I told myself I would only watch one episode of Amazon Prime Video’s new series Luxe Listings Sydney ahead of my interview with the cast. And then suddenly it was 11pm on a Monday night and I was up to episode 3, ignoring the fact I needed to go to bed. By Tuesday night, I had finished the series. So, if you’re an absolute fool for ginormous mansions you will probably never live in, Luxe Listings Sydney is your next delicious binge.
Luxe Listings introduces us to three very established real estate agents in Sydney. Their names are Gavin Rubinstein, D’Leanne Lewis, and Simon Cohen, and unlike the cast of Selling Sunset, these three won’t be accused of being actors.
A simple search on Google will tell you they’re the real deal, much like their show which, surprisingly, isn’t focused on the drama. It’s an authentic, albeit ridiculous look at a side of Sydney many of us have never seen.
PEDESTRIAN.TV spoke to the trio about being real estate agents in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, and yes that included the most rich people shit they’ve ever witnessed.
PEDESTRIAN.TV: There’ve obviously been a lot of comparisons to Selling Sunset, but what makes your show different?
Gavin Rubinstein: From a very young age I was a fan of Million Dollar Listings – the real estate focus gives you an insight into the market in LA and the Big Apple, versus Selling Selling – I never kind of got into it because it was drama-based. And I’m not about the drama at all, really.
So what makes our show different, first and foremost, is it’s in Sydney, Australia. All of these shows are shot in America, so there are similarities between them. There’s not been a real estate, reality-based show shot in Australia, let alone Sydney which is, in my opinion, the most beautiful place in the world. That’s point number one.
Point number two is – it’s kind of a mix of everything, while still being very property-focused. It delves into our personal trajectories and careers. And then finally, unlike those other shows, we each had a very established career before filming started last year. Nobody had really heard of the Selling Sunset guys.
So I think those are the three main differences that set Luxe Listings apart from the rest.
PTV: During your careers, what do you think is the most rich person shit you’ve ever seen.
Simon Cohen: [Laughs] I’ve had people buy $20 million houses without even looking at them. We bought a house last week for six million bucks over FaceTime. And it’s not unusual, because everyone you deal with is rich, so it’s all rich person shit, you know?
We buy private islands for people. That sort of stuff.
GR: If you’re looking for an aspect of the industry I don’t love – I don’t love time thieves. And there are a lot of them in the business. You know, for example, a buyer who wants to come through a house eight times privately, outside of the open times. They ask you to hold their dog for 30 minutes while they go inside. They want to ask for A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and then not even turn up to the auction and bid, you know what I mean? So I wouldn’t class that as rich person shit – you just learn a lot about people in this game.
PTV: So when you’re selling a house over FaceTime, or what have you, what’s the oddest thing a client has requested in a house?
D’Leanne Lewis: Oh, my God. They’ve been – I mean, I’m 30 years deep and the level of odd – you can’t even fathom. Sometimes you just have to put your hand up and just go, ‘No, I actually can’t do that.’ But there’s just been so many. And what it teaches you is to maintain a sense of humour. Because there’s some really crazy shit that happens, really.
I’ve had to go to people’s house –
SC: No, don’t tell. It’s Pedestrian, not Playboy.
DL: Yeah, I’m not going to tell. But you must retain your sense of humour. Because otherwise you will get caught up in a lot of the madness.
PTV: We see quite a bit of competition between agents in the show, how much of that is genuine?
DL: All of it. All day, every day. We compete against each other hard. There are hundreds of agents doing what we do every day, so we compete against each other as fiercely as we compete against everybody else. And that’s what makes us good at what we do. But we compete clean.
Play fair, win fair. That’s how we roll.
PTV: When you say clean, what does that mean?
GR: I’ll give you an example. When we could travel, pre-COVID – it was December, Christmas time, and this was going back maybe four or five years ago. I went to LA for a week and I put something up on my Instagram while I was there. And then a particular agent wrote handwritten cards to every one of my signboards that were still up saying, ‘Your agent’s overseas if you didn’t know. If I can help you with representation, let me know.’
Now here’s the thing, I tell my clients absolutely everything. So all it did was expose a particular individual who got on my shit list, and I have a long shit list.
So that’s one example, but let me tell you, there are multiple things that happen on a daily fricken’ basis.
DL: When I was pregnant – and Gavin knows the story – a lot of people were talking – calling my [home] owners and saying, ‘D’Leanne’s pregnant, she’s not gonna be able to work on your property because she’s not gonna be energetic – whatever.’ And that was a big problem for me because it happened not once, not twice, but multiple times.
They weren’t just attacking me, but my unborn child.
SC: I think it comes down to one thing: jealous people will do or say anything to try and undercut other people. And it’s the people who are not at the level you’re on that drop to such low standards.
GR: If you want more stories, call me anytime – I’ve got lists.
Luxe Listings Sydney is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video.
