consistently strive for innovation.”

So what did Arizto do that was so different? Significantly, it upended the real estate apple cart by introducing a fairer commission structure with a flat fee on sales, at no upfront cost.

It dispensed with the industry’s traditional ‘floating commission’, a percentage-based fee that was often adjusted according to the final sale price.

Take a million dollar property, for example. An agency might charge 3.95% commission on the first $500,000 and a reduced fee of 2.5% on the remaining $500,000. That’s a floating commission that in this case works out all up at around $32,000.

The Arizto flat fee of 2.0% plus GST is far more transparent. On a million-dollar sale it works out at a commission fee of $23,000. It also covers photography and marketing costs and only needs to be paid once the property is sold.

Callaghan says Arizto takes a customer-centric approach, much as Amazon and Uber do in providing tailored solutions, in order to provide a quality service.

“But while the cost is much less, we do not compromise on premium sale price or a personalised service, open homes, buyer viewings or negotiations.”