Robyn Lau Adds a Personal Touch to Real Estate

The old adage, “any experience is good experience,” certainly rings true for realtor Robyn Lau. Her diverse work history has not only equipped her with skills that have contributed to her ability to cultivate strong connections with her clients, but it also opened her eyes to what she believes is the right way of doing business.  
 

Lau bought her first house, a $58,000 bungalow in Abbotsford, at age 18. It was 1986, and the former owners were fantastic gardeners but neglected the interior. 
 

Lau, however, was hooked. By the time she was 25, she had bought and sold seven houses. She learned a lot about the process of a real estate transaction. But throughout all of those sales, she never had a good relationship with a realtor. None of them followed up with her later or tried to maintain a relationship. “It gives you really good insight into what the industry is like,” she says, of her early experiences. “And that was my first impression of what real estate agents were.” 
  

While she was working full-time as a paralegal, first in a private law firm and then for the Attorney General’s office, she pursued a design degree at BCIT. Then in 2005 she took an opportunity to help start up a high-tech company. After five years that company was sold, and she began looking for a new direction. She felt herself drawn to real estate. “I really wanted to take all my experience and build a business based on cultivating relationships, just like a financial planner or a stock broker,” she says. “I was thinking, ‘How can I change that experience that I had, and create success for other people?’”
 

While working at a RE/MAX office in 2010, she met Trisha Firth, and they found they shared a like-minded approach to real estate. Firth had grown up in the business; her mother Bev was one of the top agents in Bob Rennie’s office, Rennie and Associates, from 1990 to 1997. Firth started working with her mother at Concord Pacific, and then worked for a number of developers before becoming an independent agent. She felt that Lau had a new and refreshing attitude towards real estate, and an inspiring way of helping all of her diverse clients achieve their needs. “I have found over the years that a lot of agents see this as a career, and they’re just looking for the next house to sell,” says Firth. “Robyn looks at this as a business, and she’s cultivating relationships to build the business.” 
 

They moved to a Coldwell Banker office and decided to become partners. They serve a wide variety of clients: buyers and sellers of small condos, single-family homes or multi-million-dollar luxury properties. They also work with developers through the entire process of a project, from property purchase and financing to handing over the keys to the condo buyer. “It makes you a really well-rounded realtor because you understand all of their needs from top to bottom,” says Lau. “In every transaction it’s always about, ‘How do we make sure that our clients get the best that they deserve.’” 
 

In the new fast-paced territory of real estate today, Lau and Firth are constantly learning and sharing their expertise. “We are big believers in creating an atmosphere of ‘pay it forward,’ not just for the client but for other agents as well,” says Firth. “We love to feel that we are working with others to grow and improve the industry. We love that we learn something new every day.”