INTERVIEW: MONIKA TU, Founder / Director Black Diamondz Group

Monika Tu doesn’t mince words. Nor does she carry any passengers.

How else to explain what is now a rather well-worn tale – a story, hers, that details a Chinese immigrant who landed in Australia from Shenzhen in 1988 without any English.

She studied, claimed an RMIT scholarship and subsequently turned a basic market stall into a successful international electronics business. She’s since found incredible acclaim — and arguable dominance — as a property agent within Sydney’s tightly-held prestige property market.

There’s more to her work than simply opening residential doors — helping to forge and foster cultural and community links for her largely immigrant (predominantly from China, Middle East, Europe) client list, alongside arts philanthropy and an unwavering dedication to each and every day.

We caught up with Tu to discuss the difficulties of 2021 — and to better understand the road ahead.

Kanebridge News: There’s an incredible resilience that seems to frame the Sydney prestige market – but how difficult was 2020 in regards to your business and key clients?

Monika Tu: Obviously, Covid-19 had huge impacts on many businesses last year and ours was no exception. The restrictions on international travel hit us hard, however, we saw a surprising rise in local Chinese buyers wanting to buy a property quickly. People may think that most of our buyers are international. However, that’s not the case and many of these people had been holding out for the ‘perfect’ property — but when Covid hit they relaxed their expectations slightly because their main aim was to secure a property.

KN: And how do you view the road ahead?

MT: I see the market continuing to do well. The prestige market will always follow a different trajectory to the general market, but I don’t see things slowing down. With the influx of movie stars and wealthy individuals wanting to call Australia home, there’s only one way prestige property is going, and it’s up.

KN: There’s a belief in some economic quarters that things must naturally end, and soon.

MT: People have always said this, even prior to the pandemic. But Sydney and Australia’s prestige property market is robust, resilient, and has proven itself repeatedly. As long as Australia is seen as a world-class lifestyle destination, people will always be willing to pay.

KN: What was the allure of property that made you start Black Diamondz?

MT: If I’m honest, it wasn’t so much the allure of property that made me start Black Diamondz. It was the gap in the market of servicing the multitude of high net-worth individuals, predominantly from China, who were looking to call Australia home. Some agents were more than capable of finding them a great property but could not open other doors such as schools, lifestyle, business opportunities, networking, and philanthropy. This is the gap that I knew I was able to fill.

KN: How did you get your start in the prestige market?

MT: Black Diamondz really started by chance. There were a lot of conversations at the dinner table about new migrants searching for luxury homes, but a lack of services or guidance for them when it came to making decisions. One of my friends had a friend from China looking for a property and was having no luck with local real estate agents. I took him for a drive around Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs and just asked him what type of house he liked. He picked one, I knocked on the door and the owners said it was not for sale. Fast forward five days later and they sold it for $13.5 million. That is when I realised the need for this type of service was out there and took full advantage.

KN: Does the size of the deal you’re working to close ever intimidate, or is it something that drives you?

MT: For me it’s never about the size of the deal. I treat a $5 million apartment with the same work ethic that I treat a $50 million home. For me it’s all about giving my clients, both buyers and sellers, the very best experience possible.

I love smashing records, like selling Sydney’s most expensive home in 2019, but those things don’t happen every day and if that’s what drives you, you won’t last long in real estate.

KN: What do you think gives Black Diamondz a competitive edge?

MT: On the surface, it’s our proven ability to achieve consistent, market-leading results over the past ten years, as well as our international database. But deeper than that is our standing within the community. I know almost everyone in Sydney, and I have nurtured these relationships over the years. This is the key to a successful real estate business — your network and influence.

KN: You’re a self-confessed workaholic, is that a necessary mindset to achieved success especially in the market you work?

MT: I think the entrepreneurial mindset I have is what has made me successful — not only in real estate but in life. I never stop working but I also don’t see it as work, it’s my life and it’s what I do day in, day out.

Blackdiamondz.com.au

A historic Barbados estate with a 300-year-old villa and 11 acres overlooking the Caribbean Sea is now for sale with a guide price of $22.5 million.

The seller is Kit Braden, chairman of the U.K. branch of French beauty empire L’Occitane Group, whose family has spent every winter for the last 13 years at the island property, known as Fustic Estate.

“It’s very much a family house,” Braden said. “We love having a lot of people there. It’s a collection point to keep everyone together.”

The main villa dates to 1712, though it’s been reimagined and expanded substantially over the years.

It spans 13,000 square feet and features seven en suite bedrooms across three wings, as well as expansive verandas, stone courtyards and rows of louvered doors in gay Caribbean pastels.

In the 1970s, when the home was owned by Charles Graves—brother of British poet Robert Graves—it was reimagined by stage designer Oliver Messel, one of the foremost theater designers of the last century. Messel expanded the home, added a lagoon pool with a natural waterfall and other theatrical features, according to Braden.

“The whole place is a little bit magical,” he said.

The home sits about 350 feet above the water, and surrounded by lush gardens that slope towards the water.

“We look down through our garden—which is about 12 acres of tropical gardens and palm trees and wonderful old mahogany trees—onto the Caribbean,” Braden said.

He and his wife first saw the property on New Year’s Eve 2013, during a quick trip from where they were staying in Grenada.

The couple spent an hour walking the perimeter, some of it still untouched jungle, in the pouring rain.

“By the time we got back, I had fallen in love with it,” Braden said.

His wife, however, wasn’t so sure. But in Braden’s telling, a second visit in sunnier weather with two of their children brought her around.

“She had to be talked into that it was a jolly good idea; now she absolutely loves it,” he said.

When they bought the property, the edge that runs along the waterfront was a jungle, so they cleared the ridge and transformed it into gardens.

They also bought an additional sea-level parcel with two beach cottages, giving the property direct access to the water and the town below via a five-minute walk.

The property also has a 15-person staff, a reflecting pond, an outdoor pavilion suitable for yoga and a commercial grade kitchen that can serve more than 100 guests, according to a brochure from Knight Frank, which posted the listing in March. They did not provide further comment.

For Braden, the property is special because of its natural beauty, its proximity to the town of Saint Lucy and its history—which dates way way back to when the island of Barbados was first formed via tectonic activity.

“It was basically tectonic plates that collided about a million years ago so the seabed is the top of the hill,” Braden said. “We’re on coral rock.”

As a result, Fustic Estate includes an extensive network of caves that were likely used by the Arawaks, a Venezuelan fishing tribe that followed the fish to these islands about a thousand years ago.

“If the fish were good they’d camp here,” Braden said. “There’s evidence that they stayed there in those caves, they lived there in good winters.”

Now it’s someone else’s turn to live on the land shared by Arawaks, the plantation owners of 1712, Charles Graves and the Braden brood.

INTERVIEW: MONIKA TU, Founder / Director Black Diamondz Group

Where her Chinese-focused business is headed given ongoing COVID constraints.

Kit Braden, an executive at French beauty empire L’Occitane, has spent every winter for the past 13 years at the stone vacation home.