Kristan Johnson: Helping Buyers Through Emotional Purchases

Despite buying his first investment property when he was 23 and ‘making every mistake in the book’, Kristan Johnson, could see that property was the right path for him to create wealth. 

The former mental health nurse turned entrepreneur, knew he wanted to make the move into property eventually but at the time didn’t know the right way to do it. He wanted to be in the industry but never wanted to go into the sales side.  

 

After successfully building his own digital marketing agency and honing his negotiation skills, he eventually discovered that you could also help buyers and that’s when he realised where he needed to go. 

 

He established his business, Johnson Property Co and started helping people wanting a home of their own. 

 

“My ideal client is a primary place of residence buyer that’s looking to buy in the inner west of Sydney,” Kristan says. 

 

“We do some borderless investing, but it’s very much more focused on people buying their home to live in. 

 

“I think that the emotional intelligence and the emotional understanding that I can bring to the buying process lends me to helping buyers who are very much making an emotional purchase.” 

 

He said that while he is very good at the investment side after all his years buying properties for himself, he enjoys being by the side of home buyers and holding their hand through the entire process. 

 

“Not everyone can understand the emotional side of it and help their clients through what is probably one of the most stressful times in their lives,” he believes. 

 

He says that his psychology background really helps him when it comes to negotiations, which is something that many homebuyers struggle with. 

 

Kristan was able to get his business off to a very quick start thanks to his marketing abilities, but he also worked with the Buyers Agent Institute (BAI) early on to get him started on the right path. 

 

“I’m a big advocate in finding someone who’s already on the path that you want to be on and learning from their mistakes,” he says. 

 

“Ben made all the mistakes that a buyer’s agent probably would ever make, and I can hopefully fast-track my ability to get up to speed. 

 

“The thing is that you don’t know what you don’t know, and the ability to have someone who has been through it and say, listen, this is how you articulate value to a client, this is how you craft an offer to get an agent interested in getting the deal done early is really crucial. 

 

“I can talk to people, but understanding how to navigate those conversations in a way that delivers value for my client, I think that was, that was the key piece I got from BAI.” 

 

Going forward, Kristan is hoping to continue to grow his business and triple the number of transactions he is currently doing, as well as build out a team. 

 

He’s also looking to expand his area into the Lower North Shore and the Eastern Suburbs and build his brand around those locations. 

 

For people getting into the industry, Kristan says that it’s important to understand that building a business takes time. 

 

“It’s not going to happen overnight and it’s going to be hard work,” he says. 

 

“But if you’re willing to put the effort in and the hard work in, the rewards are there once you get up to speed. 

 

“But it does take time and you’ve got to really learn how to work hard before the fruits of your labour come in.” 

 

“You can’t just go into a new career in a new industry and expect to be driving Bentleys and running around with Rolexes. 

 

“You need to work really hard, but if you do that and if you run hard enough for long enough, the effort will pay off. “