Bob: Good morning! And Welcome to ‘What’s in your Garage?’
I’m Bob Aldons, the owner and founder of Car Business. ‘What’s in Your Garage’ is a weekly podcast series where I interview famous, not so famous and just ordinary business people about the business, themselves and their cars. And What’s in your Garage is brought to you by Car Business a company that helps new car buyers all around the nation buy new cars a lot cheaper than you’re paying directly to a car dealer. And by Gear Shifters your go-to source for all four-wheel drive accessories but specializing in Steel Bullbars. And our guest on our second podcast this morning is Andrew Reibelt, Andrew is a local business person but I know he comes from Roma. Good Morning Andrew.
Andrew: Hey Bob, how are you mate?
Bob: I’m fantastic. Well, tell us the Andrew Reibelt story mate.
Andrew: Ah Bob originally country lad come from Roma in Western Queensland in October 94 come down to Redcliffe and been here ever since.
Bob: And why did you come down from Roma?
Andrew: I came down here to play football was originally in a development squad with the Sydney Roosters and its part of their sister club arrangement with Redcliffe ended up here.
Bob: I never saw your name up in the ARL as it was called then Andrew, what happened?
Andrew: Mate, I probably fell short a little bit there but I probably peaked when I was 17. But that’s the reason I got into the business as well.
Bob: And you’re supporter through your company for the Rugby League Club.
Andrew: Yeah. look, we seen the club grow tremendously since the time I’ve been here, we’re currently engaged with over a thousand of the juniors with our sponsorship and obviously the senior guys are also performing quite well this year.
Bob: Yeah they’re going well and the new stadiums at Dolphin Oval’s been opened.
Andrew: Yeah very impressive probably the next step in bringing the club forward but if anyone hasn’t been down there it’s a great opportunity to see a club that is growing very well over the last 50 years. And a good mate I was the chairman of the club now Bob Jones, Yeah Bob is a good man he’s been involved in the club for a long time and he’s guided things very well along the last few years as well as Tony Murphy you know through the Leagues Club as well.
Bob: Yep, So Andrew let’s move off sport for a second and let’s talk about business. You’re the owner of Real Way Real Estate here in Redcliffe. How did that all come about? Where did you start in the real estate business?
Andrew: Yeah look as I said before Football was the reason that I come to the Peninsula and as fortunate probably the reason why I got into real estate, you know I was working at the Leagues Club there actually in the bottle shop and across a couple of day period back in the late 90’s, I was offered a couple of jobs one was in financial planning and one was in real estate and as much as I thought real estate agents were idiots, and I thought I’d give it a go and you know it’s been 18 years, I still have the crack every day.
Bob: Your own business Real Way, how long has that been in operation?
Andrew: Yeah, that’s been going now for nearly 15 years. So it’s been started out with some other companies in partnership and I’ve been the sole owner of Real Way pushing for 15 years now.
Bob: And what’s unqiue about the Real Estate business particularly on the Peninsula?
Andrew: We got a bit of an interesting market here obviously we’re land locked, we’re not building any more land developments in our little part of the world. Obviously on the fringes in the North Lakes, Murrumba Downs, Morayfield there is always that expansion. We have a bit of a niche here, a bit of a country influence. You know, a little area is what’s always appealed to me along with a dash of the Gold Coast occassionally as well.
Bob: They’re often called the North Shore the Manly of Brisbane hey?
Andrew: Yeah, that’s right I think the only thing that holds us back from being a average price of about 5 million is that Moreton Island seems to cut a few of our waves off.
Bob: And funnily enough Andrew, sidebar on that, I was in Singapore a couple of months ago. And they didn’t worry the fact that they are an island they just keep dredging up and extending the island.
Andrew: Yeah, true it’s probably something a bit similar to what the Chinese are doing in the South China Sea. They just make what they want, and then there’s been some conversations about similar options you know around Bramble Bay and expanding there and making a large yachts style club or similar to what they have in Dubai. But I think we got a few greenies around that might have something to say about that.
Bob:Yeah, there are a few environmentalists that put their stamp on the Peninsula over the years isn’t there?
Andrew: I suppose always got to take that as a part of the decision making process we’ve got a couple of little Dugongs floating out in Moreton Bay and the poor little buggers probably need our help.
Bob: Yeah, and it’s good to say that the power boat races of stopped off the Peninsula to a great extent because of that potential environmental damage.
Andrew: It’s one of those things where I don’t think a lot of people are aware of what sort of natural beauty we have on our doorstep and it’s one of the reasons that Redcliffe and Moreton Bay are popular. You know like the whale watching, the dolphins and I’ve got a little bit of soft spot for the Dugongs because they’re poor little ugly buggers and they are as helpless as anything.
