“We don’t have enough stock to satisfy clients waiting to purchase their escape out of the city.”
4 min
Deborah Cullen has worked her way through the real estate industry, from boutique agencies and corporate heavy-hitters, to selling Sydney’s finest homes.
However, through 2020’s pandemic, Cullen saw an opportunity to specialise her skillset, partnering with Richard Royle to open a boutique (and luxurious) agency with a renewed focus on rural estates and coastal escapes away from the capital cities.
We caught up to discuss the capital city exodus of COVID and how the second-home market continues to play out.
Kanebridge News: I guess we’ll start at the beginning of your property career – you were a Personal Trainer before, why property?
Deborah Cullen: Fitness and real estate are passions for me. Firstly, real estate – for me it was a love of renovating and styling that made me fall in love with properties. I used to go to inspections, view beautiful homes and get ideas for what current trends were for my own family and future homes.
Working as a fitness coach is all about communication and care, all easily transferrable skills into selling property I think.
KN: In 2020 you launched a new boutique agency – Cullen Royle – what was the catalyst there? What makes it different?
DC: After starting and heading up a prestige team within a large corporate business I saw the opportunity in a COVID affected market to provide a very personalised boutique service and one that focused on family and lifestyle properties rather than one that concentrated on volume and transactions. I
Working together with my business partner Richard Royle, who also came from large corporate background in rural and agribusiness, our work is based on personal referrals and repeat business. We have seen an incredible amount of business come our way since starting Cullen Royle and we feel very honoured and blessed to look after our clients most important and valuable property assets.
KN: How is it different selling a rural estate to a waterfront Sydney mansion?
DC: They both can be emotional purchases. Country lifestyle estates are usually driven by family desires to getaway and be together. Waterfront homes are wonderful estates to represent as we see a huge response from our expat database – but they also usually include the added check list of requirements such as best schools, transport, shopping, entertainment etc. So, it needs to work on many more levels to be a perfect fit.
KN: What about your personal preference, rural or coastal?
DC: That is a tough one but luckily I get to spend time at both for my clients. It is very common for our clients to have a city base, country estate and beach house. I really enjoy the coast myself, but I have to say, wintertime in the country with the fireplaces lit and the glass of red is very hard to beat.
KN: How noticeable was the shift away from the cities to regional pockets of Australia?
DC: It was and still is an amazing shift that gained momentum very quickly. Country and coastal homes were always popular but then when the COVID experience hit us, the desire to be away in nature and fresh air everyday escalated to a new level. It is still there, we don’t have enough stock to satisfy clients waiting to purchase their escape out of the city.”
KN: Are prestige buyers still looking to move out of the cities permanently, or is the market returning to those looking for a 2nd home? What’s the split like?
DC: It is very definitely still a split lifestyle between a city base and lifestyle retreat. What we have seen is the city base become the smaller home and the coastal or country home be a larger investment. Those who are moving permanently are doing so to be with family or making it a definite business relocation. Most of our clients want the flexibility to still stay in the city when needed so have a foot in both camps.
KN: What regional areas do you think are growing with popularity now, and which do you see as having potential over the next few years?
DC: We have seen areas come back to life again that are still an easy drive to big cities. In particular the Hunter Region is now a strong lifestyle draw and has the inclusion of tourism and entertainment on its doorstep. The other area is the South Coast of Sydney, the Blue Mountains and Mudgee regions which continues to draw those from the city out. There is a tremendous amount of luxury stays and farm getaways in these areas that are making people consider these regions as options.
KN: What of the prestige property market as a whole – is it to continue to be as safe and as in demand as ever?
DC: The resilience of the Sydney prestige market in particular has shown continually to be a sound investment. It really comes down to the amount of quality properties being available in blue ribbon areas. Sydneysiders are driven by the desire to be near the harbour and beaches plus have a stunning country retreat. These quality estates will always attract a discerning audience to assess. We see this continuing for the foreseeable future for sure.
KN: What do you make of the trend of downsizers or rightsizers? Do you think that will continue to grow and perhaps lessen the appeal of a sprawling country estate or coastal home in the future?
DC: Rightsizing is all about finding the right home for a particular time in your life. At the moment, we are seeing an abundance of clients purchasing estates to have the opportunity to share and gather for celebrations and to create precious memories. I don’t think that will change for a while with COVID still being an influence in our lives.
In 2021, luxury estate purchases are now about the experience shared together as a family and the options of where they can do this? Well, that, can be anywhere now. So let us at Cullen Royle do the hunting and find it for you.
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Georgetown agent Jamie Peva blends history and real estate on Instagram, turning local stories into a powerful sales strategy.
5 min
On a recent morning in Georgetown—Washington, D.C.’s oldest neighborhood—real-estate agent Jamie Peva strode down leafy N Street, brimming with historical tidbits.
Jackie Kennedy once lived on the street, he said. So did Ben Bradlee, former executive editor of the Washington Post, along with a former Miss America and a powerful U.S. Senator. Bradlee’s widow, author Sally Quinn, and Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, own stately homes there.
