Harcourt's half-billion dollar man

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A Hamilton real estate agent has set a company record, having sold $500 million worth of property.

Shaun Cosgrave, who is based at Harcourts Glenview office, set the record the highest total achieved by a sales consultant in the international real estate group's history.

Harcourts general manager Brian King said the achievement was made even more impressive by the types of property he sold.

"This is the first time in the history of Harcourts that this has happened and it happened in Hamilton which is a big thing, particularly given the median price of houses in the Hamilton suburbs Shaun has focused on for most of his career," Mr King said.

Mr Cosgrave beat more than 4000 real estate agents in nine countries to be the first to reach the milestone figure.

Mr Cosgrave, who has worked in real estate for 16 years, is no stranger to awards, and most recently was named Harcourts New Zealands' Top Rural Sales Consultant for 2008-2009.

Mr Cosgrave said he was proud of his latest achievement.

"I'm as passionate about real estate today as I was when I started in the industry," he said. "I love that every day is different and I gain a great deal of satisfaction from assisting my clients to achieve their real estate goals."

Mr Cosgrave did not know how many properties he had sold, but the number was in "the thousands".

Mr King said that at one time Mr Cosgrave was selling hundreds of properties a year.

"Shaun was making, on average, about 300 transactions a year, and that includes his listings which were sold by other agents as well as his own sales," Mr King said.

"It's a massive number and we hadn't seen those sorts of numbers before.

"A bulk of his sales were made when he was working in residential, which is where he worked for 14 years before moving to rural two years ago."

- © Fairfax NZ News