Building momentum: Why four of Canberra’s top real estate agents walked away to start fresh
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When I sit down with the four founders of new Canberra real estate agency, Momentum Property, it’s clear that while the brand’s launch has looked beautifully resolved from the outside, it’s been a massive effort from the fledgling team.
“It’s been the longest two years of my life, the last 13 days,” Nick Paine laughs, shaking his head.
And yet, in those 13 frantic days since they revealed the new brand, Momentum has already climbed to second place on realestate.com.au’s Canberra rankings. Sixty signboards went up across the city in the first week. The response from industry peers has been, as Nick puts it, “overwhelmingly positive.” Not bad for a startup.
But this wasn’t about building an empire or slapping names on doors. Veteran operators Nick Paine, Anthony McCormack, and husband-wife team Tim and Justine Burke walked away from established offices to create something fundamentally different. The question is: why rock the boat?
The idea first surfaced over breakfast at Doubleshot in Deakin about two years ago – though the seed was actually planted eight years earlier in a training room when the group previously worked together.
“The timing wasn’t right,” Tim explains.
But this time, the stars aligned. They’d all arrived at the same point: ready to build something where they could make decisions aligned with their vision, without the constraints of existing structures.
“We weren’t in a position where we could just make the decisions we wanted to make,” he says. “We needed to go down a path that was…not doing the same thing all over again.”
And with the freedom to do things their way.
“You don’t have to reinvent the wheel out there,” Anthony says, “but I think internally there’s massive space in real estate businesses to change around how they operate with their staff.”
And that’s where their energy is going – into systems, structure, and support that actually works for their team. Getting the foundation right so it can grow properly.
Because real estate can be a brutal game.
“Every day you go for multiple job interviews,” Justine explains. “Every day you get rejected, whether that be with a buyer not pursuing a property or a seller choosing to work with another agent or agency.”
The houses people are selling, the properties they’re inspecting – there’s constant emotion, constant evaluation. You’re on call 24/7. Holidays get interrupted. Kids’ Saturday sport gets missed. Tim says never set an out-of-office reply, even when he’s overseas. Anthony says you have to take calls no matter when they come in – the agents who don’t simply don’t make it.
The paradox? The better you become at this job, the easier it looks to outsiders.
People think, “It can’t be that hard. I could do this,” says Nick.
But the reality involves hundreds of phone calls, emails, negotiations, and emotional labour.
“It’s not until you see it… that they go, oh wow.”
So why do it?
“You have to be very passionate about it,” Justine says firmly.
“You have to love what you’re doing, given the hours that go into making a successful career in real estate, and the nature of the industry.”
The job satisfaction when you successfully guide someone through what’s often the biggest financial decision of their life – that’s what keeps them going.
And that passion for doing it right is exactly what they’re building into Momentum’s DNA. The longevity in their teams tells the story.
“Real estate is a bit of a transient industry,” Justine notes, “but if we look at a lot of the people that we’ve brought across with us, they’re five, 10, 15 plus years with us and in the industry.”
Even better? Everyone came across with them in the move. Not a single person left. Some extras even joined. One staff member about to go on maternity leave was, as Justine laughs, “devastated – she’s like, I don’t want to go on leave anymore. I don’t want to miss all of this.”
The four also deliberately chose not to put their names on the door – unusual in an industry built on personal brands. They wanted Momentum to be about the collective, not four individuals. “Obviously, someone has to start the business, and that’s us,” says Justine. “But we are two offices, one big team.”
Those two offices – Gungahlin in the north, Weston in the south – reflect their deep Canberran roots. Nick grew up in Melba and Gungahlin, remembers when the town centre was just Woolies, Video Ezy and a dirt car park.
But the four aren’t interested in 55 offices around town or conquering other markets.
Momentum Property founders Nick Paine, Justine Burke, Anthony McCormack and Tim Burke.
“We didn’t have grand designs on let’s go elsewhere and conquer the world,” Tim says. “It’s always about being here.”
And Canberra being Canberra, those connections run deep.
“If you come up with five names you will have a connection with someone in some way,” Justine marvels. Their ties to the community – through sport, through schools, through years of selling in specific neighbourhoods – mean they’re known faces. Trusted faces.
When asked what makes a great agent, the words tumble out: patience, empathy, energy, professionalism. But Justine cuts to the heart of it: “Trust is one of the biggest things.” If that trust isn’t there, the relationship won’t work – and that’s okay. “We’re not all the agents for everyone.”
But when it clicks? “The ultimate compliment,” Justine says, is when clients say, “They’re MY agents.”
Getting there means being what Nick calls a chameleon. Some clients want military precision – just tell me what to do and when. Others want the full story, the 14-paragraph ad about their gardens and the vista. “You’ve got to be able to do all those things for people,” Nick says. It’s about listening to what each client actually needs, then delivering the service in a way that works for them.
Anthony sums up what he hopes people feel when they walk into a Momentum office: “Confidence.” Confidence that you’ll be treated well, that you’re dealing with someone trustworthy who’ll do the job properly.
Reflecting on the first 13 days, Tim says, “The reception has validated everything we hoped to build – people are already saying this is a well-put-together team.”
With over 50 people across both offices, and 1,250-odd properties under management, this isn’t a ground-zero startup. But it is a fresh start that sees them free to build something that puts people – their team, their clients, their community – genuinely first.
Only weeks in, and they’re already building momentum. And it doesn’t look like stopping any time soon.
Visit Momentum Property at momentumproperty.co or find them at their offices in Gungahlin and Weston.