Bob: Talking about Whale watching, Keri Lopez that was maiden name, I’m not sure what married name is, but hasn’t she done a great job with I-spy.
Andrew: Yeah, excellent! My personal opinion is that Redcliffe’s got an opportunity to become a real destination of choice and people like Keri who promote the area, a lot of people would head up to Harvey Bay to go Whale Watching but it’s right at our doorstep. Also we are pretty lucky we’ve got the skydiving, yeah and it’s a pretty cool spot to live.
Bob: I don’t think I’ve seen too many parachutes over the last few weeks it must be a summer thing.
Andrew: It might be a bit too friskee up there but I’ve skydived a few times but once it gets up to about 10,000 feet it starts to get a little bit chilly.
Bob: Andrew tell us about your success in Real Estate and Why you’ve done so well?
Andrew: Yeah, look Bob I’m surprised, Real Estate to me was a foreign concept when I first started but my background had been in hospitality which was potentially making people happy, I had a few tools up my sleeves then which was booze and food, because everyone likes both of those. I worked in poker machines as well we’ve try to duplicate a lot of that customer service driven thing to our Real Estate business essentially just trying to take a little bit of human approach to it, obviously it’s a business that we run but at the end of the day we are only humans that’s been the foundation of what we’ve done.
Bob: Your customers seem very very happy with the level of service that you provide though Andrew.
Andrew: Yeah we really do try to make that work, obviously you can’t make everyone happy and there’s circumstances that do test your patience, as long as you got the i think the best interest in heart, try to be fair all the way around and don’t make anyone feel like they’ve been ripped off that’s how we got a lot of repeat business.
Bob: That’s a great attitude to have. How many staff do you have working for you?
Andrew: We’ve got 15 staff and we also got a franchise group we’ve got 11 offices their franchised at the moment. One of got sole ownership is at Redcliffe.
Bob: Fantastic. Andrew we’ll get on the real reason that you’re here and that is to talk about motor cars something that I’m really passionate about, as you are about real estate and there’s really three questions that I’m going to ask you, “What’s in your garage mate?”
Andrew: Well I supposed although I am very much a car lover, I’m also one for more reliability and ease of use. I’ve been a passionate Pajero buyer over the years. I’ve had three Pajeros over the last 12 years and got a little black Exceed sitting in the garage at the moment and it’s always been really reliable, My girlfriend drives a Honda Accord Euro, a nice very stable car and in the last 12 months we also bought a weekend car nice Mercedes, we just drive it to the hotels on the weekends.
Bob: Very nice. And Andrew over your lifetime of owning cars, what’s been your favourite car?
Andrew: Funnily enough the one that always struck a bit of a cord in my little heart was a FJ40 Land Cruiser short wheel base back in the late 90’s it was on gas, bumpy old ride on your back but it was great vehicle I had a lot of fun in that. Obviously the first memory was the first car which was the 1976 same year as me SL Gemini Coupe in a beautiful poo brown colour. They’re the two that really resonate because it was back in the day.
Bob: And Andrew if you had as much money as you’d ever want what would be your car of choice?
Andrew: Probably as they say, the bucket list that’s always been around since I was a little guy was always a Lamborghini, that was always the driver that’s probably changed over the years but be honest it would have to be the Lambo because that was always the one. I probably won’t drive the bloody thing but I tell you what it would be a lot of fun to own one.
Bob: Yeah, The Lamborghini Huracan is the latest model that seems to be doing really well for Lamborghini Worldwide. They’re about $400,000.
Andrew: Back in the day, my thought process was always with the Countach, I think you could probably pick a secondhand one up for about a hundred now but and also the Murcielago. That would be the two but often some nice cars floating around the shop in the shop here today.
Bob: Yeah there’s a couple here Andrew the Maserati that you’ve had your eye on earlier is own by a mate of mine who lost the garage and so he’s gotta give up that car but there’s certainly some nice cars on the road, there’s no doubt about it. But you look at the practicality and you look at the fun if you got 1 for 1 and 1 for the other, you can’t ask a lot more than that.
Andrew: Nah, that’s right they’re a beautiful thing but not everyone got the chequebook for the Lambo and the Ferrari.
Bob: That’s very true Andrew. Hey mate and that’s about it for this morning it’s only a short podcast. Thank you very very much for coming in and giving us your time and I hope you continue to be really successful in the Real Estate business. You’re a good man and you support the community and that’s all we can ever ask.
Andrew: Bob, I appreciate the invite and make sure you get down to Car Business and come and have a chat to Bob.
Bob: Good on you Andrew, Thanks mate!
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