you take three?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ And then he said, ‘I’ve got about another twenty houses. Would you like to clean them?’
Anyway, the story is, I sold thirty-two houses in six weeks for Mr van Lubeck and he thought I could walk on water. But he was a great teacher. And I was a bit of a wild bloke – coming out of stables, all sorts of things, but I was very streetwise and I knew a bit about people. I was not frightened by people and because of the background that I’d had, I went on from there. But I had a bit of a problem getting my real estate licence because I’d had SP betting charges made against me. I had to go to court for my real estate licence and they challenged me, but I had a good barrister called Horrie Miller. The crown prosecutor flew at me. He said, ‘You’re being entrusted with trust funds,’ and ‘blah, blah, blah …’
In those days, it was a much simpler situation – now you have to do exams and all. So I got a bit sick of this fellow questioning me about my illegal activities because we all went off in turns, you see … The sergeant from Wollongong Police Station would phone up and say, ‘Well, I’ve got to come and pinch someone, the neighbours are complaining,’ and we’d all go off in turn. That was the way it all worked those days.
So, he said, ‘Well, what was your job?’ and I said, ‘I was a clerk there and taking money,’ and he said, ‘What else did you do?’ And I thought, I’ll fix this bloke up. So I said, ‘Well, every Sunday at the end of the month, I had to take the brown paper bag up to Sergeant Russell at the police station.’ This was a lie and I was bluffing, but it worked (of course, this is exactly what went on). I had the licence in three minutes.The bloke didn’t want to hear any more about it. He said, ‘I grant the licence.’
BK: How old were you when you got your first licence?
BB: I’d have been in my twenties, I think. But I’ve been in the business for fifty-five years last January [2012].
BK: So, you were licensed and you were working for this gentleman?
BB: I was working for Max.
BK: And essentially, any projects he developed, you were selling?
BB: Yes. He used to buy lots of rows of houses – rent-controlled houses. And of course, we raided Paddington. We used to buy streets of houses for £2 000 and£3 000 each.
BK: OK–
BB: And the same houses today now bring in $1.3 million each. I was the guy that started Paddington, me and two other blokes. But I had to get the tenants out. We got rid of all the rent-controlled tenants which the government loved, because they were all Labor voters. The Liberal government didn’t like them …
BK: And then you renovated the properties?
BB: We’d renovate the properties – paint them or whatever – and then resell them.A lot of them were sold back to the tenants. Some of the older tenants have recently died. I saw one of the old ladies the other day. She bought a house for £3 500. I used to finance them. I’d buy them for £3 000 and sell them for £4 000. We’d get them a first mortgage of £3 000 and we’d carry a second mortgage of £1 000, which was a lot of money in those days, but they all paid. No-one ever went bad. And then, of course, as time went on, if they were paying the mortgage, we would sell the mortgage and discount them. It was all manipulating finance. You know, in actual fact, it’s going on today because banks are not lending money to people.
‘And I was a bit of a wild bloke … but I was very streetwise and I knew a bit about people. I was not frightened by people and because of the background that I’d had, I went on from there.’
BK: Tell me the story about Paddington. It’s a well-known area today, but at the time, it was very modest sort of housing–
BB: Yeah. Streets and streets of them. I’d have to look it up, but I think in the 1960s and seventies, there were 37 000 rent-controlled properties in New South Wales alone, mainly in the city areas like Glebe, Paddington and Surry Hills.
BK: OK. So, when you move forward to today, you look at an area like Millers Point, where there’s public housing – does that look like Paddington thirty years ago?
BB: Not really. Those areas – Annandale and Leichhardt – are all coming good because of their proximity to the city. People want to live close to the city, but they can’t all afford to, so it’s going very well.
Actually, we put a house up for auction the other day in Stanmore. It was terribly rundown but it sold for $800 000 – that was $300 000 over the reserve.Now, I don’t sell those lesser houses, I let the kids here sell them …
BK: OK, so, you’re moving on, you’ve got your own agency. Was that part of a franchise group or you owned it yourself?
BB: No, he [Max van Lubeck] got me my licence and I worked for him for a long time. He was a fantastic bloke and he took control of me because, as I said, I was a bit wild. I had a bit of a short fuse in those days, and you know, he used to have to pull me into line on the odd occasion, but he was a great bloke.
He liked to drink, which was his downfall, and he liked women, which I won’t hold against him, but he was a great bloke and he knew a lot about me. And of course, I knew a bit about him, but he learned plenty from me as well. Because, you know, I was a bit of a rough-cut diamond.
BK: But he was a good man toward you, essentially. Was he much older than you?
BB: Yes. He was an ex-prisoner of war. He was in the air force when he was captured by the Germans. Terrific bloke. Then we parted ways. He fell on a few hard times. One of the main fellows that he was doing business with was a bloke called Alan Blum. He went to jail for embezzlement and the whole thing fell apart. And then I went to work with a bloke called George Cooper, a rails bookmaker in Oxford Street.
BK: As a bookie’s clerk?
BB: No, no more bookies. He had a real estate agency as well. Good bloke, too.He’s dead now.
BK: And you ran his agency?
BB: I worked with his agency. We worked in the Darlinghurst area. Then I broke into the big diamond side and sold the dearest house in Sydney, to Sir Raymond and Lady Burrell.
BK: Which house was that?
BB: That was Rosemont House. Formerly owned by Lady Lloyd Jones. That was my first break-through. It was a record at the time of £2 800 000.
BK: In what year was that, roughly, 1960s or seventies?
BB: That was twenty-four years ago, actually twenty-five years ago.
BK: So, 1985.
BB: That’s right.
BK: How did you come to find that listing?
BB: Well, I was creeping up the ladder, selling dearer houses. And I was becoming pretty good at it, very consistent and then starting in the Paddington area.I sold to all sorts of different people in Paddington, like lots of people and lots of money, and lots of very social women came to work for me and said, ‘Oh, give this to Billy, give this to Billy. He’ll sell this and he’ll sell that.’
BK: What is the art of selling a very expensive house? Where do you look?
BB: