Making Gore and Arizto home – Jess Burgess

It was purely symbolic, as Jess Burgess had long made her little central Southland town a home for herself and a growing family, but the former Victorian made it all official around the time she was becoming Arizto’s latest high profile recruit in the South Island.

"I came over to New Zealand 14 years ago, and last year I actually got my Kiwi citizenship," says the second Arizto salesperson to be based in Gore.

"Once that second [Covid] lockdown happened I thought, 'well, this is going to continue’, which thankfully it didn’t, so I need to be able to travel backwards and forth between New Zealand and Australia.

"When we do go back to Australia, I call Gore home now."

With upwards of 20 properties listed in less than three months and now working out of the same downtown office as the very successful Leigh Jackson, Burgess is the latest in new wave of strong operators New Zealand’s fastest growing real estate brand is hoping to attract.

She is living proof that even a 'fish out of water’ can adapt and adopt their new surroundings, having transitioned from a successful retail career in Gore to now spending the last seven years in real estate - being regarded as both reliable and personable with her clients.

Under her former brand, Burgess won the 2021 Regional Southland award from the independent website Rate My Agent, which recognises both buyer and seller feedback on her services.

She was also the Gore Suburb winner three years straight from 2021-23.

"Rate-My-Agent is a huge tool for us. Leigh and I have been nominated for the top prize in Southland agents for this upcoming awards, and we’ll be going to Christchurch for that."

So no question the locals love her, but what brought the lass raised in the Victorian coastal city of Warrnambool, population over 35,000, across the ditch to laid-back Gore - population less than 9000?

"I was trying to decide what I was going to do with my life after high school, and my sister said, 'why don’t you come over to New Zealand for a few months for a summer job?

"But when I was over here for that summer my sister had her first child so I think my niece was a big draw-card to stay as well to help out with that."

There was another factor as well – to her mother’s dismay, like her older sister Burgess had met a special gentleman.

"I went back to Australia, lasted a month and moved back to Gore.

"She said, 'don’t you fall for a Kiwi boy like your sister’, and then there I was standing on the front porch saying, 'mum, I’m going back to New Zealand’.

"But we live in the same town, so it’s not like they need to come here, there and everywhere to see us.