“I’ve seen a picture of Lyndon Johnson coming out of this house,” said Peva, passing a Federal-style brick mansion. “Also, the Beatles went to a lawn party here.”
Peva, a 60-year-old agent with Washington Fine Properties, has sold Georgetown real estate for over three decades, often traversing the neighborhood by bicycle. Of the roughly 2,500 houses in the historic neighborhood, he has been involved in the sale of 460, he estimated. A self-styled historian of the neighborhood, he knows stories behind its houses and their owners going back generations.
With a knack for lively storytelling, he shares his knowledge with some 37,500 Instagram followers, who have made Peva—sporting the bow ties he has worn since boarding school—an unlikely social-media influencer. Many of his followers are locals, and most have no plans to buy or sell real estate—until they do. It is then, according to Peva, that his spirited reels bring him to mind.
“It’s the digital version of a refrigerator magnet,” he said.
After Peva’s first video in November 2023, his eponymous Instagram account sparked a 10% increase in sales volume in the first year, and another 20% the next, he estimated. “It’s been very good for business, there is no question about it,” he said.
But Peva’s posts have also made him a local celebrity. As he walked down N street, the driver of a Mercedes station wagon slowed down to honk and wave. A lady walking a large dark gray dog stopped to ask what he was filming that day (a reel about a Colonial-era bottling plant.) Peva knew the dog from walking his two springers, Jumpy and Peggy-O, in the neighborhood.
“I need to make a video about the pooches of Georgetown,” he mused.
A growing number of real-estate agents now use social media to sell, and some have millions of followers with reels featuring ultraluxury pads, selling tips or reality TV-style reports on their daily lives. While Peva posts about his listings—and sometimes those of other agents—he mostly focuses on Georgetown history, local businesses and community events, saying his goal is to benefit both his business and the neighborhood.
“If we don’t find something genuinely interesting and worth sharing, we won’t do it,” said Peva’s daughter, Violet Peva, a New York social-media strategist who films, edits and posts his reels. “We cover many topics, not just real-estate information.”
Peva is originally from Connecticut, but has lived in Georgetown for over 30 years, currently in a cottage-style house with a white picket fence. Over the years, Georgetown has changed. The Georgetown Set, a powerful group of Cold War-era residents whose Sunday-night potluck dinners are said to have swayed U.S. policy, has long faded away. The community is still home to high-profile Washingtonians, including a Republican senator and several cabinet members. But it increasingly also attracts technology and finance executives, according to Peva. He now routinely signs nondisclosure agreements, ensuring privacy for wealthy clients. The shift has made him rethink his marketing approach.
“For years, a big part of our Georgetown business was made up of people who maintained a low profile,” he said. Real-estate agents were similarly low-key. Today, curb appeal is more important, he said, and agents are promoting themselves more. “As this change was underfoot, I was thinking that I needed to evolve myself too,” he said.
Though his own social-media use is mostly limited to following sailing accounts, he asked his daughter to help him post his listings online. Violet, now 26, started coming to D.C. once a month to film his reels. After an early video, on a condominium building called the Elliott, her sister Fern called her to report: “Daddy’s blowing up on Instagram,” Violet recalled. The reel got over 50,000 views. The next two each drew over 300,000. Peva’s most popular post ever, with over 838,000 views, was about the Grateful Dead playing in Georgetown. Sometimes, Peva interviews Georgetowners such as Quinn, the author, or Jamie Stachowski, the owner of a local butcher shop.
Peva, who majored in history in college, now spends up to two hours a day on research, usually in the morning while on his stationery bike. Online, he pores over old newspapers or the Library of Congress website, and he has a collection of articles and books—in and out of print—about Georgetown.
Companies often approach Peva for promotional posts, he said, but he turns them down, feeling that followers would lose interest in constant commercials. One exception is a recent paid post on Mount Vernon, the former home of George Washington. Peva wanted to share its history, he said, and didn’t want to lose the opportunity to another Instagrammer.
Anthony Arend, a professor at Georgetown University, has lived in his current home for 19 years without any plans to sell or buy real estate. But he follows Peva and often likes his posts.
“He is very charismatic, he is energetic, and he obviously knows a lot about the community,” said Arend, who has referred house-hunting friends to Peva.
One of Peva’s biggest deals—the $10.5 million sale of a 19th-century Italianate mansion—came after he made two 2024 reels featuring the property. In March, he sold the longtime O Street home of Tim and Jane Matz for $5.8 million after featuring it on his Instagram. Peva had showed them the home 25 years earlier, with Violet in a baby carrier on his back.
Last year, Kate Watts, 49, a digital consultant, called Peva to sell her late father’s three-bedroom house on Q Street; her husband had seen Peva on Instagram. In an October reel, Peva praised the architecture of the house, designed by modernist Hugh Newell Jacobsen. Halfway through, he mentioned an open house the next day, ending with an upbeat: “Did I also mention this house is for sale? $3.75 million!” The reel got 27,000 views, the open house was packed, and the buyers made an offer at the list price on the same day.
