{"id":221562,"date":"2026-01-07T14:34:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T14:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/221562\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T14:34:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T14:34:18","slug":"how-reacher-and-defib-joined-forces-and-sold-100m-of-property-in-12-months-all-things-property-under-oneroof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/221562\/","title":{"rendered":"How ‘Reacher’ and ‘Defib’ joined forces and sold $100m of property in 12 months, All things property, under OneRoof"},"content":{"rendered":"

Patrick McAteer<\/a> and Suzanne Browne<\/a> have both had successful careers in real estate, but since becoming a couple and then deciding a little over a year ago to work together at New Zealand Sotheby\u2019s International Realty, business has really boomed. They\u2019ve sold nearly $100 million worth of properties in that time, including some of the most expensive homes in the blue-chip Auckland suburb of Herne Bay<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Q: What did you do before real estate? <\/p>\n

Patrick: A lot! I started in graphic art, then was told by a mentor \u2013 my father \u2013 that I was more likely to make money with my mouth open than shut. So I switched to sales. I was a wine sales rep, then I was in marketing and advertising. I ended up in management. I\u2019ve worked in music TV, I\u2019ve owned a restaurant, I was a helicopter guide in Wanaka. I\u2019ve always been drawn to things I\u2019m passionate about. Right before I got into real estate, I was making commercials and documentaries. <\/p>\n

Q: Why did you make the move to real estate? <\/p>\n

Patrick: Having a background in sales, I was looking for a role that would provide flexibility and allow me to work on my own terms, and I thought the real estate industry would do that. That was five years ago. <\/p>\n

It was a bit scary going into a commission-based job, but you\u2019ve got to back yourself. It\u2019s tough when you\u2019re starting out because you don\u2019t have any experience, but having been an executive producer, I had lots of systems and processes in place. In real estate, there are no shortcuts; you have to apply yourself. <\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

McAteer’s nickname is Reacher “because he has this ability to reach so many people”, while Browne\u2019s nickname is Defib, because “she can bring buyers back from the dead”. Photo \/ Fiona Goodall <\/p>\n

Q: Suzanne, how did you get started? <\/p>\n

Suzanne: I also started in sales, working in retail. When I was 20, I left New Zealand with a backpack and no plan. I just decided to go where the wind took me. I didn\u2019t have a tertiary education; I treated my overseas adventures as a kind of degree. I started in Los Angeles and went to San Diego, working when the America\u2019s Cup was there. I ended up going Florida to see if I could work on superyachts, thinking I\u2019d go straight into a job as a stewardess, but you needed a reference. So I did some terrible jobs. One of them was almost torture \u2013 I had to scrape barnacles off a dinghy in 35 degree heat. I got a really good reference from that. <\/p>\n

I got work on the yachts and that was great. You got a really good paycheck at the end of the month. I came back to New Zealand at 25 and I did a year of university but decided it wasn\u2019t for me. I got back into sales for a bit with a lighting company and someone said I should try real estate. I got my licence and a job in a little agency, and I door-knocked like there was no tomorrow. I had a lot of tenacity and grit from travelling overseas. <\/p>\n

Discover more:<\/p>\n

– Top dollar homes: Inside the biggest house sales of 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

– 10 things that can make a house harder to sell – floods, fire-bombings<\/a><\/p>\n

– NZ’s most stylish real estate agents: How they get their look<\/a><\/p>\n

But I was quite young still, and I thought, “This is actually a grown-up job. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019m ready for this.” So I got lured back into working on superyachts for another 18 months. When I came back, I went to work for Kellands, and I thought, “Yes, this is me.” I worked there for nine years. In that time, I got married and had children. I ended up on my own with my kids, and I think they have been my biggest achievement.<\/p>\n

Q: How did the two of you get together? <\/p>\n

Suzanne: It never should have happened really; it was a fluke. We were both in real estate, and our kids went to the same school, but we didn\u2019t know each other. Then one day I was looking at Facebook and I saw a friend request from Patrick – actually, one of those suggestions of people who could be a friend. I have to personally know everyone who is my friend on Facebook, so when I realised I didn\u2019t actually know him, I deleted it. <\/p>\n

But something played on my mind, and I thought maybe I had met him through real estate or our kids. So I reached out to him and said, \u201cDo we know each other? I\u2019ve just rejected you.\u201d I felt guilty. <\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

One of the two neighbouring Herne Bay villas that McAteer and Browne sold for a total of $26m. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

