From classroom to community: How Ryan Trama builds trust and triumphs in real estate
Ryan Trama understands the importance of building someone’s trust over time.
He did it for a decade as a primary school teacher working across Queensland, including his first posting in the indigenous community of Aurukun, on the Cape York Peninsula.
Today, Ryan ensures building trust is at the centre of everything he does as part of Ray White AKG, working out of the Daisy Hill office and covering the suburbs of Park Ridge, Park Ridge South, Munruben and Eagleby in Brisbane’s south.
“I’ve been able to move my skills from teaching across to real estate because it’s the same,” Ryan notes.
“It’s about building relationships with the community, with your clients (or students), keeping in touch with people and building that trust over time to get the best results in the end.”
Ryan says that early posting in Aurukun was one of the most rewarding times in his life, and while media coverage of indigenous communities often focus on the negatives, he got to see a host of positives.
None more so than with the children he taught.
“It doesn’t matter what a child does in life, they come to school with a backpack of different challenges,” Ryan says.
“I taught a lot of really smart kids, who were awesome individuals, but for them to succeed there’s a lot more challenges for them to overcome than what a more privileged student may face.
“But it just reaffirms the fact that people can get through any challenge with hard work and perseverance.”
Falling in love with real estate
While Ryan speaks of his students’ hard work and perseverance, they are traits he also possesses and which have served him well in his career change.
He says after numerous roles at several schools in Queensland, when the end of 2021 rolled around he found himself longing for change.
“I wasn’t feeling the love for it anymore,” Ryan says.
“It had become more of a job, as opposed to something I really enjoyed doing.
“I was looking for a new challenge somewhere where I could still use my skill set and apply it in a different industry.”
That industry turned out to be real estate.
And it was Ryan’s mother-in-law, Meagan Reed, who gave him his start in real estate at her agency, Meagan Reed Property, in Jimboomba.
“She’s a really high performer and well known in the area,” Ryan explains.
“I was with her full-time for about eight months. But for three months Avi Khan from Ray White AKG was trying to recruit me.”
Eventually Avi succeeded and Ryan had to have a tough conversation with his mother-in-law.
“I could just see that someone in Avi’s position could provide a lot more opportunity in terms of training, support and growth opportunities,” Ryan says.
“I wanted to be able to work at an office where there’s other high performers I can learn off, along with the training and support a larger agency can provide.
“It was a bit daunting having to have that conversation with my mother-in-law, but it was probably scarier having to have it with my partner.”
Flying solo
Despite his apprehension, Ryan says he received full support from both his wife and his mother-in-law.
In his first year in real estate, Ryan says he wrote about $460,000 GCI, and he doubled that to $900,000 GCI in his second year.
Now in his third year, he’s on track to top that again and has a team of three sales associates working alongside him.
Ryan says his rapid rise in real estate comes down to two things - learning on the run and not letting any opportunity slip through the cracks.
“I was learning on the run when I first started,” he says.
“I just went all in.
“The fact is, immediacy is our currency in real estate, so every opportunity I got when I first started, I treated it like I wasn’t going to get another one.
“If I got a lead, I’d call them within 10 seconds of getting that lead. I’d speak to them daily, until I was able to meet them in person and had the privilege of selling their house.
“I just treated every opportunity as though it might be my last one.”
Honesty - the best policy
Ryan says he combined this with clear and consistent communication and, even though he didn’t have a lot of sales under his belt yet, he was able to build rapport with people quickly.
He also focused on honest advice, a transparent approach and getting face-to-face with potential clients.
“I have lost listings because I’ve given a more accurate appraisal figure,” he notes.
“But what real estate comes down to, for me, is really clear, open, honest communication and on building rapport and a relationship with someone in a short amount of time.
“When I’m face-to-face with someone as opposed to dealing with someone over the phone, I win the listing 75 per cent of the time.”
Ryan’s core farm area features a mix of traditional residential homes, investor stock and acreage properties, which he has a real soft spot for selling.
“I am trying to get more into the acreage properties, because those properties mean so much to the people that have lived there for 20 and 25 years,” he says.
“I really value those opportunities because I’m dealing with someone’s lifelong dream and their biggest asset.”
A strategic approach
A recent acreage property Ryan sold at 308 Granger Rd, Park Ridge South, also presented him with one of the biggest challenges in his career so far.
After living at the property for 30 years, the vendors faced a tough sale as the local council had recently redrawn its flood maps and marked their property as high risk.
It meant Ryan had to rethink the sales strategy, opting to auction the property to avoid conditional sales that could face bank valuation issues.
The approach paid off, with the property selling under the hammer, giving the couple a timely exit as they moved in with family amid the husband’s ongoing cancer battle.
“The best kind of sale isn’t necessarily the ones that sell for a record price, although there’s plenty of those too,” Ryan says.
“It’s more so the ones where you’re selling something that means absolutely everything to people.”
Where to next
Ryan’s also passionate about giving back to the communities that he works in, sponsoring local primary and secondary schools and the local soccer club.
He says when he started in the area, few agents, if any, were sponsoring the community, but he immediately knew he wanted to be around for the long haul and giving back to the community just made sense.
“Real estate can be a bit of a selfish industry at time but I wanted to, for my own personal satisfaction and motivations, give back where I can,” Ryan explains.
Looking forward, Ryan says the goal is to build his team, build capacity in that team and reach Ray White Chairman’s Elite status.
“I’d love to get to that level and be recognised as one of the highest performers in the company,” he says.
“And I’d love to have the opportunity to instill how I got there to other people.”
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