Patrick: I got this message from her about rejecting me that was a bit strange. I didn\u2019t request to be her friend. But we just started talking and joking. I was single, but I wasn\u2019t looking for a date. She asked me about a sale, and I couldn\u2019t talk about it – I was under an NDA – but I suggested we could catch up when I could talk about it. So we did … <\/p>\n

Suzanne: And the rest is history <\/p>\n

Q: Why did you decide to work together? <\/p>\n

Patrick: We were talking a lot about work and coming up with ideas and problem-solving for each other … <\/p>\n

Suzanne: And I said, \u201cCould you imagine what it would be like if we worked together? That would be incredible.\u201d It was a pretty tough year last year, and we were both doing OK, but it wasn\u2019t fabulous. We thought we could really complement each other. <\/p>\n

We do have our differences. Patrick likes working with other people – it\u2019s what he\u2019s done his whole life – whereas I have always been a lone wolf. <\/p>\n

Patrick: I like the connectivity with people and the community, getting to know people and helping them to navigate through getting their property sold. <\/p>\n

Suzanne: His nickname is Reacher, because he has this ability to reach so many people. He\u2019s great at making connections. <\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

The couple met by accident. “It never should have happened really,” says Browne. “We were both in real estate, and our kids went to the same school, but we didn\u2019t know each other.” Photo \/ Fiona Goodall <\/p>\n

Patrick: Suzanne\u2019s nickname is Defib, as in defibrillator. She can bring buyers back from the dead. They\u2019ll say, \u2018No, we\u2019re out\u2019, but she\u2019s got that tenacity that she got from scraping barnacles off a boat, and she\u2019ll keep them engaged and they\u2019ll end up coming to the auction. <\/p>\n

Suzanne: I love bringing a complicated sale together. There is nothing better than seeing a deal land and a vendor happy. Having happy clients makes me sleep really well at night. <\/p>\n

Q: Can it be tricky working and living together? <\/p>\n

Patrick: We don\u2019t always see eye-to-eye on everything, but if there\u2019s something we don\u2019t agree on, we work through it to find a smoother path. Sometimes seeing things differently is a good thing. <\/p>\n

Suzanne: I feel really lucky that we get to work together. This job can be really lonely on your own. <\/p>\n

Q: Why do you think you\u2019ve done so well? <\/p>\n

Suzanne: We work hard. In real estate, you have to put in the hours. We do a lot of hours. <\/p>\n

Patrick: We try not to let real estate take over our lives, but we deal a lot with international buyers, so that means making ourselves available at 11 o\u2019clock at night to take calls. But we genuinely love what we do, and I think our clients see that. <\/p>\n

Suzanne: We pride ourselves on integrity and doing the right thing. Having empathy is important, too. People buy and sell property for a lot of different reasons, and you have to understand that. We care about what people are going through. <\/p>\n

Patrick: Everything we do is based on a foundation of three pillars \u2013 communication, promotion and negotiation. We take a lot of pride in doing each of them really well, and working hard for the best possible outcome. <\/p>\n

Q: You deal with a lot of high-net-worth people. Do you have to do things differently when you are selling multi-million-dollar homes? <\/p>\n

Patrick: The upper end of the market does seem to gravitate towards us because of the area we work in, where there are some very high-end homes. We feel very fortunate to be selling a range of houses, and most of them are family homes, so it doesn\u2019t matter whether they are $2m or $20m, they are still the family home and important to people. Our processes and systems are still the same, and everybody gets treated the same, regardless of the price of their house. <\/p>\n

It would be easy to get swept away with the whole luxury side of what we do, but we stay pretty grounded. <\/p>\n

Q: What\u2019s the most expensive home you\u2019ve ever sold? <\/p>\n

Suzanne: We had two properties side-by-side that sold to the same buyer for $26m<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Q: What do you do when you are not selling real estate? <\/p>\n

Patrick: Being active is a big part of our lives, we go to the gym, we do a lot of walks and run together when we can. I like mountain biking. I go to Woodhill Forest when I can and I do a 50km race every year from Wanaka to Arrowtown. <\/p>\n

Suzanne: I\u2019m into Pilates and yoga, but most of my downtime at the moment is spent renovating an Airbnb I have bought in Cambridge. I\u2019ve got a real passion for renovating. <\/p>\n

We\u2019ve also got a bach in Whangamata, where we love to go with the family \u2013 we have four children between us. So we do work hard, but we do make sure we smell the roses. <\/p>\n

– Click here to find more properties for sale in Auckland<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patrick McAteer and Suzanne Browne have both had successful careers in real estate, but since becoming a couple…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,1258,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-221562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-latest-news","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}